Posts
Vinnaithandi Varuvaya, a film by Gautham Vasudev Menon, is being hailed as a work of "class" in The Hindu by an ostensibly reputed reviewer. Karan Johar's My Name is Khan received 5 out of 5 stars in the Times of India.
What stands out is that both are mediocre films but have been released in an ocean of trash, making the ordinary seem exaggeratedly noteworthy. Thankfully, some of us have reference points that are wider than the collection of movies infesting our A city theatres at this given time, we are exposed to better fare than the reviewers that reputed newspapers seem to be able to get these days, and we can continue to have our honest opinions about mediocrity that comes packed in glitz - from pictures to pizza, literature to music. We don't have to be fooled. But "we" are in the minority and getting smaller.
This is the age of the salesperson, the consummate professional who can lie through her teeth, in complete ignorance or in complete shamelessness, and make it sound like a million bucks. There is a whole generation of consumers out there who can't tell the difference, and even worse, don't want to make the effort to see the difference. All they know is trash. But they can tell glitzy trash from dull trash. The marketing machine is here to add glitz to anything we want to sell, so if you can afford the glitz, you can produce trash and absolutely hope to get away with it.
An extended vaccuum in quality can actually lower standards, push down expectations, and finally result in a worse quality of life. Reviewers can be bought by the dozen today, a few crores of money spent in bending opinions doesn't seem to be money badly spent. Every advantage is to be had commercially by dumbing us down, homogenizing our viewpoints, and reducing the average level of knowledge and questioning of what we see, hear and are willing to be sold. The number one sellable after sex is "Freedom"! As soon as we're ready to measure our freedom in what we can afford to buy, we are suckers by the million. And we're being had royally.
Look at the number of times AR Rahman has done something ostensibly "patriotic" and it is easy to see why some wise men have opined that patriotism is the refuge of scoundrels. Even a lousily rendered "Vande Mataram" cannot be questioned for quality, because it is about something that is supposedly above reproach - his patriotism! Holy cow, YOUR patriotism! It is just like our inability to tell a lousy singer in a temple to stop torturing our devotion with the snarling effort of religious hysteria. We don't have a smoking chance against the power of stupidity, noise, and overwhelming ignorance. Patriotism takes advantage of all of these. All reason can be drowned by anything patriotic, especially if it sounds like an iceberg humping a mountain full of tin boxes.
India is headed towards a quality oblivion, quite simply because we are becoming a culture of reducing effort. We want to strive less, ignore more and be blissfully happy. The traps are all here - we truly belong in our own illusion of a great country when we obey, and only when we obey the machine that tells us so. After all, when all of your friends tell you My Name is Khan is a great movie, isn't it just cool to go along? Maybe they are right! Of course, this line of thinking is easy when you know only as much as they do, and all of you collectively know very little anyway. Our mob mentality is geared perfectly for dumbing down. Win over a part of the mob, and the whole mob will be yours! This is how the British took over the whole country! In any case, we're proud to belong to the Indian mob waving the same flag that some other rather original people held aloft not that long ago.
Access to information has not translated to access to knowledge as far as India is concerned. Our youngsters live in a deluge of information, dished out by other youngsters working for mindless media outlets that man the stations sending out SMS messages, advertisements, promotions, and a whole host of hideous, tasteless, unchallenged overtures of nonsense, juvenile sexuality, and sheer lies. We are also sold this constant message that India is on the "march forward" and our young clowns need only hear that they are as good as any in the world! It is a turnout of gargantuan amounts of ignorance.
We have the USA to look up to, for any reference we need on the level of dumbing down we are happy to subscribe to. If something is good enough for the Americans, we're okay with reaching anywhere near that. Why else would Vinnaithandi Varuvaya have whites and blacks dancing together behind our hero? This is our director not wanting to be politically inferior to any American film maker, as if anybody would notice this fool's film in a world panorama! But still Gautham Menon wouldn't want to hurt Tarantino's feelings, would he?! This disease is so deep rooted, he wouldn't even know if it was pointed out to him.
Coming from the new age Indian upper middle class family is the bane of all originality - it is not encouraged at all. Parents who have "set up" their children for the future have no chance of producing any offspring that are capable of any truly original thought processes. Protection from all the insecurities of life can only lead to dead emotional intelligence. That is where most of our mediocre crap comes from. But then, that is where the reviewers of that crap come from as well - get a good school education, get a good college education, get a half decent hold of your English language presentation, and guess what!? YOU decide what everybody like you should be watching! The market is full of fools like you, so who can question your abject ignorance?! When we're adding forty million people to our middle class each year, and are being taken aim at as one of the most reliable "growth" markets, we are ripe for this sort of dumbing down.
We have enough arrogance to think this sheer game of numbers actually gives us a right to feel powerful in some way. We are, but we are not empowered. We're simply "available" to dumbing down and being sold stuff to. The easiest thing to sell to us is the absolute right to be lazy, in thought and action, or thought and inaction! Everything is justified since we have collectively registered some undeniable "progress" on some global scale. But how have we grown when we have managed to put agriculture out of whack as a self sustaining industry, but are happy that we can call Dominos Pizza any time of the week in any Indian city? Dominos isn't even the best pizza we can make for half the money we pay those monkeys, and the lunatics they hire to deliver their crap ride their bikes on the wrong side of the street! What investment would the franchise owner make in the quality of work they put in, as long as they can ring their numbers in. This is India for us. And we're proud of this?
It is HARD to build a quality country, so we're doing what we know very well - build a quantity country. It is all about quantity. From our population to the measure of accomplishment. 99% of the money we have made through software development for the computer industry is about slave labour - doing other people's grunge work. Our creative content industry is busy making copies of movies made by other film makers in other countries - and not high concept action films either, but family drama! This is supposed to be our strength, our family system and our values and what not., but we don't have one thing any more - sincerity! We don't have a quest for truth that is at the core of all art! We are liars and thieves and crooks in the world of art and we won't be coming out any time soon, especially in cinema.
The absence of quality is pronounced and upon us, but it is not going to go away anytime soon. No producer is going to bet his balls or his money on a film that asks us to be intelligent, sophisticated, or even remotely thoughtful. We all have no chance but to actively contribute to more dumbing down. After all, when stupidity is conveniently available to everyone and it can be sold and made money from, why shouldn't we celebrate the convenient absence of quality!?
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
A "different" movie? Wait a minute!
"A very "different" film". How many clowns have made this claim in the recent past with absolute trash unleashed on the audiences? So, after suffering through a few and not having been redeemed by even one, here is my retort to these uncreative dungheads trying to be "different".
If I am travelling in a new country, in a very explorative mood, and I come across a fruit I have never seen before, now that is something "different" I am willing to try. A new way of life? Sure I am willing to give that a try as something different. But the big difference, pun intended, is that the fruit has been years in the making, has paid its dues to the evolutionary process and I am the one who is new here to the experience. Same with hearing and trying to talk in a new language. The language has been there for a while and has been "effective" before I got there. Compare that to a crap artist trying to make a movie without a clue what the art is about, and you know how indifferent I have become to something "different" coming from these punks who should be lined up and shot without any mercy.
First of all, who the f*^k asked for anything "different"? A really good movie is about how effective and engaging the story is, how well the performances go with the narrative, and how cinematically unobtrusive the visual experience is. Greatness is built upon these basics, not with a mandate to be different. If I got ice cream for breakfast just to be different, I'd be mad as hell. There are certain things a breakfast has to deliver, and it better deliver, no matter what is served. I'd be delighted with my usual breakfast if it "involved" something different if interesting.
Aha! The magic word - "interesting". Only creative people can do the most interesting things. If you are an uncreative slob trying to be different, please, for sanity's sake, give it up. We can see through that lousy attempt of yours. That said, it doesn't take much to start something interesting. A little boy goes missing! You've got my interest. A married woman flirts with a man her husband doesn't know about. Interesting! But you give me gas about "human trafficking" or "global warming" and tell me you have a "different" film based on one of these incredibly "important" issues, and you've lost me totally. What the heck is your film going to do about any of these? Absolutely nothing. I can see you have no story and are trying to be a parasite on an issue that might get some people to pay attention. Trust me, if I am coming to see a movie, I don't want an issue. All I want is a freaking movie.
