Contemporary Indian Cinema: A Production of Popular Culture
On July, 1896 the Lumiere
Brothers made the first screening in Bombay at the Watson hotel. The next
major step in Indian cinema was followed by the film Raja Harishchandra produced by Dhundiraj Govind Phalke on 3rd May,
1913. It was Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra
which laid the foundation for the future of Indian cinema. Later with the implementation
of studio system notably the Bombay
Talkies, New Theatres in Calcutta
and Prabhat Company at Pune in the
1930s, it paved the way for Indian cinema to flourish. More than eight hundred
films are produced every year according to recent sources. Today Indian cinema
is one of the most well-known and distinctive attribute of contemporary Indian
culture.
With the
rise of urbanisation and transformation of economy there is a shift in the
lifestyles and tastes of the people. There is a big gulf between the cinema of
today and the cinema of twenty years back. Asha Kasbekar in her book Pop Culture India!: Media, Arts, and
Lifestyle gives a clear picture of the rise of middle class after
independence as a result of the massive development in the system of economy.
Indian cinema also called the
“mainstream cinema” rarely depicts the real picture of India. For example,
Poverty which is rampant in India is hardly shown. With the upper middle
classes as the main consumers, directors and producers’ target are the upper
middle classes. And films are made based on how much revenue will be generated.
Profit is the main motive and directors and producers of today are not really
concerned about the overall meaning or value of the films. Cinema of today has
turned into part of a lucrative business. Actors and actresses give more
emphasis on money and their overall popularities among the viewers rather than
looking at the actual script of the film. Films are produced through careful
calculations bearing in mind the main consumers who have the resources to pay
and watch the films. As Asha Kasbekar in her book Pop Culture India!: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle rightly explains,
there is a divide between the rich middle classes who are the main consumers
and the rural poor and therefore “the
bifurcation of popular cinema:”
Kareena Kapoor and Kajol in Kabhie Khushie Kabhie Gham.
"And it is the growing divide between the urban middle classes, with their increased disposable incomes and consumerist lifestyles and the rural poor that has led to the bifurcation of popular cinema. On the one hand are exclusively urban films largely about cool, hip youngsters pursuing (like their viewers) consumerist lifestyles. On the other hand are classic family melodramas that straddle both the rural and the urban viewing populations. The latter feature bombastic rhetoric and operatic emotions about such subjects as twin brothers separated at birth, ailing brothers, and blind fathers.”
Indian commercial cinema is the hallmark of today’s popular culture. It is also a reflection of what of popular culture is all about. Commercial cinema consists of complicated plot and excessive length compared to other realistic films. Popular Indian cinema is filled with fantasy, lavish production, wealth, gender, caste class and excessive emotions and full emphasis on who the star is. Tejaswini Ganti has a point when she talked about popular Indian cinema in her book Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema. She says: “The three main elements of Indianisation are adding emotions, expanding the narrative and inserting songs.” All these characteristics are pivotal to appeal the intended audiences.
As is the trend with popular culture, viewers love the idea of being transported to an exotic place; songs and dances with colourful costumes; clear demarcation of the hero and the villain; the love story between the hero and the heroine; clashes in their relationships and finally a happy ending. Directors and producers therefore cleverly use exotic locations or any other fanciful places without actually having any relation to the plot of the films. Songs and dances with colourful costumes are also part of popular Indian cinema.
Changing clothes is a common factor in all bollywood films
With love story as the focal part of the film, the concept of gender, unfulfilled desire between the hero and the heroine also bring to the discussion the problems of the gaze. Cinema offers multiple aspects of pleasures. Scopophilia which derives pleasure from looking at something erotic or voyeurism is one aspect. The curiosity and the desire to look at the erotic objects are huge and directors and producers fulfil that by using female actresses as an object of sexual stimulations
Women are flaunted with their images only for vigorous visual and erotic effect. Almost in every song scantily clad women are presented dancing to the tune of the song regardless of whether it has any relation to the film. It shows how sexism is rampant in popular Indian cinema. And it is the younger generations who are heavily influenced by popular Indian cinema. However, it should be remembered that viewers of today love this trend of cinema.
