Chapter 1: Reflecting Echoes
There will be times. Where certain words will echo loud. Words that make you question your ideas. Words that make you fear that you might be right.
Whose words? At this point, the who is completely forgotten. But the words are still a hazy memory. One single comment who echoed for a year. ‘These people have had a century of time, and they still haven’t learned how to make anything good. Their movies aren’t worth keeping.’. ‘These people’ referring to ‘Indians’. The comment I found was in a webpage for a Bollywood movie. Which movie? Who knows. I didn’t really think it would be important. It was just one of those stupid comments that make you reconsider paying for internet. Why would I write or save the comment? Or it’s context?.
A vague memory of these mean words stuck around. Echoed. Bothering me more and more everytime I think of Bollywood. Everytime I watched a Bollywood piece. ‘The person is obviously wrong’, I kept telling myself. But that person echoed what so many said. So many believed. Maybe even I had internalized it. Maybe the echoes weren’t of the comment, but of mine.
At this ripe age, I had just recently adopted beliefs similar to it. ‘Marvel & Star wars are bad, they haven’t learned how to make anything good in years. At this point they aren’t worth keeping’. I do get that Bollywood is far bigger than a franchise, i.e. ‘Marvel’ and ‘Star Wars’. But the arguments do feel similar. “It hasn’t gotten better even though they had money and time to improve”. “It hasn’t made anything worthwhile”. And my fan favorite critique I hear, where the person is clearly using concepts at a surface level: The vague gestures towards ‘misogyny, racism, ableism, fatphobia, queerphobia, etc’. Other circles say similar vague gestures like ‘bad writing, horrible songs, eye-destroying lighting, soul-draining pacing’. So are they true? Is this entire industry worth my time? Anyone’s time? If they refuse to change, and what they aren’t changing is on average meh, why give it time?
Without thought, I thought obviously the best way for me answer that, was to watch all of Bollywood. Write their reviews and notes. Critique them without the vague gesturing towards the entire industry. Make a graph of scores I give to each and then see if the industry has gotten better, if it’s worth watching now, or if it was ever good in its entire existence.
The idea was that I’d watch every Bollywood movie ever made, but I am a mere mortal. The realistic goal was to watch a few obscure Bollywood movies with good ratings, and a few blockbusters. A 100 counts as few right? Well the few grew to big with time. 100 grew to 200, to 300, to 400. At that point I had stopped counting, Last number I remember is 427 or something. But I never published a single critique of any of these movies. My ideation on the echoes of that comment didn’t change when I wrote an honest critique. The more movies I liked, the more shame I felt. There had to be more to how I felt than just a single comment that more I wrote the more I debunked.
Chapter 2.1: Complex Cacophony of Critical Commentary
The movies never got any formal/public reviews from me. I gave a few scores, but too few to make any useful graph from. I wrote a few dozen informal review but never posted anywhere beyond a few private messages. One of the factors was the growing list of critiques I had to write. What started with: “Ill write reviews when I get time”, evolved into: “Ill write reviews grouped by directors” “Ill write reviews grouped by studios”. Eventually giving up entirely when I realized the critiques didn’t fix why I felt bad about Bollywood internally.
There were several things I questioned, to figure out why I felt bad. Is it me questioning the bar for when something qualifies for being kept? And if Bollywood met that bar? Was I questioning if Bollywood is as bad as everyone says? But I had answers to those, in all my viewings, rarely did I feel the movies were so bad they should be discarded. And a significant chunk of them weren’t really bad. Most didn’t even came close to how bad I’ve heard people say Bollywood is in general. The clever cogs among you already know this from ‘my extremely clever foreshadowing as in the title’ that the question is regarding shame. Was I ashamed of liking Bollywood? Was I ashamed of admitting that Bollywood isn’t that bad?
A lot changed since I started this project. I used to love listening to and reading reviews, critiques, and commentaries. But by the time I started thinking I was right, and Bollywood wasn’t that bad. I had also started despising critics, commentators, reviewers, whatevers. Their ideas for so many years, only ever made me consider the surface level. The biases that most discussed were always somewhat moot, like ‘having nostalgia’ for something. If I was right, then some of my reasons for thinking Bollywood is bad can’t be the movies alone. The shame influenced how I, and maybe so many I listened to, viewed, and even critiqued them. Even in those crude reviews, I felt ashamed saying positive things about the movies. The critical landscape I used to consume, rarely considered influences, productions, impact, culture, and internalized biases like cultural shame. So many of the critiques felt the same points repeated for everything, mixed with a lot of cynicism. Once you see it, it’s suffocating to be around.
When I had started getting into movie criticism, everything blew my mind. Every point felt like ‘Woah I hadn’t considered that’ or something similar. The awe died fast, but with its death came a disconnect. Beyond the new point factor, I wanted more depth in the points which were rarely there. In just a short time, the criticisms everywhere felt like a blur. I wasn’t learning brand new ways to look anymore. Maybe a lot of movies probably do have similar flaws, but once I understood them I saw them myself when watching the movie(s). And if what I read doesn’t give me more depth in understanding the critiques, it feels pointless.
