बड़े बड़े सिनेमा में छोटी छोटी बातें होती रहती है!

 Before the nonsensical title starts making sense, open the artistic window of your mind and start imagining. 

The year is 2006, you are a proud parent of two, a boy and a girl. It is Friday evening, you book tickets and go to watch a movie with your family, a typical Bollywood drama. In the movie, there is a homosexual character acting as if she is always horny and delivering double-meaning jokes. After the movie, your children ask you why that particular character in the movie was acting 'weird'. What will be your answer? Of course, you will convince them that it was for entertainment purposes, but what if they do not ask or they are not satisfied with your answer. Now, they have a very 'bright' image of homosexuals.

And according to research, movies and television have a great impact on the way a person behaves and thinks. A romantic movie can have a romantic influence, an action movie can encourage you towards fights, scandals, or cheat. Concluding, the research suggests that the basic values and behavior of people can be manipulated or engineered through these 'tools'.

Now let's come back to the Indian film city, Bollywood. How many of you have watched the 'blockbuster' movie in which a man goes to Pakistan so that a lost child can be at her home again. The movie was a big hit as it collected 300+ Cr. on Box Office. But, why am I discussing this? Was there anything wrong with the 'being human' movie? My answer is  YES. Let's check, there was a scene in which the male protagonist tells the female protagonist that by the skin color of the lost child he was convinced that she was a Brahmin or Kshatriya. I smell a lot of racism here! There are many seriously ill things in the movie. Overall if you see, Pakistanis, in general, were reflected as very honest, diligent, and kind-hearted on the other hand Indians were reflected as selfish, having low moral values, lousy and foolish. 

Not only this, there are a number of movies where you will get these ill stereotypes having a great 'soft influence on your subconscious. An IIM professor Mr. Dheeraj Sharma has conducted groundbreaking research on Bollywood.  His research team randomly selected 50 films from each decade, from the 1960s, '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s, and 2010s. So what was the conclusion of this research? According to the research, 58% of the corrupt politicians in films were Hindu 'brahmins', 62% of the corrupt businessmen were from the Hindu 'vaishya' caste. Not just Hindus, but in around 78% of films, women with 'loose character' happened to be Christians. While around 74% of films presented Sikh characters as laughable. However, 84% of Muslim characters were shown strongly religious and honest (irrespective of the fact that they were criminals).  Not only religious, but there were also 20 movies based on Pakistan. 18 of these presented Pakistani people as open-minded, welcoming, courteous and courageous. On the contrary, the Pakistani government was demonstrated as fundamentalist, welcoming, and jingoist. However, in the same movie, Indians were largely projected as narrow-minded, unwelcoming, and conservative.

Why a criminal in Hindi cinema can be seen having a 'tilak'? Why the fiercest warriors in Indian culture are only limited to sarso-da-saag/alcohol/illogical jokes? Why criminals like Abu Latif have a very fundamentalist image 'on-screen'? Why south Indians are always seen eating idli-sambhar and having cringe background music('aiyooo')? Why always the guards/watchmen are Nepalis and why they always salute as 'Shaab Ji'? Why homosexuals always talk in a seductive manner and cringe background music? Why these stereotypes are propagated in society? 

On one hand, we are being fed that equality is established in society and except few cases, no discrimination or racism is practiced. You are being blindfolded and fed the exact same things which you are advised not to eat.  It is my humble request to everyone out there, stop watching anything that has propaganda and tries to harm our culture. Watch South Indian movies, how magnificently the Indian culture is presented. Even the Bhojpuri movies have a great depiction of the pure Bihari lifestyle.  Even if you watch these Bollywood movies, keep your mind open and don't let anything settle in your subconscious. 

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of equality, it was the age of stereotypes...."

P.S.:There is no intention of creating hate for any particular race/caste/religion.

Hope it was informative and you enjoyed the blog. 

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