Frankenstein’s Monster!

Frankenstein’s Monster!

World's political history shows that when you create a monster, at some stage, the monster grows so big that it threatens you! Playing with fire may result in getting your hands burned at some point!

Our Hindi film industry fondly called “bollywood” by media is going to learn this lesson the hard way at some stage or the other in the future. The habit of deliberately sparking some controversy or the other to get free publicity for a film will at some point cause an avalanche that will bury the film!

In early 1990s when Kashmir issue was just getting ignited, the militants in Kashmir had kidnapped an Indian Oil executive by the name Dorayswami. He spent several days in captivity before getting released. It became a big story in media. Movie maker from Chennai suddenly thought of making a film based on this incident. But he added typical romantic masala in the film and converted into a love story. His film Roza was a hit all over India, but not before a major controversy was created before the release. Just a couple of years later Mani Ratnam made another movie “Bombay” based on the 1993 riots in Mumbai and again grabbed headlines before the release by creating some controversy about the film ahead of its premiere. These were first instances of a film getting controversial and then automatically selling itself successfully.

In the late 1990s that’s the year 1997/98/99 the model of creating stage managed controversies to sell a film was adopted by Mahesh Bhatt and his production house repeatedly. Apart from the Bhatt clan many other producer directors were not seen adopting this method. Today almost 20 years later we see almost every film trying to create a controversy and selling itself. A trend that will at some point explode in the film industry’s face!   

Film makers have realised that the success of a film mainly depends on how well the movie is promoted and publicised. How much people talk about it ahead of its release and how much lime light it can grab in a crowded market. Its not about the elements in the film like script, story, acting, technique. Its only about promotion!

A section of the film industry keeps complaining that things have become so difficult in India, its become so difficult to produce any work of art with a free mind, too many complaints of “public sentiments being hurt” are being made. This section must understand that its a group of filmmakers who themselves have created this problem. They instigate mobs to protest ahead of their film’s release so that they get free publicity. They have created this monster!

What one sees happening with reference to Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s latest film Padmavati is exactly this. Just as he did with his previous film Bajirao Mastani, Bhansali finds himself at the centre of a huge controversy which gives the film tremendous publicity without spending anything for it. Most say this publicity is stage managed.

“All the protests by certain Rajput organisations are part of a well orchestrated drama which you will see automatically dying down as the film releases” says a Mumbai based media planner. Be that as it may, but this week the protests reached such stage that normal life of citizens in places like Chittorgarh and Udaipur in Rajasthan has got adversely affected. Many places in Rajasthan now have to deal with a law and order situation as public sentiment is aroused and it’s all become clearly a political issue and the police force is being unnecessarily burdened by all this additional work.

Certain questions have to be asked on the backdrop of what’s happening in this case, first big question is ‘who told the protestors about what’s there in the movie (which they find objectionable)? If the movie is not released and has not been shown to anybody, how do Rajput groups know that there is something humiliating in the film about them? Second big question is, why is the film maker completely silent and has almost vanished from public appearances while all this is going on? While actress Deepika Padukone has issued a statement saying “The film will be released in any case and nobody can stop it”, why has she not said that there is nothing objectionable in the film?

It only indicates that the producer-director of the film may have deliberately created a false impression through media that there is something humiliating to the community the film, while the fact is that actually there is nothing objectionable in the film. The producer-director wants the agitations to go on for a while so that it gets nationwide publicity for him and then only just ahead of the release he would organise a show for the leaders of the agitators to make them realise that there is nothing wrong in the film! That way he gets free promotion for over a fortnight and film’s release too goes ahead smooth. This formula has been used too often by many film makers now. The film industry has to realise that encouraging such protests for self promotion in the long term is going to hurt the art-culture-cinema world. Deliberate instigation given to certain groups by a section of controversy seeking film makers will also damage the social atmosphere and free speech in this country.

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