Esha Deol: Objectification of women is nothing new
The film Dhoom1 (2004) directed by Sanjay Gadhvi and produced by Aditya Chopra, generated a huge commercial success. However, if we look the two actresses Sheena (played by Esha Deol) and Sweety Dixit (played by Rimi Sen), they are used as items with no pivotal roles in the film. They serve more as an object for the male audience. The film is total fantasy with the two ladies rooting for ACP Jai Dixit (played by Abhishek Bachchan) and Ali Akbar Fateh Khan (played by Uday Chopra).
Dhoom I
Cinema changes itself with the changing condition. With commercialism as the key factor, popular Indian cinema has tuned in to the demands of popular culture. Directors and producers are only interested in the potential source of revenue with the actual value or meaning of the film given little or no importance. The point of whether films have any societal value are not much of a relevance to film makers and producers. Theodor Adorno in The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture argues that “The commercial character of culture causes the difference between culture and practical life to disappear.”[4] Capitalism caters to the need of the people with products of culture industry devoid of true art. It can also be seen as art which is reduced to a product. Adorno’s pressing concern is also because of the passive societal response against the culture industry.
To further substantiate the argument, it is crucial to look at the film Kabhie Khushi Kabhi Gham released in 2011. Directed by Karan Johar and produced by Yash Johar, the film gained a huge commercial success. About the film Karan Johar was quoted saying “It’s all about loving your parents.” But as is the usual trend with commercial Indian cinema, the film overdoes what it’s supposed to do. It is filled with moments of joy, sadness and constant shedding of tears. The running time is two hundred and eleven minutes long, a typical commercial Indian cinema with songs and dances which seem to overshadow the actual of theme of “… all about loving your parents.”
Karan Johar's reaction when asked about his film Kabhie Khushie Kabhie Gham
The film is about an enormously rich man Yashovardhan Raichand (played by Amitabh Bachchan) and his wife Nandini (played by Jaya Bachchan). With collisions of ideologies, it also deals with the pain and trauma of Rahul (played by Shah Rukh Khan) on being an adopted son. What follows is the separation of Rahul from his adopted parents and the journey to London along with Anjali (played by Kajol).
This poor man couldn't really understand what he was seeing
The film however is filled with over exaggerations and melodramatic scenes which affect the behaviour of film viewers. And in today’s popular culture, what makes the Box Office successful is the elements of larger than life pictures, laughter, sadness all exaggerated excessively. The emotions seem to be all made up with complete lack of realism.
Cry Cry Cry Cry Cry........
As is the common phenomena with popular Indian cinema, songs and dances are pivotal parts of the Indian cinema. And this is where Indian cinema is seen as shying away from the values of realism. The songs barely have meanings. Songs and dances in Indian cinema are a big led down. It foreshadows the aesthetic value and reality of Indian cinema. Directors and producers spend huge amount of money shooting songs in exotic locations. For example the song Suraj Huah Madham from the film Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001) the viewers are suddenly transported from India to the Great Pyramids in Egypt as Rahul confesses his love to Anjali.
This happens when you dance on a hot dusty day somewhere around the Pyramid.
Just in a span of one song (07:09 minutes) locations such as the deserts, the Pyramid, and the river alongside the desert are used; and suddenly carried back home and again to the Great Pyramid. The number of clothes used are also simply astonishing. But with the viewers deeply lost with the film very few tend to realise how ridiculous and unrealistic it is. It is also noteworthy that art is a powerful tool which sadly in India it no longer seems to be. It is more about money making machine.
If we compare the song Suraj Huah Madham (Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham) with song Yeh Dosti from Sholay (1975), it gives us a clear picture of how aesthetic value or meaning is conveyed. The films is directed by Ramesh Sippy and produced by G. P. Sippy. The song Yeh Dosti conveys the deep friendship between Veeru (played by Dharmendra) and Jai (played by Amitabh Bachchan).