What I wanted maybe wasn’t reasonable for me to expect from anyone, including myself. I can’t expect a deep, pages and pages long dives: going into history of the movie, studio, the writing. Relation of it to culture, influences, and trivia. A review can be just fine explaining broader points about just the content of the movie, and being you know, a reasonable length. But I had started expecting a university thesis on a movie for a review. Making me consider what I wrote crude, and I never posted them. How could I post a one page review of a movie, when I expect so much more from others?
Chapter 2.2: Can I stop being vague about vague criticism?
Going to just add a this to explain points I̶ ̶w̶r̶o̶t̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶o̶r̶l̶y̶ that need more explaining. Ok, so what do I mean by the several mentions of vague criticism?
Basically what I mean are criticisms that are given without any explanation or nuance to it. A very common one everyone says is “Bollywood movies contain a lot of misogyny”. I don’t want to deny this completely, there certainly are movies here with a heavy dose of misogyny. Objectification is common, especially in blockbusters and certain type of songs in these movies, e.g. ‘Dhoom 3 (2013)’, ‘Student of the Year (2012)’, ‘Golmaal: Fun Unlimited (2006)’ the Rohit Shetty one especially being a peak of so many bigotted nonsense. But even this level of specification. ‘Giving examples’. Is a rare breed to see in Bollywood criticism, hence me accusing them of hiding behind vagueness.
It’s very possible you have never read/listened/watched anything that vague. But as I’m the smartest person alive, my experience matters more (deal with it). Even the small examples in my criticism above would need some nuance which I never find. It’s ok to criticize a movie as is without any consideration, I mean, I wouldn’t really care for such a critique but there’s a market for it.
Golmaal: Fun Unlimited (2006), to me, is a lesson in evolution of the misogyny criticism in specific. Golmaal: Fun Unlimited (2006) & Golmaal Returns (2008) are unwatchable-y bigotted for me, especially the misogyny. Both movies livid with assault jokes, objectification of the main wife character, plots revolving around women just being stupid. But I think it’s important to somewhat consider it more broadly. Golmaal: Fun Unlimited deserves criticism for it’s myriad of issues and bigotry. But it has to be understood that, perhaps, people behind it also got that point overtime. Golmaal 3 (2010), in my opinion, addresses and fixes a lot of that bigotry and issues. Not perfect by any means. The woman protagonist, by lacking that ‘bitchy’ attitude of a typical memed version of a wife, gets very little characterization or role in the film. Even then, her ‘cool and strong woman’ character template is done better than a lot of other movies. People she swears at and fights, aren’t cartoonish-ly misogynist to get a cheap ‘hurray’ from the crowd. *Heavy cough* David Dhawan movies. There’s a lot more to say about Golmaal 3’s issues, but focusing on a single criticism to make a point without adding a few more pages to this.
Then Golmaal Again (2017) came along, fixing even more of these issues. Again in my opinion, don’t take out your pitchforks and comment ‘source’. Both woman protagonists in Golmaal Again have proper characters. Inappropriately aged men flirting is treated as bad. There’s a point to be made that the movie including a romance arc just to use it to say ‘this is very inappropriate’ is still problematic. But it still is a huge progress from Golmaal: Fun Unlimited’s assault scenes and ‘jokes’.
I know I have open gates to many Rohit Shetty haters to cancel me for this. But I want to say more, fake trigger warning: the next section contains praises of Rohit Shetty. He puts this very small thing that makes me smile, his movies always show “Made/directed by Rohit Shetty and team” in first credits. Small thing, minuscule even. But its such a bold acknowledgment that directors aren’t the only one who make a movie, it’s a team effor., Its huge in the media industry, where credit stealing is more common than popcorn.
There’s a cynical perspective of ‘vague criticisms’ too. It’s a way to promote one’s biased view without ability for anyone to address or challenge them. It’s difficult to counter a vague criticism, which can make someone feel the criticism is right since they can’t think up a counter. The vagueness allows the person to fill in their own meaning, and if they counter that, they can convince themselves the critic meant another thing instead. Add all this with the cultural shame to thinking about Bollywood positively, and you have a very good recipe to convincing people the art is bad without ever being concrete on anything.
Chapter 2.3: Dropping the Curtains
I lied actually. I did write reviews of Bollywood movies. Not just the crude ones I never posted, but finished proper ones. I even posted them publicly. But that didn’t happen during this project. Dan Dan Dan.
This isn’t the first time I started such a project. Long before this one, I was in a similar boat that made me start a similar project. Where I went back and re-watched a lot of Bollywood movies. Some I loved growing up, others that I hated. Why? I had come to a realization that perhaps things I used to love weren’t as great as I remember. Kid me could’ve lacked the ability to make the same judgment I can now, how unbelievable. I went into the project with the expectation that I’d dislike all the Bollywood movies I watched before. As that was the most popular opinion with everyone I knew. What I discovered was a secret critics don’t want you to know (click here for free 2GB RAM!). Popular opinions can be wrong and spread because people have shared biases sometimes.
I wrote reviews for nearly every movie I watched in that old project. Way smaller and with way less nuances I’d expect from me today. I came out of that appreciating most of the movies I revisited, what I used to hate became what I liked. Those old reviews won’t be shared here, though I may someday write a proper review that qualifies to my current standards someday. My current standards are sky high as mentioned (yet I wrote this article (self deprecating humor inserted for relatability and likes)).