Now, if you must be "different", you need to become a master first. A master who can weave a story so convincing and so engrossing that I don't even know I am being led up a new path. I can't see what's coming because I have been set up so well. Conventions exist for a reason. Storytelling is a craft that uses conventions a great deal, just like pace bowling. Every batsman knows inswingers and outswingers and so do the bowlers, but they put in a hell of a lot of practice to get it right so that the suddenly unexpected fast inswinging yorker, which also everybody has heard about, can uproot the stump. If a bowler bowled one to the fourth slip, and then a loopy full toss that lands straight in the wicket keepers gloves just to be different, he would be laughing stock, which has its own value, no doubt, but I shouldn't have to buy a ticket to watch this tomfoolery, should I?
It isn't easy to make a film. It is even harder to make a good film. It is much harder to make a great film. There is nothing accidental about any great film. It takes creativity, knowledge, and paying your dues to the world of art. You really should not take cinema so lightly as to imagine that any clown behind the camera can be a cinematographer and every moron who can yell "Action" and "Cut" can be a director. It is a combination of various well developed knowledge streams that need to come together to create cohesive cinema. And yes, it does take time. If you don't have it, don't waste mine.
Please, just be cohesive in your work, and coherent when you talk about your film. We don't want unqualified "genius talk". We just want movies that work. Not intellectual tripe in interviews, clueless actors and actors in female bodies who hate to be called actresses talking through their heads about things that are not true about the movie in the name of promotion. Everybody promotes their film, and we're tired of that nonsense too.
You know what? You can be different from the crap out there. Try being sincere.
If I am travelling in a new country, in a very explorative mood, and I come across a fruit I have never seen before, now that is something "different" I am willing to try. A new way of life? Sure I am willing to give that a try as something different. But the big difference, pun intended, is that the fruit has been years in the making, has paid its dues to the evolutionary process and I am the one who is new here to the experience. Same with hearing and trying to talk in a new language. The language has been there for a while and has been "effective" before I got there. Compare that to a crap artist trying to make a movie without a clue what the art is about, and you know how indifferent I have become to something "different" coming from these punks who should be lined up and shot without any mercy.
First of all, who the f*^k asked for anything "different"? A really good movie is about how effective and engaging the story is, how well the performances go with the narrative, and how cinematically unobtrusive the visual experience is. Greatness is built upon these basics, not with a mandate to be different. If I got ice cream for breakfast just to be different, I'd be mad as hell. There are certain things a breakfast has to deliver, and it better deliver, no matter what is served. I'd be delighted with my usual breakfast if it "involved" something different if interesting.
Aha! The magic word - "interesting". Only creative people can do the most interesting things. If you are an uncreative slob trying to be different, please, for sanity's sake, give it up. We can see through that lousy attempt of yours. That said, it doesn't take much to start something interesting. A little boy goes missing! You've got my interest. A married woman flirts with a man her husband doesn't know about. Interesting! But you give me gas about "human trafficking" or "global warming" and tell me you have a "different" film based on one of these incredibly "important" issues, and you've lost me totally. What the heck is your film going to do about any of these? Absolutely nothing. I can see you have no story and are trying to be a parasite on an issue that might get some people to pay attention. Trust me, if I am coming to see a movie, I don't want an issue. All I want is a freaking movie.
Now, if you must be "different", you need to become a master first. A master who can weave a story so convincing and so engrossing that I don't even know I am being led up a new path. I can't see what's coming because I have been set up so well. Conventions exist for a reason. Storytelling is a craft that uses conventions a great deal, just like pace bowling. Every batsman knows inswingers and outswingers and so do the bowlers, but they put in a hell of a lot of practice to get it right so that the suddenly unexpected fast inswinging yorker, which also everybody has heard about, can uproot the stump. If a bowler bowled one to the fourth slip, and then a loopy full toss that lands straight in the wicket keepers gloves just to be different, he would be laughing stock, which has its own value, no doubt, but I shouldn't have to buy a ticket to watch this tomfoolery, should I?
It isn't easy to make a film. It is even harder to make a good film. It is much harder to make a great film. There is nothing accidental about any great film. It takes creativity, knowledge, and paying your dues to the world of art. You really should not take cinema so lightly as to imagine that any clown behind the camera can be a cinematographer and every moron who can yell "Action" and "Cut" can be a director. It is a combination of various well developed knowledge streams that need to come together to create cohesive cinema. And yes, it does take time. If you don't have it, don't waste mine.
Please, just be cohesive in your work, and coherent when you talk about your film. We don't want unqualified "genius talk". We just want movies that work. Not intellectual tripe in interviews, clueless actors and actors in female bodies who hate to be called actresses talking through their heads about things that are not true about the movie in the name of promotion. Everybody promotes their film, and we're tired of that nonsense too.
You know what? You can be different from the crap out there. Try being sincere.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Chicks on flicks?
I wonder why I never checked out this program on Sony Pix before. After all I am fond of flicks and chicks, though not all of either.
All factors considered, I decided to stay on this program for a while, just to see if there was possibly one program I could actually endure that came out of Mumbai.
It didn't take very long for my head to scream - Fake, fake, fake!
It would be easy to rubbish this with - "Well, what did I expect when it comes out of the same sewer that produces fake rubbish all year round?" After all, one of them is an actress who went to theatre school. There are lots of theatre school alumni doing very well as waitresses. See, with actresses, you never know what they're going to dish out next. This bloody show was certainly not on my menu, and it certainly won't be on any sane person's order.
These two chicks Neha Sareen and Ira Dubey stand out as a comedy of their own, as amateurish and silly as two high school kids reading stuff their unimaginative teacher wrote for them to look good on stage. Could they please spare us the fake stuff? No, of course not! Could they at least save us from the big words that don't stick? Could someone tell them that language that looks impressive on paper doesn't necessarily work in the spoken medium? (Especially when the writers haven't received on screen credit)
How much of this can we take - "Incisively adapted", "Creating ambiguity to provoke thinking", "Minimalistic camerawork", "motifs", "Verbose screenplay", "Aesthetic framing of characters particularly in the silent scenes", "Showered in golden hues", "Visual beauty was mocking them", "milky camerawork", and lots of rubbish about art direction and editing and all the technical stuff you shouldn't have to care about when you sit down to watch a movie. On and on these chicks carry on with the same insincere, hurried, staid presentation, utterly lacking in emotional connect and constipated in delivery of every overcooked comment! God! I thought I was done cursing Mumbai and the idiots it marinates!
Somehow Mumbai can make crap out of anything. The good thing about obvious crap, however, is that one can get beyond the incompetence and really become objective about the show itself. With Chicks on Flicks, if the insincerity doesn't get you, the intellectual masturbation is sure to. You better let yourself start laughing. It doesn't take much to get merciless against this much dearth of ability.
To cap off a lousy review with something like - "Revolutionary Road makes Titanic look like Pretty Woman"! Wow! I wonder how confused people who have seen all three movies would be if they heard this.
Why the heck do these chicks have to tell us about "American suburbia", "compelling characters", and that the director allowed the "camera simply observe Leonardo and Kate feed off each other"? Yeah right! Nothing could be further from the truth. No working director employed by a major American studio shooting with expensive professional actors has the freedom to do anything as remotely organic as letting two actors feed off each other on camera. That happens in the script reading process, and that's the end of that. Now, to expect us to be morons who are still willing to join in an intellectual orgy - that's way too insulting.
The sadly funny part is - It doesn't need that much intelligence to know who the target audience for this show is - English speaking, urban Indians who watch English language movies. Simple, right? Now who in this target audience needs two fools addressing them telling them what movies to watch? They know where to get their reviews from!
If this weren't pain enough, we have to endure these chicks telling us if we should "Catch it", or "Trash it", as if these two were some sort of experts in cinema. Give us a break. According to a bit on India-forums.com - "Neha Sareen began her modelling career as a hand or leg model. He joined Lintas and would help out by being a hand or a leg model." Yes, if she could be extensively occupied being a hand or leg model, I suppose He could give its mouth a rest.