The song appears again in the ending part of the film as Veeru kneels down beside his death friend Jai singing “Yeh dosti hum nahin todenge Todenge dum magar tera saath na chhodenge” with tears in his eyes. It conveys the message of a true friendship. In an interview, Ram Gopal Verma a film director and producer though not a very popular figure rightly said that “Songs will work when they are an integral to a film.”
The economic liberalisation led to a rise of urban members of the
middle class with the increasing amounts of disposable incomes. Advertising
companies eager to entice the public into a consumerist lifestyle relentlessly
drove the spread of a new popular culture through increased advertising budget…
"And it is the growing divide between the urban middle classes, with their increased disposable incomes and consumerist lifestyles and the rural poor that has led to the bifurcation of popular cinema. On the one hand are exclusively urban films largely about cool, hip youngsters pursuing (like their viewers) consumerist lifestyles. On the other hand are classic family melodramas that straddle both the rural and the urban viewing populations. The latter feature bombastic rhetoric and operatic emotions about such subjects as twin brothers separated at birth, ailing brothers, and blind fathers.”
Indian commercial cinema is the hallmark of today’s popular culture. It is also a reflection of what of popular culture is all about. Commercial cinema consists of complicated plot and excessive length compared to other realistic films. Popular Indian cinema is filled with fantasy, lavish production, wealth, gender, caste class and excessive emotions and full emphasis on who the star is. Tejaswini Ganti has a point when she talked about popular Indian cinema in her book Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema. She says: “The three main elements of Indianisation are adding emotions, expanding the narrative and inserting songs.” All these characteristics are pivotal to appeal the intended audiences.
As is the trend with popular culture, viewers love the idea of being transported to an exotic place; songs and dances with colourful costumes; clear demarcation of the hero and the villain; the love story between the hero and the heroine; clashes in their relationships and finally a happy ending. Directors and producers therefore cleverly use exotic locations or any other fanciful places without actually having any relation to the plot of the films. Songs and dances with colourful costumes are also part of popular Indian cinema.
With love story as the focal part of the film, the concept of gender, unfulfilled desire between the hero and the heroine also bring to the discussion the problems of the gaze. Cinema offers multiple aspects of pleasures. Scopophilia which derives pleasure from looking at something erotic or voyeurism is one aspect. The curiosity and the desire to look at the erotic objects are huge and directors and producers fulfil that by using female actresses as an object of sexual stimulations
Women are flaunted with their images only for vigorous visual and erotic effect. Almost in every song scantily clad women are presented dancing to the tune of the song regardless of whether it has any relation to the film. It shows how sexism is rampant in popular Indian cinema. And it is the younger generations who are heavily influenced by popular Indian cinema. However, it should be remembered that viewers of today love this trend of cinema.
The film Dhoom1 (2004) directed by Sanjay Gadhvi and produced by Aditya Chopra, generated a huge commercial success. However, if we look the two actresses Sheena (played by Esha Deol) and Sweety Dixit (played by Rimi Sen), they are used as items with no pivotal roles in the film. They serve more as an object for the male audience. The film is total fantasy with the two ladies rooting for ACP Jai Dixit (played by Abhishek Bachchan) and Ali Akbar Fateh Khan (played by Uday Chopra).
Cinema changes itself with the changing condition. With commercialism as the key factor, popular Indian cinema has tuned in to the demands of popular culture. Directors and producers are only interested in the potential source of revenue with the actual value or meaning of the film given little or no importance. The point of whether films have any societal value are not much of a relevance to film makers and producers. Theodor Adorno in The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture argues that “The commercial character of culture causes the difference between culture and practical life to disappear.”[4] Capitalism caters to the need of the people with products of culture industry devoid of true art. It can also be seen as art which is reduced to a product. Adorno’s pressing concern is also because of the passive societal response against the culture industry.
