Why we criticize Bollywood so much?

When we talk about Bollywood, for the foreigners, it paints a picture of actor and actress singing a song, dancing while running around the tree, and for our own people it starts and ends with some famous names and their work. But with time, and the reach of the Internet the thinking of the people is changing rapidly and people are actually supporting the talent over popularity in the mainstream, but still there is a lot of hate for Bollywood especially in youth, why exactly, let us discuss about it.

What Bollywood is all about?

Well movies everywhere represent the culture of their own country, Bollywood, in that regard is the mirror of India or is it? Well, it totally depends on what kind of movies we are talking about here, if we talk about the meaningful cinema, then India stands on the top position in world cinema, but alas, people out there only know about a few of the great Indian directors like Sir Satyajit Ray. But if go a little deeper India has always been abundant with great directors, it is just that the exposure that they deserved. Then on the other hand, there is the commercial cinema and that doesn’t need any kind of explanation as it is simply the area where movies are made to make money and not the mirror of a culture and society. Bollywood is indeed one of the most famous movie making industry around the world, but sometimes, people in the industry make the mistakes of getting inspired through the wrong medium and that brings us to our principle question.

Why people nowadays criticize Bollywood?

Since originality in work is fading, only limited movies out of hundreds in Bollywood comprises of the original idea. But how do people get to know that if the idea is original or as they call it ‘Inspired’. Well Internet, ever since people got a hold of it , they got introduced to the world cinema and slowly we came to know that some of the most famous songs and even some of the famous movies were actually a frame to frame rip off of the original movies. That is when Bollywood lost the trust. For instance, take a recent incident, Bombay Velvet came out, and the people all over the social media literally rejected it, saying that it was not impressive and some even said that it looked like the amalgamation of Once upon a time in America, Casino, and The Godfather, all movies from the Hollywood. The whole Internet got divided into two groups and started bashing each other, but let’s discuss the truth. When Mr. Anurag Kashyap mad The Gangs of Wasseypur, Dev-D, Black Friday and the unreleased Paanch, it was the same Internet which stood in his support and fought with people over it. So what does it tell us? It tells us that, people now can tell the difference between an original and an inspired work. And that is why now since people know that almost more than half the movies in Bollywood are either a rip off of the south Indian cinema or inspired from some incredible Korean Cinema (I am talking about Ek Tha Villain the worst remake in the history of remakes) people get angry and they simply start criticizing Bollywood, and why shouldn’t they, it is just not about the money they pay for watching movies, it is about the pride and love of people for the cinema which makes them angry when they get cheated.

What is Bollywood’s future?

Well the good news is since people are becoming more the industry too is leaving the old way of doing things and concentrating more on the original ideas rather than the rip offs or the inspiration. Yes, we get to see the trash sometimes, but we also get to see some of the gems like Kahaani, A Wednesday, D-day, Lunch Box, Paan Singh Tomar, Fukrey (now that movie was pretty original and hilarious), Udaan, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Rang De Basanti (I am still in shock.) and most recently Masaan which famously got a five minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival. So the future is pretty bright, we hope Bollywood once again get to see the golden age where we can once again feel proud about Indian Cinema and what it represents.