Renee Zellweger came on "The Actors' Studio" immediately after this stupid show, and there wasn't one single bit of intellectual masturbation. She spoke about her brother who would beat her up, about her father who is a very clever person, how she learned not to judge people, and how she went to school in the day, worked during the night, and how she once went to a set and pretended like she knew what she was doing! And at the end of that story, all she had to say was, "Anyway, it worked out okay!".
What a difference!
Guess what? We can tell.
Our chicks on flicks should really get themselves on a Revolutionary Road to find out who they are, what they can do, and what they can't, and not involve us in the pain of finding out.
All factors considered, I decided to stay on this program for a while, just to see if there was possibly one program I could actually endure that came out of Mumbai.
It didn't take very long for my head to scream - Fake, fake, fake!
It would be easy to rubbish this with - "Well, what did I expect when it comes out of the same sewer that produces fake rubbish all year round?" After all, one of them is an actress who went to theatre school. There are lots of theatre school alumni doing very well as waitresses. See, with actresses, you never know what they're going to dish out next. This bloody show was certainly not on my menu, and it certainly won't be on any sane person's order.
These two chicks Neha Sareen and Ira Dubey stand out as a comedy of their own, as amateurish and silly as two high school kids reading stuff their unimaginative teacher wrote for them to look good on stage. Could they please spare us the fake stuff? No, of course not! Could they at least save us from the big words that don't stick? Could someone tell them that language that looks impressive on paper doesn't necessarily work in the spoken medium? (Especially when the writers haven't received on screen credit)
How much of this can we take - "Incisively adapted", "Creating ambiguity to provoke thinking", "Minimalistic camerawork", "motifs", "Verbose screenplay", "Aesthetic framing of characters particularly in the silent scenes", "Showered in golden hues", "Visual beauty was mocking them", "milky camerawork", and lots of rubbish about art direction and editing and all the technical stuff you shouldn't have to care about when you sit down to watch a movie. On and on these chicks carry on with the same insincere, hurried, staid presentation, utterly lacking in emotional connect and constipated in delivery of every overcooked comment! God! I thought I was done cursing Mumbai and the idiots it marinates!
Somehow Mumbai can make crap out of anything. The good thing about obvious crap, however, is that one can get beyond the incompetence and really become objective about the show itself. With Chicks on Flicks, if the insincerity doesn't get you, the intellectual masturbation is sure to. You better let yourself start laughing. It doesn't take much to get merciless against this much dearth of ability.
To cap off a lousy review with something like - "Revolutionary Road makes Titanic look like Pretty Woman"! Wow! I wonder how confused people who have seen all three movies would be if they heard this.
Why the heck do these chicks have to tell us about "American suburbia", "compelling characters", and that the director allowed the "camera simply observe Leonardo and Kate feed off each other"? Yeah right! Nothing could be further from the truth. No working director employed by a major American studio shooting with expensive professional actors has the freedom to do anything as remotely organic as letting two actors feed off each other on camera. That happens in the script reading process, and that's the end of that. Now, to expect us to be morons who are still willing to join in an intellectual orgy - that's way too insulting.
The sadly funny part is - It doesn't need that much intelligence to know who the target audience for this show is - English speaking, urban Indians who watch English language movies. Simple, right? Now who in this target audience needs two fools addressing them telling them what movies to watch? They know where to get their reviews from!
If this weren't pain enough, we have to endure these chicks telling us if we should "Catch it", or "Trash it", as if these two were some sort of experts in cinema. Give us a break. According to a bit on India-forums.com - "Neha Sareen began her modelling career as a hand or leg model. He joined Lintas and would help out by being a hand or a leg model." Yes, if she could be extensively occupied being a hand or leg model, I suppose He could give its mouth a rest.
Renee Zellweger came on "The Actors' Studio" immediately after this stupid show, and there wasn't one single bit of intellectual masturbation. She spoke about her brother who would beat her up, about her father who is a very clever person, how she learned not to judge people, and how she went to school in the day, worked during the night, and how she once went to a set and pretended like she knew what she was doing! And at the end of that story, all she had to say was, "Anyway, it worked out okay!".
What a difference!
Guess what? We can tell.
Our chicks on flicks should really get themselves on a Revolutionary Road to find out who they are, what they can do, and what they can't, and not involve us in the pain of finding out.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Currency Of Sex
Anand Jon, fashion designer, is found guilty on eight charges of rape and sexual assault on a minor girl, and is likely to spend the rest of his life in jail. To me, there's hardly anything sensational about anything in the above sentence, except for the number eight. Does it really take eight charges of rape to bring a rapist to justice? It would be interesting to study why it took this long in this case, wouldn't it?
The fashion world, just like the world of cinema and showbusiness, offers plenty of opportunity for naive, impressionable young people to be lured into a dreamworld of glamour, success, fame and luxury by doing things that seem fairly easy on the body and very easy on the mind. So, the currency that automatically becomes the differentiator is often sex. The casting couch is by no means a figment of imagination, and many young people are propositioned nicely enough to take it or leave it for the next struggle to get a shot at the limelight.
Many youngsters choose the casting couch in the same vein of thought that brought them to it in the first place - easy success. So, it is no big deal to have sex with someone who can potentially promise you a big bonus in return. This is prostitution, except that the prostitute has a choice attached to something that is important to him or her. Most youngsters can walk away from having to make this choice, but their egos will hurt even more with failure than with having unwilling sex. So, the claim is that there isn't much choice, but the real choice is between paying a price using the currency of sex, or having to stick to your virtuous ways and struggling some more. More often than not, it is stupidity that leads young minds to make wrong choices, and it is no different here.
Stupidity lends credibility to the fact that this particular success is the only shot that person will get, and that it is somehow important to choose. Making it look like a choice between success and failure is the dark talent of the crooks who have the power to control the careers of these young people. Even darker is the talent to sell the world the idea that fashion and glamour are somehow important artistic endeavors that have some meaning in the real world. The world that consumes glamour in any form is equally guilty of creating the atmosphere in which crimes like this can take place.
But the law is myopic enough to allow the vast majority to consume and pour money into a sham industry, while the few who rise to prominence have the power to exploit. This is no different from any other industry, but the big difference is that there are goods and services that are essential to us so we can't shy away from buying a shoe knowing fully well that it might be made with child labour, but we can certainly shy away from attending that pathetic fashion show where young men and women strut uncreative clothing and jewellery and what not and actually imagine they have a career ahead of them.
If it takes eight charges of rape to bring down one of these shenanigans, it is because it dawned on quite a few of them rather late, that they gave what was asked and they still don't have careers! All of a sudden, they realized they have been had, and decided to make a case of it. If they had soared to fame, it would have all been hunky dory. For heavens' sake, it really isn't that hard to figure this out, is it? So, this is really a case of the sore losers trying to get something back for having been stupid in the first place.
It is no news that the promise of easy sex attracts a lot of people to the world of show business. That is hardly to taint the efforts of those genuinely attracted to the art and craft and various other serious pursuits in these industries, but fact remains that physical proximity and the need to please certain people can put people in rather awkward situations. We can almost certainly trust a seventeen year old who has put in a year of effort to get to that point to feel as if he or she has invested a lifetime for this "moment" and feel that it would be stupid to let go of the "opportunity" that beckons. It is like entering a threshold to something special, a portal to climb above all peers, an escape from the drudgery and a shot at the "real" thing, whatever that may be.
The power of sex as a currency is never to be underestimated. It is often used by two kinds of people - those with low self esteem, and those with a shortage of every other currency - intellect included. There is absolutely nothing to prevent our young men and women to call in the press and bring down the house on a pervert pretending to be an artist of immense capabilities who can launch careers. But that is not the kind of fighting spirit that brings them to these positions in the first place. They are used to grovelling and begging and pleasing in order to have that one shot at success. Such people will almost never complain. So, it takes eight failures and probably eight fools waking up to reality that they have no careers in fashion to complain against someone of this "stature".
There's another reason for this easy prey phenomenon. Parents of the so called victims. They want bragging rights and want their children to reach for fame that usually evaded them. So, they do whatever it takes to push their children towards stardom of some kind. There are some who are actually stupid enough to tell their kids they can choose to sing and dance on TV but not get into films because the world of films is "bad"! But behind most of this absurd behaviour is the confusion with material goals. Most parents get a little desperate wondering how to get their children to a future that is secure and abundant, and are actually willing to pay a price for getting there a bit quicker than other parent-child teams might.