The psychological reason I did that old project was insecurity. A significant amount of my time was spent in communities, and with people who didn’t even speak Urdu/Hindi, or watched Bollywood. I wanted to share around my culture’s art, while also being a critical voice for Bollywood. Something that I was unable to find anywhere at the time. I hoped maybe my reviews would allow me to find people I can talk about these movies with, and feel less isolated. Others around me were able to geek out for English movies, have a lot of popular writers, youtubers, even groups dedicated to those movies and culture. All the while it was difficult for me to find anyone who had even heard of my favorite Bollywood movies, Hindi/Urdu shows, or even literature.
Eventually, I did find some people who I can talk about my native media and art with. Which sparked me to get back into Bollywood so many years later, now. And then, while looking up reviews of new Bollywood movies to add to my watchlist, I found that wretched comment that started this mess.
The reason that comment stuck to me might sound petty, and maybe to some extent it is. It made me angry, not because someone could just say our cultural art is not worth keeping. But because its common to hear such things. Its not just that a random comment-er thinks this, its so so many people around me. This commenter just spelled out, what everyone already implied and believed. The anger was at society in general, but also the insecurity of what if they are right. Sending me down this spiral.
Chapter 2.4: 4/10, Too many Browns
I didn’t just watch these movies. I also did read their critiques online. I read about their productions. Histories, studios, music, technology. Everything I could find regarding Bollywood at some point. To find proof. Proof that I’m just crazy. If I am right, then so many people are just being ignorant, people who haven’t even realized their biases. And some of these are even the critics who just perpetuate the biased view for everyone too.
But the critiques just made my anger more into rage. Its difficult to ignore the root issue after so much. I got mad at liking these movies, for the same reason they are considered bad by default. Same reason why I stopped thinking just critiquing movies has a point. I had to question the root cause of the shame, racism. Whether intentional or not, that’s where the shame comes from. And here I am writing this article.
After I accepted that, and checking the ocean of bad reviews and critiques. Surface level take downs of Bollywood movies specifically. IMDb scores, Rotten Tomatoes scores, both being unusable wastelands for Bollywood. It made a lot more sense why most of them didn’t match with what my review of the 100s of movies I saw was.
Now, I am aware its a common saying that IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes are both horrible for anything at all. But it has to be said, I checked ratings for Hollywood and Bollywood movies, and while Hollywood ones were mostly consistent for what I’d give the movie. Bollywood was almost never, I think I found 1–2 movies where the score made any sense.
Lets consider Dabangg (2010), the movie so bad I quit it 80 percent into the movie, has a score of 6.2/10 on IMDb and 60% on Rotten Tomatoes. With amazing reviews like by Nikhat Kazmi from ‘The Times of India’ saying:
“For anybody who wants to know what is the on-screen definition of Bollywood (read popular mainstream Hindi cinema), Dabangg is truly text book fare.”
With 4/5 score given. The full review has more points to make, such as the story is not the point, it’s just about nonsensical fun of Bollywood. I am not here to say that me thinking Dabangg (2010) is 0/10 is the only correct way to judge the movie. And very much not here to make fun of someone for liking a movie. But it getting showcased as ‘The Bollywood movie’ with it far out-scoring (what I consider) great Bollywood movies, makes me think things. You know what…
We are now ripping Dabangg (2010) now in the middle of this article. Dabangg is an unfocused mess of a ‘story’, I say that in quotation marks because I don’t know the story. I watched and rewatched a lot of the scenes, unable to grasp the story. From what I gather, its a story about how a police officer abuses his power to harass and force a woman he likes to marry him. But the way the internet and pop culture treats it, I feel I must be wrong. How can this poorly written, eye-bleeding badly cinematography-ed, with set design rivaling 3D games from 1997, and with dialogue that takes minutes to say nothing and mean nothing. Where the sound design makes me question if someone played something unrelated near me. I can go on, like how the pacing is horrible and makes me feel like they didn’t hire an editor for the movie at all. But the movie doesn’t deserve my time, me having to revisit it for this section alone makes me feel that added enough gray hairs on my head that my looks now match how cranky I am right now.
Contrast that to Mimi (2021), with the astounding score of 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. At least this time the IMDb rating is somewhat sane with 7.8/10. I don’t have reviews like Dabangg to clarify my point for this movie. Mimi is a flawed movie, but it’s not 25% in a world where Dabangg is 60%. There’s almost a point here about how blockbuster Bollywood is both a prime example of the bad of Bollywood, or any film industry, while it being that popular also freezes the industry from evolving. While less big flicks, who try, are criticized without the consideration for how the environment of ratings is, making nuance look (Mimi) far worse than nothing (Dabangg). Slowly chipping away writing that tries in favor of cheap nothing.
This isn’t uncommon for any movie, where online ratings mean nothing. Is it a sign of racism that I only agreed with handful of scores on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes for Bollywood, but majority for Hollywood I watched? Maybe. Or Maybe not. The anger these both sites produced for me, made me stop reading reviews, or even checking scores after just 2 months of this project’s start. At that point I started watching movies randomly, by just checking what came up with ‘similar to this’. I did read reviews for certain movies from time to time, to confirm if what I thought was general consensus or not. I found that International reviewers tended to have worse and sometimes clearly racist reviews, compared to local reviewers who were decent or actually insightful from time to time. I will bring the worse of these reviews up when relevant here later (sneaky engagement bait or actually true, you will find out after these messages).
