The recent phenomenon of Boycott Bollywood is a step up in societal evolution. Attributing it to cancel culture will be a reductionist approach that will not help you to understand the monumental change that has occurred in the social psyche. The Boycott Bollywood is a mere expression of that change.
1. Origin of the moment.
The public was dissatisfied with Bollywood for decades. Indira Gandhi once went
to the extent of banning the film 'Aandhi' because the lead female had a similar hairstyle
matching her. In not so recent past Amir Khan went to Jantar Mantar to promote
his film ‘Rang De Basanti’ based on revolutionary Delhi University Students. At
that time Medha Patkar was agitating at Jantar Mantar against Narmada Dam. It
was her last ditch effort to stop the construction. This drew a reaction in Gujrath.
The cinema halls in the entire state boycott the film. But it was the last week
of the film so it didn’t matter much. The next Amir Khan film was not so lucky.
It was Amir Khan’s first film with Yash Raj Studio which was earlier engaged
solely with Shah Ruk Khan. The film was 'Fanna'. It was never released in Gujarat.
All cinema halls boycotted it. YRF (Yash Raj Films) incurred a financial loss.
In Maharashtra Shiv Sena tried to stop the exhibition of SRK starter My Name is
Khan.
Controversies were also a regular hurdle in Film distribution and
exhibition. 'Bombay' based on Mumbai Riots of 1991 was delayed due to objections from the Hindu as well as Muslim sides. Countless films faced trouble at that stage and
for various reasons.
Public discontent was released every now and then in such a manner and
then business go on as usual. But all the pressure was not released. What was left
behind was kept on building and building. And it exploded at the moment of Sushant
Singh Rajput’s case. SSR’s death was not the only factor but the tipping point.
I tried to summarize the factors below
A. Unhealthythy lifestyle.
It is not only about maintaining a particular body shape but about substance abuse. This point was well covered in the Madhur Bhandarkar and Priyanka Chopra & Kangana Ranaut starrer 'Fashion'. Not only substance abuse but its blatant propagation shocked any conscious middle-class mind which was the main consumer base of Hindi Films. A society with such high morals that, even cigarette smoking is considered sinful, even though a primitive form called Bidi existed in India for hundreds of years. In such a society use of psychedelics, hallucinogens and narcotics would not only be looked down upon but will be actively resisted. This was a miscalculation on the part of the industry. They didn’t realize that it was unacceptable to the Indian moviegoer public. It would have slipped under the radar in the pre-social media era. But now just one photograph of Amitabh Bachchan’s daughter will circulate time and again.
B. Arrogance of Elite
Apart from substance
abuse social media also helped to break the barrier the star had with fans.
Earlier fans used to stand hours and hours outside the bungalow of Rajesh
Khanna or Amitabh Bachchan to get their one glimpse. Now Social media can bring
them to your house live where you can react to them and ask questions. It was
then the public realize the elitism that had set in the industry. Captured in a
scene of the 2009 movie 'Luck by chance' the producer feels delighted when he
hears the news that an incidence of stabbing had occurred in the ticket queue
of his film. Whether it was Amir Khan’s preaching show Satyameva Jayate or Jaya
Bachchan’s several remarks over many years put out the arrogance of these
so-called social elites for public review. And the public didn’t like it any
bit. The sense of entitlement is never appreciated in Indian civilization.
C. Detach from the reality
It was also noticed that Bollywood celebrities were detached from the reality of the common man. Even though the disordered existed since the 1970s, it became more and more pronounced as star kids started entering the film industry in the 1990s and then almost blocked the path for outsiders in the 2010s. The public noticed that these celebrities have opinions about the politics of the US of A but not of India. And how we can forget the placard drama at the time and ONLY at the time of Hathras. The rest of the time you may not know on which planet these guys and girls are. The selective outrage and selective amnesia were becoming apparent day by day. This detachment was on full display when Tapasee Pannu's 'Do Bara' was released. During an interview, the director Anurag Kashyap and lead actress Tapasee Pannu both called for a Boycott of their film. They thought of it as a joke. This is how detached they were from reality.
D. Immoral behavior
The heroes and heroines who
were appearing on the silver screen doing heroic stuff and holding the highest
moral values were in reality not even practicing minimum human decency. How can
anyone forget, that it was Salman Khan’s driver, who was driving the car that night. Rather than looking up, the public started looking down on these stars, as they
uncover more and more about them. From infidelity to murder the industry
has done/seen all. And it was sublimely depicted in SRK’s Om Shanti Om.
E. Changes in Product
Against the backdrop of all of this happening the industry was ignoring the core customer i.e. Indian Consumer and was more focused on capturing the foreign market. In the early 2000 movies were specifically made while keeping the NRI crowd in mind. The trend has shifted from a song location in the Alps mountain to a story plot in UK or USA. 'DDLJ' 1995 and 'Pardes' 1997 demonstrated the commercial viability of the formula, while films like 'Yaadein' 2001 'Kal Ho Na Ho' 2003 and 'Salam Namaste' 2005 made the entire plot revolve around NRIs. Such films were less and less appealing to Indian audiences because of the saturation of foreign scenery and lack of emotional connection.