The currency of sex has been used for centuries. It will continue to be used for centuries, and one example of bringing a guilty person to justice is hardly going to make a dent in a phenomenon that is well heeled, copiously nurtured, hardly spoken about, and completely accepted as normal. Given the opportunity to be sexually predatory, it can be either a fashion designer, film producer or a pastor, and chances are that person will choose to be an animal, especially when the consequences are not likely to be harmful in the slightest way.
The fashion world, just like the world of cinema and showbusiness, offers plenty of opportunity for naive, impressionable young people to be lured into a dreamworld of glamour, success, fame and luxury by doing things that seem fairly easy on the body and very easy on the mind. So, the currency that automatically becomes the differentiator is often sex. The casting couch is by no means a figment of imagination, and many young people are propositioned nicely enough to take it or leave it for the next struggle to get a shot at the limelight.
Many youngsters choose the casting couch in the same vein of thought that brought them to it in the first place - easy success. So, it is no big deal to have sex with someone who can potentially promise you a big bonus in return. This is prostitution, except that the prostitute has a choice attached to something that is important to him or her. Most youngsters can walk away from having to make this choice, but their egos will hurt even more with failure than with having unwilling sex. So, the claim is that there isn't much choice, but the real choice is between paying a price using the currency of sex, or having to stick to your virtuous ways and struggling some more. More often than not, it is stupidity that leads young minds to make wrong choices, and it is no different here.
Stupidity lends credibility to the fact that this particular success is the only shot that person will get, and that it is somehow important to choose. Making it look like a choice between success and failure is the dark talent of the crooks who have the power to control the careers of these young people. Even darker is the talent to sell the world the idea that fashion and glamour are somehow important artistic endeavors that have some meaning in the real world. The world that consumes glamour in any form is equally guilty of creating the atmosphere in which crimes like this can take place.
But the law is myopic enough to allow the vast majority to consume and pour money into a sham industry, while the few who rise to prominence have the power to exploit. This is no different from any other industry, but the big difference is that there are goods and services that are essential to us so we can't shy away from buying a shoe knowing fully well that it might be made with child labour, but we can certainly shy away from attending that pathetic fashion show where young men and women strut uncreative clothing and jewellery and what not and actually imagine they have a career ahead of them.
If it takes eight charges of rape to bring down one of these shenanigans, it is because it dawned on quite a few of them rather late, that they gave what was asked and they still don't have careers! All of a sudden, they realized they have been had, and decided to make a case of it. If they had soared to fame, it would have all been hunky dory. For heavens' sake, it really isn't that hard to figure this out, is it? So, this is really a case of the sore losers trying to get something back for having been stupid in the first place.
It is no news that the promise of easy sex attracts a lot of people to the world of show business. That is hardly to taint the efforts of those genuinely attracted to the art and craft and various other serious pursuits in these industries, but fact remains that physical proximity and the need to please certain people can put people in rather awkward situations. We can almost certainly trust a seventeen year old who has put in a year of effort to get to that point to feel as if he or she has invested a lifetime for this "moment" and feel that it would be stupid to let go of the "opportunity" that beckons. It is like entering a threshold to something special, a portal to climb above all peers, an escape from the drudgery and a shot at the "real" thing, whatever that may be.
The power of sex as a currency is never to be underestimated. It is often used by two kinds of people - those with low self esteem, and those with a shortage of every other currency - intellect included. There is absolutely nothing to prevent our young men and women to call in the press and bring down the house on a pervert pretending to be an artist of immense capabilities who can launch careers. But that is not the kind of fighting spirit that brings them to these positions in the first place. They are used to grovelling and begging and pleasing in order to have that one shot at success. Such people will almost never complain. So, it takes eight failures and probably eight fools waking up to reality that they have no careers in fashion to complain against someone of this "stature".
There's another reason for this easy prey phenomenon. Parents of the so called victims. They want bragging rights and want their children to reach for fame that usually evaded them. So, they do whatever it takes to push their children towards stardom of some kind. There are some who are actually stupid enough to tell their kids they can choose to sing and dance on TV but not get into films because the world of films is "bad"! But behind most of this absurd behaviour is the confusion with material goals. Most parents get a little desperate wondering how to get their children to a future that is secure and abundant, and are actually willing to pay a price for getting there a bit quicker than other parent-child teams might.
The currency of sex has been used for centuries. It will continue to be used for centuries, and one example of bringing a guilty person to justice is hardly going to make a dent in a phenomenon that is well heeled, copiously nurtured, hardly spoken about, and completely accepted as normal. Given the opportunity to be sexually predatory, it can be either a fashion designer, film producer or a pastor, and chances are that person will choose to be an animal, especially when the consequences are not likely to be harmful in the slightest way.
Labels:
celebrities,
currency,
fashion,
movies,
negotiation,
parents,
peer,
pressure,
sex,
success
Saturday, September 27, 2008
The Sorrow of Saroja
Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.41 Server at www.venkatprabhu.com Port 80
I agree. I thought this site owner actually far exceeded his bandwidth limit when he made this sorrowful movie called "Saroja", which is neither story driven, nor character driven. In fact, it is like it is not driven at all! I just couldn't bring myself to care about anything in this overrated movie. To top it all, it is a copy of another movie! How bad could you be as a copycat that this one ends up in the miserable bottom of the heap?
To write a review would be to somehow give credit to a piece of work that attempts to be some kind of artistic endeavour. Saroja is not. So, if you are expecting this to be a kind write up about a movie that has its plus points, please excuse yourself.
For all the hype surrounding how "different" and "cute" this movie is, the latest tributes coming from someone as cerebral as Suhasini herself on Jaya TV, it is a miserable and highly forgettable piece of directionless, artless, tasteless garbage unleashed on hapless masses done in by a marketing machine.
Make no mistake - Saroja has no personality, no identity, and indeed no idea what it is trying to be. A thriller? A comedy? A caper? It is none of the above. In fact, it is an attempt at all the above in pieces, made by a pretentious, over confident, jackass-of-all-things-cinematic director who has not studied the basics of the art form, has no respect for any of the norms of storytelling, and has had the audacity to hit us with computer graphics that go far enough to tell us who is a "driver" and who is a "servant"! There should have been one pointing to the director telling us in no uncertain terms who the "idiot" is.
This is clearly not a director who has had to come up the hard way. His earlier debut movie was a runaway success and he apparently comes from a lineage that reeks of quality involvement in Tamil cinema. This movie is the one where the monkey came out of the sack and showed its true colours. If this is what this fool is about, I don't want to see any more of his movies.
This is the kind of movie that would result from picking up a camcorder, rounding up a bunch of your friends and neighbours and going on a trigger happy "shooting spree" around the neighbourhood, and then getting to an editing table to see how much more fun you could have with it. This is the kind of movie that should be released on cell phones and You Tube, not in theatres where people spend precious time and money.
When a movie wants to be a "thriller" it should have something to thrill us with. If it wants to be a comedy, it needs to have better than mediocre comedic situations and actors, and it cannot be begging for the audience to forgive mediocrity all the time, especially when it wants to repeat things that didn't work the first time. The writing was terrible to start with, and no good movie ever came out of a bad script. This guy is no writer. It is as simple as that. That apart, you cannot have a jackass directing a movie that would take a genius to get right. Even copying another film takes some talent!
By no means am I suggesting that this movie could somehow have been rescued from the bowels of abject negligence of script, and an outrageous disrespect of audience sensibilities. It just winds its way tortuously through terrible scenes, half baked sequences, unconvincing events, utterly crappy music, all the way to an end that was a relief and escape from this unforgivable mess.
There are too many lows to list but one should sum up the quality of this movie experience I had - there were a total of nine people in the balcony section of the theatre before the intermission, and only five after! A lady walked in during the second half and made sure she switched off the fans below which there were nothing but empty seats!
If there is any way we could cut off the resources that flow to empty heads like the clown who made this stupid movie, that would be a huge service to humanity.