Chapter 3.1: English School
A lot of this perception exists out of online spaces too (now you can’t say these are just chronically online takes). The insecurity I felt didn’t come from nowhere. From a young age, it’s constantly told and forced that we should prefer English everything. English culture, fashion, everything, and especially English media. Being able to watch and understand an English movie is a praised accomplishment, while native language movie is meaningless or cringe even. We as kids are rewarded when our English gets good enough to understand Hollywood, but understanding Bollywood? Who cares. Your worth and intelligence is judged based on how good your English is.
This creeps out of childhood into the general culture. As teenagers, watching Hindi/Urdu media is ‘cringe’ and ‘shameful’. Something to keep to yourself. But if you listen to English music, movies, shows, books. You get praised. At middle to high school age, that praise could be popularity, compliments from teachers, hell sometimes even better grades just because you engaged with English media. Anyone can watch Urdu/Hindi stuff, but only extremely smart and talented can watch and understand English media, the superior media that has more depth or whatever to local stuff. If you were really ultra mega brained you watched French, but that’s not racist because this is the only prideful thing for the French.
I am not denying that this is a societal problem. People have said this is basically mandatory because any good career, or even life, nowadays requires knowing English extremely well. Promoting English media in many ways is seen as an easy way to refine and improve English skills. The side effect, intentional or not, is that local media and art is considered inherently less. It doesn’t get one compliments, popularity or grades. So anyone who consumes that much be just illiterate or poor or both. Or someone who is sabotaging one’s life.
The way media consumption was treated for you as a kid. Dismissing local ones. Influenced me, and you, on how we think of them as adults. Which is why it always felt bad to watch a Bollywood movie, like a waste of time. I could be watching something better, which was synonymous with English. Overcoming and realizing you enjoy Bollywood is hard enough with all this. But groups around you still have the those internal beliefs.
Me doing these ‘projects’ to watch Bollywood were maybe just an excuse. A way to legitimize watching something I enjoy without getting somewhat harsh or insulting comments. It’s not just praise you don’t get by watching Bollywood, it’s the subtle bullying everywhere you get for even considering them. In many crowds and gatherings, just saying “I watched a Bollywood movie” felt like it was always start of a joke, begging for a punchline. People would tangentially admit how dumb they feel for liking Bollywood as a kid, but they are matured now. I was too part of that crowd for a while, when I switched completely to Hollywood at one point. Watching Marvel movies and feeling amazing that I can understand English and the better stories™️ than Indian stuff (feel free to quote this to make fun of me r/moviecirclejerk).
Even with the veil of legitimacy the project gave me, basically watching Bollywood for research. I got insulting statements said to me frequently. I did stop caring and not being around those crowds eventually (But not before I started writing this! You have to see me come to obvious realizations now!). Me watching these movies just to conclusively prove that Bollywood is or isn’t bad, was still considered shameful. Not everyone was like this. But enough people said mean or insulting things, whether intentional or not, that I just cut back on talking about this topic once again.
Chapter 3.2: Obvious Realizations
I mentioned I had changed over the year of this project. One change was I stopped grouping criticism. Previously mentioned ‘Marvel’ and ‘Star Wars’, I stopped thinking or calling them bad as a whole. Because a blanket answer to ‘is either franchise bad?’ isn’t possible without heavy asterisks to give nuances.
But if those can’t be blanket-ly labeled, the entire premise of judging Bollywood as a whole falls apart. It was already quite ridiculous to try to judge the industry as a whole, but after this project, realizing just how diverse Bollywood is. Its impossible to have a judgment call on it for quality.
The reality is, if I had made the graph and reviewed all the movies I planned to, it might not have mattered much anyways. Because there is no answer to “Is Bollywood good or bad?”, because it’s not a real question. I can say ‘its a mix of good and bad’ and people might nod along. But the same people as the one who’s comment started this project, would just nod towards a punchline by naming a bad Bollywood movie. Or think I was joking saying its a mix.
I can write a myriad of articles or reviews and noting the good in Bollywood. With specifics. Like how cinematography and use of light in ‘Nazaar Andaaz (2022)’ is so gorgeous it transports me to its world just by the camera. Or how the self aware songs of ‘Bang Bang (2014)’ add so much personality to the characters in the movie without breaking the movie’s flow, as is the common assertion about Bollywood songs. Or how the tight writing in ‘Blackmail (2018)’ makes it endlessly re watchable, each time making me notice something that makes me go crazy on how even the smallest details and background changes add to the story and theme. Or how the colors of ‘Golmaal Again (2017)’ and its set design makes me feel joy, the greens, the browns, the blues, the love poured into the colors, sets, costumes, makes me happy that I am watching the movie. I can go on, and that was kind of the plan of the project. But I don’t think it will change the perception.
It’s very clear to me that Bollywood is amazing. It has flaws, but none that places like Hollywood don’t have, to similar proportions. Some flaws might be more obvious in Bollywood, like misogyny, but trust me its not unique to it or higher in it.
Simply asking the worth of an entire industry, with so many diverse productions isn’t possible. But easy to believe and easy to dismiss. A good movie can be refuted by any vague enough critique. A bad one, is just used prove the entire industry is bad.