To further substantiate the argument, it is crucial to look at the film Kabhie Khushi Kabhi Gham released in 2011. Directed by Karan Johar and produced by Yash Johar, the film gained a huge commercial success. About the film Karan Johar was quoted saying “It’s all about loving your parents.” But as is the usual trend with commercial Indian cinema, the film overdoes what it’s supposed to do. It is filled with moments of joy, sadness and constant shedding of tears. The running time is two hundred and eleven minutes long, a typical commercial Indian cinema with songs and dances which seem to overshadow the actual of theme of “… all about loving your parents.”
The film is about an enormously rich man Yashovardhan Raichand (played by Amitabh Bachchan) and his wife Nandini (played by Jaya Bachchan). With collisions of ideologies, it also deals with the pain and trauma of Rahul (played by Shah Rukh Khan) on being an adopted son. What follows is the separation of Rahul from his adopted parents and the journey to London along with Anjali (played by Kajol).
The film however is filled with over exaggerations and melodramatic scenes which affect the behaviour of film viewers. And in today’s popular culture, what makes the Box Office successful is the elements of larger than life pictures, laughter, sadness all exaggerated excessively. The emotions seem to be all made up with complete lack of realism.
As is the common phenomena with popular Indian cinema, songs and dances are pivotal parts of the Indian cinema. And this is where Indian cinema is seen as shying away from the values of realism. The songs barely have meanings. Songs and dances in Indian cinema are a big led down. It foreshadows the aesthetic value and reality of Indian cinema. Directors and producers spend huge amount of money shooting songs in exotic locations. For example the song Suraj Huah Madham from the film Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001) the viewers are suddenly transported from India to the Great Pyramids in Egypt as Rahul confesses his love to Anjali.
Just in a span of one song (07:09 minutes) locations such as the deserts, the Pyramid, and the river alongside the desert are used; and suddenly carried back home and again to the Great Pyramid. The number of clothes used are also simply astonishing. But with the viewers deeply lost with the film very few tend to realise how ridiculous and unrealistic it is. It is also noteworthy that art is a powerful tool which sadly in India it no longer seems to be. It is more about money making machine.
If we compare the song Suraj Huah Madham (Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham) with song Yeh Dosti from Sholay (1975), it gives us a clear picture of how aesthetic value or meaning is conveyed. The films is directed by Ramesh Sippy and produced by G. P. Sippy. The song Yeh Dosti conveys the deep friendship between Veeru (played by Dharmendra) and Jai (played by Amitabh Bachchan).
The song appears again in the ending part of the film as Veeru kneels down beside his death friend Jai singing “Yeh dosti hum nahin todenge Todenge dum magar tera saath na chhodenge” with tears in his eyes. It conveys the message of a true friendship. In an interview, Ram Gopal Verma a film director and producer though not a very popular figure rightly said that “Songs will work when they are an integral to a film.”
With the inclusion of many songs in popular Indian cinema,
the length of the films are really long. Film critic Film critic Kobita Sarkar
has commented:
"The most irritating aspect of the song in the Hindi film is its sheer irrelevance. Many of them can be deleted entirely without in any way affecting the film’s content, and many of them suppressed would do much to improve the general quality of the film. In an avowed musical Baiju Bawra type, it is a different matter- for it is part of the film. But the interminable singing in films of a totally different nature it is rarely justified. It merely slows up the action and confuses the major issues at stake. The mounting tension of a drama suddenly collapses it and it holds up the story. In the middle of what should be an exciting chase, it is an inanity. These sort of things account for the illogical and shapeless nature of an otherwise good Hindi film."
"The most irritating aspect of the song in the Hindi film is its sheer irrelevance. Many of them can be deleted entirely without in any way affecting the film’s content, and many of them suppressed would do much to improve the general quality of the film. In an avowed musical Baiju Bawra type, it is a different matter- for it is part of the film. But the interminable singing in films of a totally different nature it is rarely justified. It merely slows up the action and confuses the major issues at stake. The mounting tension of a drama suddenly collapses it and it holds up the story. In the middle of what should be an exciting chase, it is an inanity. These sort of things account for the illogical and shapeless nature of an otherwise good Hindi film."