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.41 Server at www.venkatprabhu.com Port 80
I agree. I thought this site owner actually far exceeded his bandwidth limit when he made this sorrowful movie called "Saroja", which is neither story driven, nor character driven. In fact, it is like it is not driven at all! I just couldn't bring myself to care about anything in this overrated movie. To top it all, it is a copy of another movie! How bad could you be as a copycat that this one ends up in the miserable bottom of the heap?
To write a review would be to somehow give credit to a piece of work that attempts to be some kind of artistic endeavour. Saroja is not. So, if you are expecting this to be a kind write up about a movie that has its plus points, please excuse yourself.
For all the hype surrounding how "different" and "cute" this movie is, the latest tributes coming from someone as cerebral as Suhasini herself on Jaya TV, it is a miserable and highly forgettable piece of directionless, artless, tasteless garbage unleashed on hapless masses done in by a marketing machine.
Make no mistake - Saroja has no personality, no identity, and indeed no idea what it is trying to be. A thriller? A comedy? A caper? It is none of the above. In fact, it is an attempt at all the above in pieces, made by a pretentious, over confident, jackass-of-all-things-cinematic director who has not studied the basics of the art form, has no respect for any of the norms of storytelling, and has had the audacity to hit us with computer graphics that go far enough to tell us who is a "driver" and who is a "servant"! There should have been one pointing to the director telling us in no uncertain terms who the "idiot" is.
This is clearly not a director who has had to come up the hard way. His earlier debut movie was a runaway success and he apparently comes from a lineage that reeks of quality involvement in Tamil cinema. This movie is the one where the monkey came out of the sack and showed its true colours. If this is what this fool is about, I don't want to see any more of his movies.
This is the kind of movie that would result from picking up a camcorder, rounding up a bunch of your friends and neighbours and going on a trigger happy "shooting spree" around the neighbourhood, and then getting to an editing table to see how much more fun you could have with it. This is the kind of movie that should be released on cell phones and You Tube, not in theatres where people spend precious time and money.
When a movie wants to be a "thriller" it should have something to thrill us with. If it wants to be a comedy, it needs to have better than mediocre comedic situations and actors, and it cannot be begging for the audience to forgive mediocrity all the time, especially when it wants to repeat things that didn't work the first time. The writing was terrible to start with, and no good movie ever came out of a bad script. This guy is no writer. It is as simple as that. That apart, you cannot have a jackass directing a movie that would take a genius to get right. Even copying another film takes some talent!
By no means am I suggesting that this movie could somehow have been rescued from the bowels of abject negligence of script, and an outrageous disrespect of audience sensibilities. It just winds its way tortuously through terrible scenes, half baked sequences, unconvincing events, utterly crappy music, all the way to an end that was a relief and escape from this unforgivable mess.
There are too many lows to list but one should sum up the quality of this movie experience I had - there were a total of nine people in the balcony section of the theatre before the intermission, and only five after! A lady walked in during the second half and made sure she switched off the fans below which there were nothing but empty seats!
If there is any way we could cut off the resources that flow to empty heads like the clown who made this stupid movie, that would be a huge service to humanity.
Friday, September 5, 2008
The pursuit of sadness!
My mother cannot get away from Tamil serials on television. It is an addiction and a fairly harmless one, apparently. All her "great" movies are from an era of abject sadness and misery. Some works of art, no doubt, but the central tone of most of those stories is sadness. Sadness told, sadness sold, sadness left behind, and sadness appreciated!
How does that whole generation consume so much sadness? Now, what is unbelievable is that this doesn't stop with consumption of entertainment on the idiot box. It overflows into real life as well. My mother would rather choose to emotionally blackmail me into a decision of the smallest consequence rather than weigh a rational alternative. I have to think this has something to do with media influence that somehow sadness is valid, and must be given importance!
At the theatrical box office, thankfully sadness doesn't do very well. The recently flopped "Kuselan" being a case in point, despite the presence of SuperStar Rajinikanth! It was also a badly crafted movie, and that probably led to its demise, but abjectly sad movies don't do well. People don't want to pay for sadness. The Kamal Hassan starrer "Mahanadi" was another rather remarkable film that didn't go anywhere in the box office because it was sad all the way. It was much more than that, it was depressing.
It is the stories that beg for the sympathy of the audiences that I really hate to be sucked into. For, once they get my sympathy, I'd like to see them get my interest as well. More often than not, they don't. Hollywood is no less guilty of this crime. Bruce Willis just cannot be happy, can he? One of my friends said he has a "million dollar grimace" that never leaves him. When the rascal has to walk into a room and kill a bad guy, why does he have to get cramps in the stomach?
On Tamil television, sadness is being pushed through like hot cakes! Watch our soap! Our women cry more than the rest! I really don't know what mindset gets people to watch so much depressing negativity on television. Now, maybe this is the generation used to sad movies and they're just not going to the theatres anymore. The funny stuff comes from cinematic material edited for television, but none of the made for television productions touch anything funny.
Why so much sadness on TV? Because convincing sadness is easier to create than convincing comedy and convincing drama. It is a lame excuse, but people wallowing is brought about more easily than people making us laugh. We would imagine the reason sadness doesn't do well theatrically is because people don't want to go to the theatre and spend money to see sadness. That apart, the more accurate reason is that the people who do go to the theatre and spend money these days are not people who buy into sadness at all! We have a whole new demographic of happy Indian cinema consumers!
Years ago, somebody up north decided to inflict us with "Hum Log" and "Buniyaad" - some of the most depressing long running fare on television. Good lord! A competition to depress the masses! It is almost as if the government had a propaganda machine with the mandate - "Unleash sadness upon the nation! We don't want anybody to be happy or upbeat!". Indeed there were some brilliant comedies that came from those times of Doordarshan monopoly, but they didn't run as long.
Mumbai cinema seems to have hit the "happy" trail rather well. Some of the comedy that comes out of there is no laughing matter at all, but for most part, you can expect to not get hammered these days if you chose to watch a popular Hindi language film. As long as you avoid Star Plus, you can stay away from Hindi language sadness too.
It is strange that we go to theatres to find escape from our rather drab lives, and we go to television to see more of it! If media product has any influence on how people actually think and act, I would like to see much more upbeat television. Thank God we now have so much choice in television that we don't have to be subjected to mindless sadness. Not only has the nation's psyche become more positive in the last few years, thanks to the opportunities and the economy, we have also become a little more open minded and able to reject and stay away from negativity a little bit more. It hasn't worked on my mother yet, but I have hope.
I wonder why the rating system of any film industry cannot come up with a sadness index. Since violence and sex and everything else goes into determining the rating of a movie, why not have a rating that can potentially warn us about how sad a movie is. After all I would think if sex and violence can have a negative impact on our minds, sadness can do as much damage. If this rating system were put in place, Kuselan would be up there in the 8 out of 10 range. Mahanadi would walk away with a 9. And you and I could save a 100!
How does that whole generation consume so much sadness? Now, what is unbelievable is that this doesn't stop with consumption of entertainment on the idiot box. It overflows into real life as well. My mother would rather choose to emotionally blackmail me into a decision of the smallest consequence rather than weigh a rational alternative. I have to think this has something to do with media influence that somehow sadness is valid, and must be given importance!
At the theatrical box office, thankfully sadness doesn't do very well. The recently flopped "Kuselan" being a case in point, despite the presence of SuperStar Rajinikanth! It was also a badly crafted movie, and that probably led to its demise, but abjectly sad movies don't do well. People don't want to pay for sadness. The Kamal Hassan starrer "Mahanadi" was another rather remarkable film that didn't go anywhere in the box office because it was sad all the way. It was much more than that, it was depressing.
It is the stories that beg for the sympathy of the audiences that I really hate to be sucked into. For, once they get my sympathy, I'd like to see them get my interest as well. More often than not, they don't. Hollywood is no less guilty of this crime. Bruce Willis just cannot be happy, can he? One of my friends said he has a "million dollar grimace" that never leaves him. When the rascal has to walk into a room and kill a bad guy, why does he have to get cramps in the stomach?