Is Hollywood good? Hollywood is around about as diverse as Bollywood. Productions a year are extremely high there. There’s a huge chance there’s some Hollywood movie that’s far worse than the worse of Bollywood. And maybe it’s good stuff have just as much flaws as the good stuff in Bollywood. There’s a lot of misogyny and bigotry in Hollywood too, I’d argue far more striking bigotry than Bollywood at times. Then is Hollywood bad? Maybe your answer is no, and then I don’t know how to explain further that Bollywood can’t be a blanket bad either.
But you may be a smarty pants, saying ‘yes, Hollywood is bad too’. I was there’s too, all I can tell you is. You not acknowledging there might be biases, like racism, involved that make you think Bollywood is bad. Can and does further dismiss Bollywood while Hollywood is un-impacted by that due to post colonial power structures.
Chapter 4.1: The art of it all
Art is a significant part of any culture. Definition of art may vary, but even the arguments for what is art are rebellious in nature. Just as art is for cultures. Art allows one, or a group, to express everything about themselves and others. It can express words without saying anything, it can express rebellion without rage, and it can connect people in a way that other things really just can’t.
You probably hold some form of art to a high regard. Maybe something that connects you to your home, or your childhood. Maybe its art made by someone special to you. It could be a music disc, where a single melody can make you journey across times, almost touching fragments of your past in the tones and sound.
It could be a book, that doesn’t connect to you personally. But whose words displaces you to a world just by reading (I will judge if that world is Hogwarts).
Or maybe its a very old historical artifact, that you can’t quite understand, but the glimpse it gives you to its past makes you happy you saw it.
Art can preserve a history, a culture. It can connect people together, spread a message. Even allow people to tell their stories, in ways they might not have been able to otherwise. A painting could be their story, or maybe a movie.
The way to suppress a culture, or people in general, seems straight forward then. Suppress their art, remove it, and make them dislike it. Without art, cultures lose at least some of their identity and strength. What was their culture becomes disliked and discarded. A cultural way to decorate is discarded for another culture’s perceived superior decor. A soft color connecting to the cultures available resources or history, becomes seen as old fashioned.
As you might’ve figured out by now, the lesson in shame isn’t liking Bollywood. Or even disliking it. It’s about how that question even being asked is a shame. A culturally spread shame to discard one’s own art. To appreciate only the ‘superior’ art by our ex-colonizers. After all, our art is cringe, outdated, bigoted, and other fancy words to easily throw without checking to easily dismiss an entire diverse section of cultural art.
You might tell me I am over thinking, or over assigning worth to Bollywood. It’s not a representation of culture, you might say. It’s corporate, the real art of the culture are that famous monument that white people also think have worth. Bollywood is just gentrified corporate art, made for profit, it doesn’t represent culture or neocolonialism. It’s meaningless.
There’s truth to the argument that Bollywood is corporate and for profit. It’s also very easy for me to go back a chapter and point out how Hollywood is phrased the same way but it doesn’t impact it, it impacts art like Bollywood. While that does hold up as an argument, I want to explore things further.
Art is inherently political. I wasn’t joking about its rebellious nature. Dismissal of this fact is an easy way to not only discard culture and values, but to also give in to the messaging of people in power. Art is the mere expression of human form, if you can’t appreciate a certain kind of art, the least you can do is not dismiss the idea that it can still hold meaning.
The worst painting still got made because someone believed in it. The worst movie still got made because someone somewhere not only funded it, but someone worked on it too. At worst almost the complete production of the art, from start to finish, was so corporate it was basically a money laundering effort. Even then, it being made not only reflects a culture, but the laziness of corporate efforts. Becoming an allegory of the greed that made it happen. But also sometimes, become the clearest mirror of the culture. A product made with little effort unmasks the creators biases and views better than a product with effort. A safe, corporate, and generic movie has meaning still, because it tells you what the culture, or at least the expected audience, commonly accept as ‘safe’ and ‘generic’.
Dismissal of such art with lazily crafted arguments of ‘corporate art’, or ‘bigotry’, without consideration can work sometimes. But applying it to an industry like Bollywood, or any massive group of art of any kind, is not only offensive. But down right dismissive and elitist.
Bad art dismissed by one can have consequences. Maybe you dismissed a movie for its corporately safe plot, but another person felt it reflected how the world should work and is in the front lines of gentrification now (insert joke about how Marvel is making grays popular). Or more realistically, your dismissal of a group of arts disconnects your friends, acquaintances, and even children from what could’ve been an easy intro to their culture and values. Allowing for people in power to inject their culture onto them, after all that art is fine and better right? Slowly that message spreading, dissolves out a group of art, removing culture they had.
Using vague judgment as a catch all of anything is bad, nothing different when that is used for art. But we are encouraged to do that, especially for art culturally irrelevant to anyone in power.
Burning a library is far less effective than just teaching enough to shame that library’s users. Eventually the library will be empty enough, and the filled seats won’t be spreading what they read for the fear of shame.
Dismissing art chokes the stories of people who might teach or connect. It isolates people who have no mirror for their struggles, as their struggles stories are shamed out of their lives. It embeds the idea of inferiority of existence and expression of that culture. Everyone says their expression is bad, the arguments make some sense enough of the times, so their identity and culture must just be shameful.