F. SSR’s Death
With all the above-mentioned
problems scene was set (pun intended) for something to give. SSR’s unnatural
death and the drama that followed broke the camel’s back. The drug angle, the
video of SSR’s ex-girlfriend claiming to be a vasooli agent, inquiry into Deepika
Padukone made the water murky, to say the least. The Jacqueline Fernandez money
laundering case with imprisoned Sukesh was indicating a much deep-rooted rot.
It was then the public decided to take matters into their own hands.
2. Options
With the cheapest 4G rates in the entire world, Covid-19 lockdown, and a variety of OTT
platforms to choose from Indians for the first time were thoroughly exposed to
world cinema. The movies which were only played for a selected few in the film
circle were available to every Indian. And every Indian who had some bit of
knowledge of cinema was mesmerized by the production quality of Korean,
Iranian, Turkish, Spanish, and German films and serials. When they compared
those with Ekata Kapoor’s Sas Bahu dumb daily soap opera, they felt cheated. The
Indian consumer is highly price-conscious. He/She always compares the price-to-reward
ratio. What Indian consumers getting from his/her film industry was not a raw
deal but a rotten deal. And there is no turnback from rot. You have to cut it
off. That was when the Boycott of Bollywood really started. The consumer by
then was well educated about the quality of products around the world. And that
was the biggest threat. The industry even today fails to recognize that
consumer taste has changed. OTT and regional cinema gave Hindi language consumers
a choice, an option, and consumers exercised it in a blink of an eye.
3. Difference between Boycott and
Cancel culture.
The Boycott is not the same as Cancel. No one is preventing you from
making your rotten movies. No one is absenting you from releasing your awful movies. The public is now done with you and it is not watching your rubbish movies anymore. What was lost was not the brand Amir Khan or brand Karan Johar. What was lost was trust, that this industry
could deliver a meaningful product. The catastrophe was not that the public were
not buying your product. The catastrophe was that the public were unwilling to
watch your advertising. That is a boycott. There is no meaningful dialogue with
the elite. The dialogue could only happen with peers. And peers are educated consumers
who by now accustomed to watching Hollywood film with subtitles. When the public noticed shot by a shot copy of Forest Gump in LSC’s teaser, no one was
excited to watch the trailer, let alone the film. The public is seriously done with you.
4. Difference between Halal/Kosher and
ISI Mark.
Halal/Kosher creates a sub-market within the existing market. Halal/Kosher
is voluntary. While ISI (Indian Standards
Institution) is a basic standard that you must comply with to sell the product
on the market. Such a standard is compulsory to maintain basic uniformity.
For the Hindi film industry, the language was such a standard. Even though the Southern film industry was up to and many times beyond the Hindi film industry's standard, the language barrier created a sub-market for language films. The weakening of
the Hindi film industry played a vital role in breaking that barrier. Even
though Bahubali’s success was a strong warning sign for the elite at the helm of
affairs of the Hindi film industry they failed to recognize the change in
consumer taste as well as failed to recognize the invasion from the south. It was a
double blow, from the inside and the outside. Bahubali might have been shrugged
off as one of, or a film that got hit because of period drama. But Pushpa was a
downright masala film with the exact same formula which was perfected by the Hindi
film industry during the heyday of Amitabh. And yet Pushpa was highest grossing
with a visible cultural impact.
The sub-market was broken. There was no local film industry anymore. As
it was advertised at the time of GST. One India One Market. The entire India
was open for every film. The only requirement consumer demanded was that it
should be as per Indian Standards.
5. Film Math.
Movie making is a highly uncertain and very risky business. You do not
know how the product will be at the end of production. And uncertain still that the public will like it. It is rare for anyone to deliver successful films one
after the other. And that is why such filmmakers are praised and remembered. The
problem that the boycott brought is that now films from such filmmakers are up
for a toss. The response to Amir Khan’s lame remake of the beautiful film
Forest Gump was an eye-opener. If Amir Khan could face a boycott then
everyone could face a boycott. And that included Tapasee
Pannu. Tapasee had back-to-back releases of 'Do Bara' – in June 2022 and 'Shabaash
Mithu' – in July 2022. Both films put together could not gross equal to 'Lal
Singh Chadda'. A Kannad language film 'Kantara' released in Sept 2022 went on to
make a profit equivalent to the budget of all three films, earlier mentioned, put together. The
Movie math today stands totally and completely broken. No actor no actress no
director no nothing could guarantee you economical success at par with 'Kantara'. Only a film in line with Indian Standard can.
6. Social Psyche.
This is the most important part every tom dick and harry went on
missing in this whole saga. Elite point fingers at Kamal R Khan or Gems of
Bollywood or someone else. Calls from these film critics to boycott Amir Khan’s
LSC might explain why Lal Sing Chadda flopped. But no one to date has offered
any credible explanation as to why 'Kantara' was such a huge success. The simple
reason is public has moved on. Viewers are done with Urduwood. Trust is like
glass, once broken it could not be put back. No matter, whatever tricks are
played henceforth, the public does not want to watch halal-certified movies where
Vijay is a non-believer when it comes to Hindu God becoming extremely
superstitious about his 786 numbered batch.
India has changed. So is the public and the movie market. Those who are
dinosaurs will die their death.
