The Male Factor

Any filmdom in the world is bound to have trends. A trend comes into being, primarily, because film makers would want to repeat certain features of a previous film or films that were successful. But, in Bollywood it may not just be a case of repeating successful elements. Trend can be the result of a certain propaganda too. Bollywood, one of the biggest movie industries in the world used to entertain a very large section of the Indian society for decades. Sadly, post Millennium, it caters only to a certain strata of the society and has largely ignored the rest. Even when Non resident Indians have carved a niche in Bollywood's spectrum of viewership, a major chunk residing in India is out of it.

For a long time, Bollywood was synonymous with masala movies and action was one of the prime ingredients. Until it met with its demise somewhere in the 90s, that is. Since then most Bollywood movies have been either tearjerkers or brainless comedies. This dearth of action on screen has to be analysed alongside several other factors - some natural and some enforced.

The Transformation
With the success of a few movies better known in their abbreviated forms, a section of the media went to town proclaiming that movies with action and violence at its core will not work any more. Soon, Chopra and Johar, were the names to be heard everywhere. They and their followers were the ones who churned out movies set in exotic locales and giant mansions. The sequences in their movies were stuffed with a blatant overdose of emotion. Simultaneously, the very biased media went on to paint a new picture of the male of the species. According to them, this new age man was no more macho. He was quite the opposite of a conventional man.

Shah Rukh Khan, who made a name for himself by playing violent roles in several earlier films gradually transformed to become the torch bearer for these film makers and the media. This 'Superstar', the media claimed, did not kill anyone any more, did not shrug when he cried and was sensitive to female characters! The new star became buddies with the Chopras and the Johars thereby narrowing his chances to work outside their banners.

These film makers started etching out effeminate characters for lead actors and sequences peppered with gay humour, ostensibly, for the new generation of film goers. They projected their movies as cool and urbane through the same section of the media for whom Page1 was no different from Page3.

The Multiplexes
As if the Indian society was not satisfied with the sectarianism on region, language, culture, religion, caste and wealth, all of a sudden, it was split into further two with the advent of multiplexes. Now there were two set of viewers - the ones who bought a ticket and popcorn for 700 Indian rupees and revelled in the ambiance of plush malls and the ones who were condemned to satiate their quench for movies in age old 'single screens'. The phrase 'front-benchers' met with its extinction. After all, what difference did it make if you sit in the balcony or the front bench as long as you were a lesser mortal, a wretched piece of shit, watching a movie in a single screen?

Multiplex was the in-thing, the happening place, where youngsters could hang-out, where new age film makers showcased their talent before the urban - read rich - audience. Soon a new genre named Multiplex Movies that cater to its audience was born. Action and violence was out, thanks to the media and our very own close-knitted bunch of film makers. Over the years, this syndicate found moderate success in cultivating the mindset of movie goers according to theirs. As a result, women and gays, preferring snobbish female characters and gay gags on screen formed the target audience for Bollywood movies.

The Arrest
It was a year after the great Bachhan left his prolific super stardom spanning a decade and a half when everyone sat up and took notice of a man no lesser macho than Bachhan himself. The man who could portray a distressed lover and an angry young man with the same aplomb, he was Sanjay Dutt, the one who could solely take the industry forward. But things took a different turn when he was arrested for possession of an AK56 rifle smuggled into India in connection with the Bombay bomb blasts. The crown was lost.

Thereafter, among numerous trials, terms and paroles, he lit up the screen with several tough gangster roles. But he could never be the one he was destined, as everyone believed, to be. Had the likes of Sanjay Gupta, Mahesh Manjarekar and Ram Gopal Varma made more films with Dutt, Bollywood would have had no dearth of macho roles and masculine movies.

Post Ghajini
True that Ghajini featured Aamir Khan, the individualist, that ensured such a phenomenal opening for the movie. But no one can deny that its slick action and sheer thrill were the elements that catapulted Ghajini to the top-grosser slot. It succeeded in giving Bollywood and its pseudo-stalwarts a much needed shot in the arm and elsewhere.

However, it remains to be seen if this could translate into Bollywood's acceptance of a wider audience under its wings, incorporating more people, especially men, irrespective of socio-economic segregations. Glancing at the slew of films listed for release in the near future one fails to see any effects that Ghajini might have caused. With the exception of maybe 'Wanted', all others adhere to the mushy romantic-snobbish heroine-metrosexual hero multiplex movie concept.

While Hollywood has gotten over silly romance and gay comic capers and has moved to big budget action films, a faction of Bollywood is trying hard to infuse the junk thrown out of the US into the Indian mainstream cinema. If only Wanted could pick up from where Ghajini left.