Chapter 4.2: Indian makes art (insert laugh-track)
Bollywood isn’t actually new. But I felt it was for a long time. Arguments, phrasings, discussions, almost everywhere I saw growing up implied that Bollywood is new. The implication was always that we gained access and skill to make movies, at all, recently. Dumb Indians like us couldn’t have possibly been there doing it since the start?
Imagine my shock learning Bollywood is ancient. Well as ancient as Hollywood. It’s time to debunk myself (and who knows maybe it was just me who felt movies here were new, but this is my self realization article god dammit). Bollywood, or as it was started as, Bombay cinema (“Bombay” Hollywood = Bollywood (mind blown emoji + explosion cat gif here)); would be nearly 130 years by the time I finish writing this (and 140 by the time a single person has read this). Maybe you need to sit and sip a drink after learning that, like I did. But maybe not.
It’s important to understand that Bollywood isn’t new. ‘New’ is often easily dismissed by people, or assigned less value than the old. ‘Centuries old traditions’ are considered more valuable than a new way created a few years ago. While this assumption of new being less valuable isn’t something I support, it is still widely assumed anyways. Which makes it important to relay the info, when something isn’t, in fact, new.
It wasn’t an industry back when it started, it was a way for the British to entertain themselves. And then to pass that for profit onto the general populace ^source. Overtime, the practice of making movies expanded, not just Bombay made them. But the name Bollywood stuck around, eventually becoming the semi-official name for the industry. Though production houses and releases might not agree from time to time.
Bollywood is the biggest movie production industry in the world (Priti H. Doshi, Copyright Problems in India Affecting Hollywood and “Bollywood,” 26 SUFFOLK TRANSNAT’L L. REV. 295, 314 (2003)). Outpacing Hollywood productions since basically the start. Budgets were smaller than Hollywood, but they rose. Profits were lower, but they rose. But Bollywood remains far less centralized and industrialized to this day, making its production quality and stories far more diverse than Hollywood. There’s even an argument to be made that stories are much more ‘real’ because of differing standards in movie censor/rating boards in the two industries, but that might be for another time.
Negative perception of the industry isn’t new either. British gave it a start, to basically entertain themselves (“Bollywood/Hollywood” by Madhavi Sunder, prof. Law, U.C. Davis doi: 10.2202/1565–3404.1269). Indian audiences wouldn’t even get to view the movies until after the British were done with it. English movies were often brought to Indian theaters to play; and were used to teach how to make a movie. Even though both Hollywood and Bollywood started at the same time, Hollywood was still shown as superior, something us inferiors could learn from.
This idea of Hollywood being superior remains still, with many production houses coming to Bollywood from time to time to ‘improve the movies’ here. Well, that’s a bit exaggerated, they come here to profit by making their own movies in this massive market. Studios like Disney, Paramount, and a lot more have, and still try to, bring the Hollywood here. Sure, mostly it is for profit. But their movies made here are clearly and repeatedly being styled like Hollywood. Most often ending up failing hard, both critically and financially. Yet they still continue to style it like Hollywood. Almost like its a sign that they think their way of doing things is superior. A few productions did change, resulting in profits, but so many attempts to Hollywood-ify movies here failed before that. Movies like ‘Dangal (2016)’, produced by Disney, were one of few that embraced the Bollywood way and actually were successful. Though even then, the western story structure and ‘clean’ portrayals of the native people are on partial display in these movies, like Dangal.
Maybe it mostly is just a profit motive for them to come here and make movies on formulas that work in Hollywood. Corporations are of course blind and resistant to risks. But it still is a reflection of ideas floating around in our culture, where the Bollywood way, to some, is inferior. Reading many reviews, I found one movie’s clashing to elaborate this point perfectly.
“Indian children have no lack of superheroes from the west to watch, but Zokkomon gives them not only the first Indiansuper hero…” from Zokkomon: Film Review by Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter.
A critic saying this movie gives Indian kids their first superheo, is a prime example of ignorance I have been mentioning. Ignoring the many superheroes the kids already had. Zokkomon was released in 2011, superhero movies like Krrish (2006), Enthirian’s Chitti (2010); and the entire franchise of Shaktimaan (1977-present). And that’s just the movie franchises (yes all 3 are franchises) that I’ve seen myself. There’s loads more in tv shows, cartoons, and probably movies that I haven’t seen myself. Now, would you guess that Zokkomon is a movie made by Disney India? You should. Because it’s true. They would, potentially, have the money to distribute it more widely than an average Indian made movie. And even, hypothetically, spread the idea that it is the first Indian superhero movie, at least to foreign reporters. And the person reporting it didn’t even do a small search check to find if it is actually the first superhero. Because our movies aren’t worth the effort, even for a review. Or maybe our superheroes don’t count because they weren’t made by a Hollywood production house, in the Hollywood style.
I don’t personally want to create drama with any critics or reporters. I have tried not to name many in this article, minus the few I thought were needed. I can bring up more and more critiques and articles and news stories that are either ignorant or outright racist regarding Bollywood. And maybe someday I will, but all I want to do here is make my point clear. There are ignorant and racist critics out there for Bollywood, and while the example above is easy to dismiss. It getting published might’ve convinced someone out there it’s true. Hell, I found it without searching for it, it’s in the Wikipedia article for the movie as one of the positive reviews.