The
commercial force behind the use of songs and dances in the popular Indian
cinema is powerful. For instance, in the song Suraj Huah Madhan (Kabhie
Khushi Kabhie Gham) the number of times Rahul and Anjali changing their
clothes is astonishingly ten times. However this is a source of attraction to
the contemporary viewing audience of India. As is mentioned in the book Pop Culture India!: Media, Arts, and
Lifestyle by Asha Kasbekar:
"Hindi film songs still constitute 61 percent of all music sold by the music companies… Of the Hindi film music consumed, 45 percent of all sales are for songs from new films and about 21 percent for old film songs."
"Hindi film songs still constitute 61 percent of all music sold by the music companies… Of the Hindi film music consumed, 45 percent of all sales are for songs from new films and about 21 percent for old film songs."
The songs
and dances are of great appeal to the young generation. The lavish lifestyles
of the hero and the heroine; use of expensive clothes, cars and luxurious
buildings are also what appeals the viewers. Rachel Dwyer in her book Bollywood's India: Hindi Cinema as a Guide
to Contemporary India gives an accurate description of the main consumers
of popular Indian cinema: “The major
market for entertainment is the young, and India has a huge youthful
population. … They are one of the major groups consuming media.” In songs and dances detailed codes of
eroticism are also projected, which, allow the intended audiences to achieve
transgressive pleasures.
Another
example of popular Indian film culture in India is Ra One (2011), the most expensive film in India directed by Anubhav
Sinha and produced by Gauri Khan. The film is vulgar with no disjointed scenes
and lack of coherence. Despite bad ratings by film critics the film achieved a
huge success in generation of revenue. According to Boxofficeindia.Com Trade Network, the single-day net revenue set
by Ra One 52.93 crore the highest in
Hindi film industry.
Please let her fall down (sorry just kidding)
It is also
noteworthy that roping in of international singer like Akon to be a play back
singer and turning the film into a video game again reiterate the massive role
commercialism play in the popular Indian cinema. Directors and producers know
exactly that “the monetary success of a
film is directly linked not only to the stars’ employed, but also to the
popularity of its song.”
Aha
The major target is the young generation who are considered as the main consumers. Thorstein Veblen in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, talks about the rich classes who have the means of production and thereby engage themselves in the unproductive practices of leisure and consumption. The intended audiences of the popular Indian cinema can be considered as belonging to this category. They are brainwashed and totally influenced by these mundane activities like popular Indian films with no realistic message and video games which are useless and serve no actual purpose.
Brace yourself! Here comes the Don.
The viewers of today want a super hero; someone who can bear the shot of a bullet and knock down dozens of men all by himself or someone who can jump from the top of the building to save the damsel in distress. And that’s exactly what Salman Khan the most popular figure of Indian cinema has been doing year after year. Almost all his films are all about knocking down the villains and saving his heroine. Cinema of today exists only to make money and the success of any films are calculated only in terms of how much money is made from the films. And so long as the contemporary viewers keep embracing this meaningless art of cinema, directors and producers will only be too happy to keep producing
it.
The major target is the young generation who are considered as the main consumers. Thorstein Veblen in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, talks about the rich classes who have the means of production and thereby engage themselves in the unproductive practices of leisure and consumption. The intended audiences of the popular Indian cinema can be considered as belonging to this category. They are brainwashed and totally influenced by these mundane activities like popular Indian films with no realistic message and video games which are useless and serve no actual purpose.
The viewers of today want a super hero; someone who can bear the shot of a bullet and knock down dozens of men all by himself or someone who can jump from the top of the building to save the damsel in distress. And that’s exactly what Salman Khan the most popular figure of Indian cinema has been doing year after year. Almost all his films are all about knocking down the villains and saving his heroine. Cinema of today exists only to make money and the success of any films are calculated only in terms of how much money is made from the films. And so long as the contemporary viewers keep embracing this meaningless art of cinema, directors and producers will only be too happy to keep producing
it.
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