On Tamil television, sadness is being pushed through like hot cakes! Watch our soap! Our women cry more than the rest! I really don't know what mindset gets people to watch so much depressing negativity on television. Now, maybe this is the generation used to sad movies and they're just not going to the theatres anymore. The funny stuff comes from cinematic material edited for television, but none of the made for television productions touch anything funny.
Why so much sadness on TV? Because convincing sadness is easier to create than convincing comedy and convincing drama. It is a lame excuse, but people wallowing is brought about more easily than people making us laugh. We would imagine the reason sadness doesn't do well theatrically is because people don't want to go to the theatre and spend money to see sadness. That apart, the more accurate reason is that the people who do go to the theatre and spend money these days are not people who buy into sadness at all! We have a whole new demographic of happy Indian cinema consumers!
Years ago, somebody up north decided to inflict us with "Hum Log" and "Buniyaad" - some of the most depressing long running fare on television. Good lord! A competition to depress the masses! It is almost as if the government had a propaganda machine with the mandate - "Unleash sadness upon the nation! We don't want anybody to be happy or upbeat!". Indeed there were some brilliant comedies that came from those times of Doordarshan monopoly, but they didn't run as long.
Mumbai cinema seems to have hit the "happy" trail rather well. Some of the comedy that comes out of there is no laughing matter at all, but for most part, you can expect to not get hammered these days if you chose to watch a popular Hindi language film. As long as you avoid Star Plus, you can stay away from Hindi language sadness too.
It is strange that we go to theatres to find escape from our rather drab lives, and we go to television to see more of it! If media product has any influence on how people actually think and act, I would like to see much more upbeat television. Thank God we now have so much choice in television that we don't have to be subjected to mindless sadness. Not only has the nation's psyche become more positive in the last few years, thanks to the opportunities and the economy, we have also become a little more open minded and able to reject and stay away from negativity a little bit more. It hasn't worked on my mother yet, but I have hope.
I wonder why the rating system of any film industry cannot come up with a sadness index. Since violence and sex and everything else goes into determining the rating of a movie, why not have a rating that can potentially warn us about how sad a movie is. After all I would think if sex and violence can have a negative impact on our minds, sadness can do as much damage. If this rating system were put in place, Kuselan would be up there in the 8 out of 10 range. Mahanadi would walk away with a 9. And you and I could save a 100!
Labels:
generations,
india,
media,
movies,
sadness,
television. culture
Monday, September 1, 2008
Mumbai Selling
The new ad. for "Khatron Ki Khiladi" on the new channel to come - Colors (notice the missing U?), warns that all the stunts are being performed under expert supervision in South Africa according to applicable regulations (Sounding very much like the Americans who love to write "This is not a toy" on plastic bags), and extends itself, huffing and puffing, to say "Viewers shouldn't try these stunts, especially children".
Now, either that means the stunts are really child's play and even children will want to try them, or our children would really listen to their parents yelling "Pinky! Leave the helicopter alone. You really shouldn't be following Akshay! No Chotu, you can't take the speedboat either!"
Are we hapless masses in India supposed to enjoy something being performed in South Africa with an American idea? How about talking in Polish with Korean subtitles, idiots? Oh, you want this to be a Hindi show? So, why isn't the show's name ever written in Hindi? Could it be because the people who can read Hindi would never watch this show? Or could it be you couldn't really come up with another name for "Fear Factor" that isn't equally dumb?
This is supposed to impress those of us who read in English, hear in Hindi, relate to American culture, and are willing to put up with South African regulations? Why not just show us the original show if we are this international in our taste?
It takes a bevy of beauties to go on some dangerous missions with Akshay Kumar? Fair enough. Television courting titillation is nothing new, but I would rather watch no TV at all than being forced to watch these unathletic acting career dropouts trying to hitch a ride to South Africa under some idea of "cool" invented last night. And these chicks telling us who they are - why? Who cares? To me, they all look the same, sound the same, and act the same. There is a serious business opportunity for a company that can invent and sell new types of giggles. And it can be called "Giggles for Dummies".
The show promises lizards and snakes licking these desirable nubiles - are we supposed to be scared of these creatures? We are still a nation where a large number of people are bitten by snakes on a regular basis, and yet, we do have any mortal fear of the creatures. We even have seven year old girls chasing away leopards with sticks and winning bravery awards from the President. Sweep all this under the carpet while watching another Whitey show ranking snakes for how deadly they are, and you are the perfect candidate to welcome the new White invasion of our culture, this time the mindsets.
Right on the heels of this one, we have BIG BOSS! A bunch of people in a house. So? The ads make this out to be some sort of macabre, extremely menacing proposition and we are supposed to be interested in who survives the rest of the loonybins in the house? Are we supposed to wait in trepidation to see where this next experiment in social engineering will take us? Or will we be spared the end of the season and have some actress cry foul and make news for herself while the show tops every toilet in viewerland?
What kind of Mumbai morons come up with these ideas to copy shows that are boring to start with? What kind of braindead, drugged out dopes are getting paid to come up with these ideas, and what kind of mediocrity marinated lunatic bosses okay these ideas?
We as Indians, have a long tradition of notions, as long as our history itself. These notions are complex and sophisticated, and we have never cared to explain or analyze any of these, because... we don't really care! It takes a lot to dumb us down, and while we might buy into a bit of dumbness once in a while, Mumbai trying to sell us the whole whale is out of the question.
Bottomline - we are not American, and none of the doped out foreign culture sucking assholes in Mumbai, from the uncreative bowels of their below mediocre television culture needs to tell us what we should like and what is cool. We're already cool and we don't really care about that either.
Which one of those dickheads is running Star TV in India? Somebody tell that knucklehead that we don't need to be told what is coming in the "Sizzling Summer" like the Asia Cup and Wimbledon, when it is pouring cats and dogs. Maybe these people are snorting dope all day long and don't even notice that summer is long gone for the 16 percent of the world's population that is keeping one of these sports alive!
That idiot on AXN who's been pronouncing Maruti as "Muhroodee" for ages - can someone other than the RSS tell this fool to get names right(especially those of Hindu Gods!), before letting his voice travel over the airwaves? I really wouldn't mind slitting the throat of the fool who approved this idiot's work, just for the incompetence it shows, or the indifference to Indian viewers who are being subjected to this nonsense.
It isn't as if a foreign culture has never made it to the shores of India. For thousand of years, we have been bombarded by things foreign. But this new phenomenon, of Indians telling other Indians how we must ape others, is new. And it is being fostered in Mumbai, squarely.
It neither begins nor ends with this arbid fiction film world called Bollywood (oh, what a coincidence it has taken to this name with love!). It spreads rather unceremoniously to news channels as well. The 11th of July bombings in Mumbai were shamelessly referred to as the "Seven Eleven" bombings, just so it rhymes with the white man's violent castration of sorts caused on "Nine eleven". When in India did we ever use the month before the day in mentioning a date?
I have heard we have monkeys in Hyderabad, who celebrate Halloween! Halloween, for heavens' sake! What does India have to do with Halloween? One can understand Valentine's day as an opportune moment to woo someone who has already fallen for that one, but Halloween!? I can only say to those who celebrate Halloween in India - to borrow from Mumbai cinema - that they really mustn't have drunk their mother's milk!
The number of advertisements in India, especially for high end clothing, that carry white faces - yet another disgusting low. Why ever should we wear something made here because a white man is ready to wear it? And the number of corporate websites that have pictures of very unproductive but cute looking white faces will give you an idea where India really doesn't want to let go of imperialism, even if we were not the imperialists to start with.
Just so we are not perceived as being racist in our blindness, look at how many avatars Abhishek Bachchan has taken up where he wears clothes like black rappers and moves his hands like he was a tattooed, just released from jail black man expressing himself on the streets of Chicago? I wonder if he would love to get sodomized in an all black jail in the USA, just so he can boast of having "been there, done that".
It isn't as if all copies are incapable of merit and success in our own context. Kaun Banega Crorepati is a much better show than its original, impersonal American version, but it was Big B that made the wonderful warm difference. Indian Idol is indeed a good opportunity for young talent to get picked up to good futures in the entertainment industry although I wonder how many people would recognize Prashant Tamang here than they would in Nepal!