It’s not hard to imagine someone coming across that and dismissing the entire industry. It’s not hard to imagine that critic websites like IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes are biased against Bollywood, intentionally or not. It’s not hard to imagine someone seeing a mediocre review of a great Bollywood movie and never even giving it a chance. Movies like Mimi (2021) getting a horrible score, while being a masterpiece (in my opinion (but let’s be honest I’m just smarter than every other critic)).
Chapter 5.1: Bollywood 2: The Conclusion
The sad part is, most of the bad and ignorant stuff I have read comes from Indians. It’s not just western critics/reporters/etc. The embedded shame isn’t unique to me, it’s spread to everyone over time. It’s easy for me to say this to make fun of others who haven’t even realized this shame isn’t rational. But I am not here to make fun of anyone. It’s difficult to break such a gigantic and invisible cage of shame, that’s constantly re-enforced by others. I didn’t break out of it, I merely started seeing the cage.
We can all try to maybe reconsider why we dismiss art of any kind. And when we do, can we explain to ourselves why we did it? My main reason to write this article was to do exactly that. After writing the first draft, when I hadn’t realized the shame part. When it was just reviews of many movies. I scrapped it. Because one point kept repeating, ‘I don’t understand why this movie is considered bad’. Resulting in me realizing that maybe the popular opinion is biased from shame. Minus a few stinkers like Dabangg. I don’t really dislike any movie I’ve seen throughout this journey. Most are flawed, bigotry is rampant, writing and cinematography can fail at times. But I am at the place now, where it’s hard to not find something meaningful from everything I watch. Even Dabangg reads as an on-screen representation of Bollywood if I squint hard enough.
It’s very easy to pretend that this doesn’t matter. Maybe you never watched Bollywood, or stopped and don’t see a reason to go back. Which is fair, you do you. I am not here to convince anyone to go watch Bollywood. It’s to say that, the opinion on these movies do matter.
An irrational cultural shame like this, impacts more than just the movies. You might view the practices, traditions, everything from this culture as shameful. But always remember, the wool hoodie from the west will burn you in the sands of Gujrat.
Wouldn’t you rather disagree with your cultural practices yourself? The cultural shame, if not confronted or even acknowledged. Can only lead one to believe another culture’s views on the culture you feel ashamed of. And I don’t think that’s very intellectually sigma thing to do.
Beyond just one’s own life, the shame matters in a wider context too. If enough people don’t care about the entire industry, like Bollywood, the industry doesn’t just die out. It starts catering to the lowest common denominator. Bollywood is one of the biggest movie industry in the world. Yet it’s reputation continues to forever be ‘low quality’ and ‘bad’. From the era it started during British reign, to it’s independent and broad ventures throughout it’s rest of existence to now. It’s just widely considered bad.
When the culture it’s from considers it shameful to call these movies good. Where spending precious thinking energy on being critical for these movies is considered wasteful. Where professional criticism in the industry is ignored and dismissed. It just leads to the industry trying less and less. Because no matter what they do, the critical opinion is always mediocre or bad. But tickets sell the same. They start to do the same safe movies Hollywood is starting to be known for (Insert topical bad Marvel movie’s name here).
This isn’t unique to Bollywood. Hollywood started off as loose small studios making movies and shorts. World Wars accelerated the need for entertainment, fueling the industry to grow bigger, much faster. As production value of the industry grew, the risks the movies took grew less and less. Unique productions got shifted to indie and low level cinema, where they didn’t get a far reach or a wide release. And when blockbuster movies hit the silver screens, the gentrified, safe, and formulaic Hollywood emerged. Mainstream Hollywood is now mostly that, low risk, generic movies. The days of standing out in the mainstream are over. As a few production companies rule the landscape, with the power to force their reach everywhere.
Movies weren’t considered art when they started in any of the industries. Getting the title of art was a way to legitimize something, and movies for a long time weren’t considered a legitimate art. Arguments used to dismiss movies from being art, would sound very familiar to ones used to dismiss Bollywood, maybe minus the racism. Arguments weren’t usually more than it’s bad because it’s new, or it’s crude, or unfamiliar to what art has been, or, relevantly, too mainstream to be art. Ghosts from 1600s reading this will tell you this is how they dismissed theater plays too, from being considered art. By the time either was starting to be widely considered art, it had became extremely profitable. Production houses with a lot of money, could easily shift public opinion on if it’s art.
Indian movies, are in a unique boat. Where its divisions, like Bollywood, and Tollywood, democratize its power and don’t let it easily gentrify. But it is slowly, but surely, becoming similar to Hollywood. Where a few production houses control most of the industry, with power to control what even gets made. Many of which are either subsidiaries of Hollywood studios, or were bought by them eventually.
Bollywood is a big milky cash cow. The cultural shame, helps it remain that way to some extent. Critical analysis of the industries aren’t as frequent. They somewhat lack both the need and pressure to be good. Their blockbusters have gotten just as, if not more, generic than Hollywood’s. Smaller productions retain some level of un-safe goodness. But every passing year, even those get just a little bit less good.
