Reel world

In some lecture I attended a while back, the speaker mentioned a point about Bollywood movies which I hadn’t come across earlier. He said that in the 70s, the audience like the image of an angry young man in movies since the citizens at large were themselves angry. The reason for the anger may be due to the prevalent political system or something else.

As you moved towards late 80s, early 90s and henceforth, the attraction towards a chocolate hero gained momentum and happiness was the name of the game. Again, according to the speaker it reflected the general mood of the public.

So, you had the release of Hum Aapke Hain Koun in 1994 which was based on a family and had shown marriage celebrations in all its entirety and elaborateness. Different movies that followed had their major theme being dominated by joy and happiness in its various forms.

However, I am still doubtful what the contents of the movies at large portray with respect to the reality as per the audience. It is true that the movie directors and producers many a times take stories and incidents from real life or the topics are very much relevant. But does the general theme across movies actually represent the existing reality or does it just portray how people would like reality to be or may be neither, I am not too sure.

A trend setting movie of its times was Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge released in 1995. It was a major success and a theatre in Mumbai is still running a show of this movie from the time of its release. One major deviation from the trend that this movie envisaged and which I believe the people liked is that the hero of the movie does not ask the heroine to run away with him (which was generally how it worked in movies before). He was of the opinion that one should win the consent of families on both sides before moving forward. He wanted to have their blessings with their choice and not because they have no option. The father of the heroine finally realized that it was best for her daughter to be with the hero.

I am not saying that was right or wrong. But as India is getting more and more westernized and the trend of love marriages is increasing, was it that the depiction in the movie was against or for the current mannerism in which things progress? Or was it actually trying to show a way in which both generations need to move so as to attain some kind of equilibrium in society?

The more important question is regarding the people liking the movie – were they appreciating this novelty of the idea or did they actually think that society should be going this way? I again don’t know. Has the society moved in the direction, assuming it wanted to?

To return to our previous hypotheses of movies depicting the mood of the audience, it does not seem to be so black and white.