The biggest question to ask is - why doesn't Mumbai copy the best of others' work? The master film makers today, in unabashed open view and in the greatest truth of the marketplace, are mostly white and from Hollywood. India has no Clint Eastwood, no Spielberg, no Terrence Malick, and no Scorsese. Mumbai doesn't have a Leonardo DiCaprio, and we most certainly don't have a Denzel Washington. (India has a Kamal Haasan, but he doesn't work in Mumbai)
The answer is - it's hard work being good. So, if you're not willing to work hard to create something original, and if you have no cultural roots to give you a sense of who you really are, if you are willing to take little crumbs of copied semi-original material and leave it to the marketing machine to make you, then you would do well in Mumbai. But if you are one of these, keep your shit to yourself and don't unleash it on the rest of us who can still tell the difference.
There are many actors and actor wannabes in Mumbai who can swear by the amazing actors Hollywood produces. Great actors come from great material. No screenwriters since the days of Salim-Javed have produced tight screenplays in commercial Mumbai. We will forgive the exceptions like Govind Nihalani for now. There simply is no respect for great writing, and indeed no demand for it. Some of the scripts that get approved for production have absolutely no potential to be "great" in any context, except maybe as recycled paper. All that Mumbai cares about now is "packaging" and as long as that sort of "packaging" has worked in the West, it is happy to ape, rape, and expect us to gape.
Deserving mention are the actress wannabes that show up in Mumbai, dressing and making themselves up like Western women, slimming themselves down, and throwing themselves about just like the women they watch on TV. The same mannerisms, the same attitudes, and the same level of fake confidence. All good, till they come to pronounce "sandvich" or having to understand the interviewer who asks a question longer than five words. Then, in one instance, all the glam falls away, and the villager is exposed. God bless them for their dreams, but what animal are they trying to ape? White western women, of course!
Salma Hayek doesn't hide her native English accent, and no European stars really worry about their identities while having to operate in a foreign language like English. So, what is wrong with us? A really deep inferiority complex? Just hating being Indian? Both? Pathetic.
And what's up with rampantly using the Indian flag and patriotic rubbish to sell products? Do you rascals really have to be that much of a sell out? Mind and body, heart and soul, your creativy is up the pole.
Now, either that means the stunts are really child's play and even children will want to try them, or our children would really listen to their parents yelling "Pinky! Leave the helicopter alone. You really shouldn't be following Akshay! No Chotu, you can't take the speedboat either!"
Are we hapless masses in India supposed to enjoy something being performed in South Africa with an American idea? How about talking in Polish with Korean subtitles, idiots? Oh, you want this to be a Hindi show? So, why isn't the show's name ever written in Hindi? Could it be because the people who can read Hindi would never watch this show? Or could it be you couldn't really come up with another name for "Fear Factor" that isn't equally dumb?
This is supposed to impress those of us who read in English, hear in Hindi, relate to American culture, and are willing to put up with South African regulations? Why not just show us the original show if we are this international in our taste?
It takes a bevy of beauties to go on some dangerous missions with Akshay Kumar? Fair enough. Television courting titillation is nothing new, but I would rather watch no TV at all than being forced to watch these unathletic acting career dropouts trying to hitch a ride to South Africa under some idea of "cool" invented last night. And these chicks telling us who they are - why? Who cares? To me, they all look the same, sound the same, and act the same. There is a serious business opportunity for a company that can invent and sell new types of giggles. And it can be called "Giggles for Dummies".
The show promises lizards and snakes licking these desirable nubiles - are we supposed to be scared of these creatures? We are still a nation where a large number of people are bitten by snakes on a regular basis, and yet, we do have any mortal fear of the creatures. We even have seven year old girls chasing away leopards with sticks and winning bravery awards from the President. Sweep all this under the carpet while watching another Whitey show ranking snakes for how deadly they are, and you are the perfect candidate to welcome the new White invasion of our culture, this time the mindsets.
Right on the heels of this one, we have BIG BOSS! A bunch of people in a house. So? The ads make this out to be some sort of macabre, extremely menacing proposition and we are supposed to be interested in who survives the rest of the loonybins in the house? Are we supposed to wait in trepidation to see where this next experiment in social engineering will take us? Or will we be spared the end of the season and have some actress cry foul and make news for herself while the show tops every toilet in viewerland?
What kind of Mumbai morons come up with these ideas to copy shows that are boring to start with? What kind of braindead, drugged out dopes are getting paid to come up with these ideas, and what kind of mediocrity marinated lunatic bosses okay these ideas?
We as Indians, have a long tradition of notions, as long as our history itself. These notions are complex and sophisticated, and we have never cared to explain or analyze any of these, because... we don't really care! It takes a lot to dumb us down, and while we might buy into a bit of dumbness once in a while, Mumbai trying to sell us the whole whale is out of the question.
Bottomline - we are not American, and none of the doped out foreign culture sucking assholes in Mumbai, from the uncreative bowels of their below mediocre television culture needs to tell us what we should like and what is cool. We're already cool and we don't really care about that either.
Which one of those dickheads is running Star TV in India? Somebody tell that knucklehead that we don't need to be told what is coming in the "Sizzling Summer" like the Asia Cup and Wimbledon, when it is pouring cats and dogs. Maybe these people are snorting dope all day long and don't even notice that summer is long gone for the 16 percent of the world's population that is keeping one of these sports alive!
That idiot on AXN who's been pronouncing Maruti as "Muhroodee" for ages - can someone other than the RSS tell this fool to get names right(especially those of Hindu Gods!), before letting his voice travel over the airwaves? I really wouldn't mind slitting the throat of the fool who approved this idiot's work, just for the incompetence it shows, or the indifference to Indian viewers who are being subjected to this nonsense.
It isn't as if a foreign culture has never made it to the shores of India. For thousand of years, we have been bombarded by things foreign. But this new phenomenon, of Indians telling other Indians how we must ape others, is new. And it is being fostered in Mumbai, squarely.
It neither begins nor ends with this arbid fiction film world called Bollywood (oh, what a coincidence it has taken to this name with love!). It spreads rather unceremoniously to news channels as well. The 11th of July bombings in Mumbai were shamelessly referred to as the "Seven Eleven" bombings, just so it rhymes with the white man's violent castration of sorts caused on "Nine eleven". When in India did we ever use the month before the day in mentioning a date?
I have heard we have monkeys in Hyderabad, who celebrate Halloween! Halloween, for heavens' sake! What does India have to do with Halloween? One can understand Valentine's day as an opportune moment to woo someone who has already fallen for that one, but Halloween!? I can only say to those who celebrate Halloween in India - to borrow from Mumbai cinema - that they really mustn't have drunk their mother's milk!
The number of advertisements in India, especially for high end clothing, that carry white faces - yet another disgusting low. Why ever should we wear something made here because a white man is ready to wear it? And the number of corporate websites that have pictures of very unproductive but cute looking white faces will give you an idea where India really doesn't want to let go of imperialism, even if we were not the imperialists to start with.
Just so we are not perceived as being racist in our blindness, look at how many avatars Abhishek Bachchan has taken up where he wears clothes like black rappers and moves his hands like he was a tattooed, just released from jail black man expressing himself on the streets of Chicago? I wonder if he would love to get sodomized in an all black jail in the USA, just so he can boast of having "been there, done that".
It isn't as if all copies are incapable of merit and success in our own context. Kaun Banega Crorepati is a much better show than its original, impersonal American version, but it was Big B that made the wonderful warm difference. Indian Idol is indeed a good opportunity for young talent to get picked up to good futures in the entertainment industry although I wonder how many people would recognize Prashant Tamang here than they would in Nepal!
The biggest question to ask is - why doesn't Mumbai copy the best of others' work? The master film makers today, in unabashed open view and in the greatest truth of the marketplace, are mostly white and from Hollywood. India has no Clint Eastwood, no Spielberg, no Terrence Malick, and no Scorsese. Mumbai doesn't have a Leonardo DiCaprio, and we most certainly don't have a Denzel Washington. (India has a Kamal Haasan, but he doesn't work in Mumbai)
The answer is - it's hard work being good. So, if you're not willing to work hard to create something original, and if you have no cultural roots to give you a sense of who you really are, if you are willing to take little crumbs of copied semi-original material and leave it to the marketing machine to make you, then you would do well in Mumbai. But if you are one of these, keep your shit to yourself and don't unleash it on the rest of us who can still tell the difference.