This Hollywoodness of Bollywood, at least the blockbusters, has similar impacts as those Hollywood blockbusters. They freeze the culture’s most safe and generic ideas, while suffocating less popular and more interesting ideas out of the market. They slowly became the face of the industry, and for Bollywood, it becomes that easy target to dismiss the industry entirely. Even though the industry produces more stuff than Hollywood. The easy dismissal of the industry because the mainstream is bad, further ruins chances of a small production having any success.
Your view, opinion, what you think and share. It matters. If you never considered Bollywood good due to the social shame, everytime you heard an easy critique shouting ‘bigotry’ ‘generic’ ‘badly made’ etc. for a Bollywood movie you believed it. Everytime you heard a praise, it was difficult to believe.
Maybe you were a talented individual interested in being part of movies. Maybe a camera person, or a writer, or a music mixer, or whatever. Your assumptions about Bollywood lead you to seek work in Hollywood. Maybe you did consider work in Bollywood but were convinced by others to not do it.
Few that want to work in movies stay here, it’s far more prestigious to leave. Those who stay are shamed even if they make it big. Because the end goal is always to work in Hollywood to a lot, for so many reasons discussed here. Overtime Bollywood doesn’t even keep it’s passionate creatives. Losing more of it’s chance of goodness.
Being critical of these movies might seem pointless too. After all blockbuster movies ones continue being as is for decades. But maybe sharing critical view of the movies, while curbing the bias, allows someone to see the movie through your lens. To me, that seems it can have more of an impact than just ignoring the industry. Least we can do though, is just not assume bad by default.
The shame. It not only prevents people from finding stories that relate to them and their culture. It slowly poisons and gentrifies those stories from dismissal and subtle hate. It slows or ends progress towards something better. It allows those gentrified stories to take hold of how the culture and its politics progress, by freezing safe generic concepts for the masses. It continues the colonial pursuit of dismissing non-white art as art.
It doesn’t make anyone sophisticated to dismiss the industry. Even if you see every single Bollywood and dislike all of them, you can never dismiss the idea that it can still can hold some value and hope for someone. Some connection and passion. Dismissal and hate for the industry doesn’t improve the movies, it doesn’t make them disappear. It only makes them have less of a reason to try.
Chapter 5.2: Epic Log
The hardest part of writing this, or well any article, is the conclusion. There’s been several drafts of this article, but none had a conclusion in it. Given this article basically started as a review of many Bollywood movies, the first idea for a conclusion was saying Bollywood is good with data. When it became about addressing why I felt ashamed, the ending was me figuring out how to stop feeling that shame.
The truth is, I am still somewhat ashamed of liking Bollywood. All I have accomplished is understanding why I feel it. It’s not a true feeling, it’s just what I’m constantly told. To this day, I get insults, some more obvious than others, for ‘wasting’ my time on Bollywood. Figuring out why I feel the same didn’t erase it, neither did it change anyone around me. But now, when I see a Bollywood movie I like, I can feel it in me without that nagging voice telling me this is unsophisticated and a waste of time. And maybe that made it all worth it.
Chapter 5.3: No witty title, just a list of movies if you wanna watch
There won’t be scores for the movies, I don’t think scores can ever work. I might have a note for each recommendation below.
Badhaai Do (2022)
Queer people coming out and living life
Mimi (2021)
A traumatizing story about westerners exploiting poor Indians, basically neo colonialization’s impact.
Golmaal 4 (2017)
A comedy movie, writing is hit or miss, I just love its sets and colors.
Happy Bhag Jayegi (2016)
Underrated comedy and drama movie, about an actual real depiction of a strong woman.
Nazar Andaaz (2022)
One of my favorite movies of all time. It’s a slow and peaceful movie about a disabled person living life.
Pyaar Impossible (2010)
Inoffensive (mostly) hetero romance story about nerd getting the popular girl. It’s a romcom, so not for everyone.
Blackmail (2018)
Excellent dark comedy. Don’t read anything before watching.
Enthiran (2010)
I’m a tech nerd, this is a movie that pleases my tech nerd side. It’s not for everyone, I always skip songs. But it’s such a cute and honest depiction of robot tech that I love it.
Kaagaz (2021)
One guy’s fight to get anything done using bureaucracy, after he’s declared legally dead.
Barfi! (2012)
One of the few rare good depictions of autism.
Thai Massage (2022)
I am biased because I like movies about someone coping with getting old. This is one of them.
102 Not Out (2018)
I am biased because I like movies about someone coping with getting old. This is one of them. (again)
Shiv Shastri Balboa (2022)
I am biased because I like movies about someone coping with getting old. This is one of them. (again) (again)
Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022)
A great depiction of modern history of sex work in India.
Chapter ?: Thoughts Irrelevant
Thank you everyone who read this. Let me know if you have anything to say about this all, it’s my first deep dive article so who knows if it even makes sense. Also thanks to everyone who proof read (especially those who read multiple drafts of this mess).
I am currently posting this and future articles on Medium. But as I'm indecisive and paranoid, I might change to something else, with notice here ideally.
You may be reading this in various sites where I thought it’s suitable to post. The Medium one will be linked in those places as well. If you have recommendations on where else to post, let me know. I might use that whenever I finish my next one in the coming 50 years or so.
Article released under license CC 4.0. Use with attribution. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
