Tag: Cancel Culture

‘A Cinematic Work Needs To Be Critiqued, Not Banned’

By Lokmarg

Promita, a journalist based in Mumbai with roots in Bengal, says a movie needs to be judged by the audience and not the State. Her views:

I believe the issue around The Bengal Files should be seen in a straightforward way. If the film is propaganda, people will recognise it. If it has merit, they will respond to it. Either way, it should be the audience—not the government—that decides.

When the West Bengal government blocks the film on grounds of possible disharmony, it ends up repeating the same mistake it once criticised in others. Parties speak of freedom of expression when in opposition, but often forget it when in power. Many who once raised their voice against censorship are now silent. Freedom cannot be applied selectively.

I also connect this to my own past in Kolkata. During my graduation Part 1 and Part 2 exams at Victoria College in Rajabazar, I often noticed that some of the windows in the building remained shut. At the time, I didn’t know why. More than a decade later, when social media opened up access to forgotten accounts, I learned the truth. Those windows were part of a building that had witnessed violence and bloodshed during Partition, when a section of the city wanted Calcutta as its pound of flesh.

That discovery helped me understand why a film like The Bengal Files, directed by Vivek Agnihotri, matters. It is not just about cinema, but about bringing forward parts of history that were hidden. Eyewitness accounts had long been dismissed as exaggerations, all to maintain a carefully guarded version of secularism.

This does not mean the film is beyond question. It should be critiqued, analysed, and debated. But that can only happen if people are allowed to watch it in the first place. Suppressing it only closes the discussion before it begins.

As a journalist, I say it should be this way: trust the audience. Let them decide whether to accept, reject, or criticise a film. That is how democracy is meant to function.

As told to Deepti Sharma

Ranbir Kapoor

Ranbir Kapoor Reacts To Cancel Culture And Boycott Trends

By LokMarg

Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor, in a recent media interaction, reacted to Bollywood films and said that they are not performing well at the box office.

Ranbir said,” I will not speak about other films, I will give my own example. I had a film released a few weeks back called ‘Shamshera’, I didn’t feel any negativity, if the film doesn’t run at the box office, it’s probably because the audience didn’t like the film. Eventually, it is about the content, of course, who doesn’t want to go to the movies and experience a different emotion, cry, laugh, we all want to feel that.”
“So if the film doesn’t work, it’s because the content is not good” Ranbir added.

Post pandemic, many highly anticipated films like Aamir Khan’s ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, Akshay Kumar’s ‘Prirthviraj’, ‘Raksha Bandhan’, and ‘Bachchan Paandey’ and Vijay Deverakonda, Ananya Panday starrer ‘Liger’ failed to impress the audience at the box office and the collections of the film were not as expected.

Previously, Aamir, on Karan Johar’s chat show ‘Koffee with Karan 7’ also stated, “If you want movies to work, then eventually you have to work on the story.”

Helmed by Ayan Mukerji, ‘Brahmastra Part-1: Shiva’ stars Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Amitabh Bachchan and Mouni Roy in the lead roles.

The film is all set to hit the theatres on September 9, 2022. (ANI)

Bollywood filmmaker

‘Boycott Or Cancel Culture is The Coronavirus of Bollywood’

By LokMarg

Pankaj Narayan, a producer and filmmaker in Mumbai, tells LokMarg that Bollywood filmmakers are facing a crisis which is driven by a political ideology

Film industry is going through hard times. It has witnessed a downward phase in the past too but this time the crisis is qualitatively different because it is primarily a political one. The Boycott Brigade is just one dimension of this crisis.

When a small producer like me decides to make a film, our first brief is like- kya chal raha hai aajkal? Now talking of the trend, one cannot predict what would click. This is the age of going ‘viral’, not hit. For example, a Bhojpuri film starring Khesari Lal Yadav Rowdy Daroga has better box office collections than Aamir Khan’s Lal Singh Chaddha and Akshay Kumar’s Raksha Bandhan.

Let me share a recent incident. I had drawn the basic layout for a movie which would be titled Ravan Ki Love Story. As the producer of this project, I pitched for Nawazuddin in the lead role and discussed it with one of my prospective financiers. The financier, after listening to all the details, was apprehensive to come on board. He said: “First, the title of this movie may trigger a controversy and second, on top of that you have Nawaz (a Muslim) in the lead role. What do you want? To get my bones broken?”

I can cite many such incidents where you cannot state a specific reason for films being aborted, tanking on box office or any content going viral. As far as I understand, just three types of content is getting traction: regional vulgar content, ultra-nationalist theme and religious content. You can easily understand the reason behind the success of The Kashmir Files. It was supported by the political establishment. Same applies to the films that were doomed at the box office. They were boycotted. Even Akshay Kumar was boycotted when they trolled him calling Canada Kumar.

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Filmmakers who do not subscribe to these viral content, suffer. The problem is essentially political because this is the first time ideological differences have seeped into a micro level. Not only films, in journalism or any other socially responsible profession, we can see this binary. This divided viewer and reader has made the content creation risky.

A cinematic content is appreciated or criticised only when one gets to see that work. Nowadays viewers are first fed with a political perception through propaganda, then they resort to cancel culture etc over a flimsy issue. This boycott culture is proving to be the Coronavirus of the film industry. I have been making a remake of devotional songs to survive. Same is with many other creators. We are not sure what a lyricist would offer. How much return would it give? The problem is same even with big banners like Yashraj, etc. Only the size and scale are different.

Yashraj Films may give five flops back to back and still survive. The smaller producers are destined to be doomed. Startups will also struggle. The hidden fallout of this political crisis and boycott culture is the untimely and silent death of new talent and enterprises, for the lack of ‘oxygen’. Content is not going to save them because there are no takers and financers.

As told to Abhishek Srivastava