There are many actors and actor wannabes in Mumbai who can swear by the amazing actors Hollywood produces. Great actors come from great material. No screenwriters since the days of Salim-Javed have produced tight screenplays in commercial Mumbai. We will forgive the exceptions like Govind Nihalani for now. There simply is no respect for great writing, and indeed no demand for it. Some of the scripts that get approved for production have absolutely no potential to be "great" in any context, except maybe as recycled paper. All that Mumbai cares about now is "packaging" and as long as that sort of "packaging" has worked in the West, it is happy to ape, rape, and expect us to gape.
Deserving mention are the actress wannabes that show up in Mumbai, dressing and making themselves up like Western women, slimming themselves down, and throwing themselves about just like the women they watch on TV. The same mannerisms, the same attitudes, and the same level of fake confidence. All good, till they come to pronounce "sandvich" or having to understand the interviewer who asks a question longer than five words. Then, in one instance, all the glam falls away, and the villager is exposed. God bless them for their dreams, but what animal are they trying to ape? White western women, of course!
Salma Hayek doesn't hide her native English accent, and no European stars really worry about their identities while having to operate in a foreign language like English. So, what is wrong with us? A really deep inferiority complex? Just hating being Indian? Both? Pathetic.
And what's up with rampantly using the Indian flag and patriotic rubbish to sell products? Do you rascals really have to be that much of a sell out? Mind and body, heart and soul, your creativy is up the pole.
Labels:
advertising,
bollywood,
indian,
media,
mediocrity,
movies,
nonsense,
rubbish,
selling
Friday, August 29, 2008
Money Back Movies
Do you remember the last time you went to a movie and felt thoroughly disgruntled within no time, but somehow grit your teeth and took it quietly? Seriously, does it have to be like this?
So, what is it with movies, that you lose money by taking a risk, while you have no minimum guarantee of satisfaction with what you paid for? After all you're the paying customer and the movie is the product you are buying, so if you are not satisfied with the value you are getting for your money, you should be entitled to a refund, right?
There is only one stupid impediment to this simple logic being carried to the just and fair next step of implementation. You can REturn a coconut that was rotten on the inside. You can REturn a stereo that doesn't work, but you cannot UNexperience a movie, and more often than not, you cannot prove in measurable ways, beyond doubt, that you didn't quite get what you were promised. So, "no contract"! It is the "nature of the business" gleeful producers will tell you.
However, if you didn't already know about this, you can actually walk out of a movie theatre before the intermission and get a full refund of the ticket. This is a right that not many people obviously exercise. It is a simple procedure that should be encouraged to the maximum.
When the moneybags hurt is when we will get better cinema. Up until now, the first week's movie goers are the ones taking the hit, taking the risk of being subjected to the damage our films can inflict upon our senses, our sensibilities, and upon our minds. The insult of watching a "typical" Mumbai movie is far too intense to be ignored. And yet, a lot of people are brave enough, and compassionate enough to our film producers and film makers to make a beeline to the box office.
Is there a single producer out there who can put a simple "Money Back Guarantee" on his product? I bet you not. But just because it is not the norm doesn't mean this nonsense has to continue, where the paying public pays in full before they know what they are getting into.
If you are at an art exhibition, you can definitely experience the beauty or the ugliness of every piece of painting or sculpture before you want to cough up the money to own it. Now, cinema cannot be exclusively owned like other pieces of art, but then moviegoers are not interested in exclusive torture either!
If you bought a medicine for headache and it gave you a bad stomach as a side effect, you can sue the pharmaceutical company for not warning you. And the warning better be on the product wrapper, right where the consumer can see it. How often have you and I been to a movie hall, where a Statutory Warning greeted us with - "This movie makes no claim of great entertainment value. Audiences are warned that boredom, disappointment, and in some cases, watching this movie may result in undesirable physical consequences like nausea and headache" or atleast a really humble, "Amateur cinema. Patrons are warned not to expect cinematic greatness"?
In some cases, especially in movies with big stars involved, the promos are abject LIES, and there is absolutely nobody to question the validity of some of those outrageous claims of good art. Ah, art! Now that is a big illusion to hide behind, isn't it? Yes, as long as your art doesn't need my money for its survival.
All it takes is a few hundred people demanding their money back from movie halls, and the ripple effect will hit where it matters - at the pockets of producers who don't know a rat's arse about cinema, and at the careers of pretenders who call themselves film makers! After all, it isn't as if an enormously successful movie and huge profits encourage producers to give discounts to audiences that come in for second viewings. So, let us as consumers punish a lousy product no matter what industry it comes from.
We would create a whole new generation of films that advertise a "money back policy", and we would be treated to a minimum of effort in understanding that we, the audiences, don't appreciate being treated like cattle, when we pay AND give our time to something that is supposed to be fun.
India deserves this, our cinema begs for this, and in all fairness, we deserve to keep our money intact until a good movie shows up.
So, what is it with movies, that you lose money by taking a risk, while you have no minimum guarantee of satisfaction with what you paid for? After all you're the paying customer and the movie is the product you are buying, so if you are not satisfied with the value you are getting for your money, you should be entitled to a refund, right?
There is only one stupid impediment to this simple logic being carried to the just and fair next step of implementation. You can REturn a coconut that was rotten on the inside. You can REturn a stereo that doesn't work, but you cannot UNexperience a movie, and more often than not, you cannot prove in measurable ways, beyond doubt, that you didn't quite get what you were promised. So, "no contract"! It is the "nature of the business" gleeful producers will tell you.
However, if you didn't already know about this, you can actually walk out of a movie theatre before the intermission and get a full refund of the ticket. This is a right that not many people obviously exercise. It is a simple procedure that should be encouraged to the maximum.
When the moneybags hurt is when we will get better cinema. Up until now, the first week's movie goers are the ones taking the hit, taking the risk of being subjected to the damage our films can inflict upon our senses, our sensibilities, and upon our minds. The insult of watching a "typical" Mumbai movie is far too intense to be ignored. And yet, a lot of people are brave enough, and compassionate enough to our film producers and film makers to make a beeline to the box office.
Is there a single producer out there who can put a simple "Money Back Guarantee" on his product? I bet you not. But just because it is not the norm doesn't mean this nonsense has to continue, where the paying public pays in full before they know what they are getting into.
If you are at an art exhibition, you can definitely experience the beauty or the ugliness of every piece of painting or sculpture before you want to cough up the money to own it. Now, cinema cannot be exclusively owned like other pieces of art, but then moviegoers are not interested in exclusive torture either!
If you bought a medicine for headache and it gave you a bad stomach as a side effect, you can sue the pharmaceutical company for not warning you. And the warning better be on the product wrapper, right where the consumer can see it. How often have you and I been to a movie hall, where a Statutory Warning greeted us with - "This movie makes no claim of great entertainment value. Audiences are warned that boredom, disappointment, and in some cases, watching this movie may result in undesirable physical consequences like nausea and headache" or atleast a really humble, "Amateur cinema. Patrons are warned not to expect cinematic greatness"?
In some cases, especially in movies with big stars involved, the promos are abject LIES, and there is absolutely nobody to question the validity of some of those outrageous claims of good art. Ah, art! Now that is a big illusion to hide behind, isn't it? Yes, as long as your art doesn't need my money for its survival.
All it takes is a few hundred people demanding their money back from movie halls, and the ripple effect will hit where it matters - at the pockets of producers who don't know a rat's arse about cinema, and at the careers of pretenders who call themselves film makers! After all, it isn't as if an enormously successful movie and huge profits encourage producers to give discounts to audiences that come in for second viewings. So, let us as consumers punish a lousy product no matter what industry it comes from.
We would create a whole new generation of films that advertise a "money back policy", and we would be treated to a minimum of effort in understanding that we, the audiences, don't appreciate being treated like cattle, when we pay AND give our time to something that is supposed to be fun.
India deserves this, our cinema begs for this, and in all fairness, we deserve to keep our money intact until a good movie shows up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)