Bad Movies... Whose fault is it? Are the directors/producers to be blamed or is it the audience? The answer is "Both."

If you want to see our "audience in action," just visit one of the local theaters that play an Indian movie. The crowd that watches a movie in a theater in the U.S.A. is as bad as the gutkha-spitting crowd in a rowdy Indian movie hall. We have people who already watched the movie telling us the story loudly, guys making obscene remarks when a heroine does her "jhatka", kids running around crying, and so on and so forth.

Every time an Indian movie is released, there are discussions about whether it's a "class movie" or a "mass movie." That's because, people who make these arguments, actually believe there is a sizeable "class audience" in India. Nothing can be further from the truth.

There is really no distinction between the riksha wallah who dances in front of the screen and the so-called sophisticated audience - the balcony crowd, that is. In reality, it's this "sophisticated audience" that puts up huge pictures of their favorite hero - cut-outs as they are called - and garlands those pictures with a kind of fetish you would find, only in the people who practice S&M.

It's amazing that as time, technology and creativity move along, Indian audiences are still stuck with movies that recycle the same five or six stories all the while.

It's pretty hilarious to read the "back flap" of the DVDs, where they give you a gist of the movie. A typical review: (The bad English is deliberate.)

"Raja, a poor mechanic, falls in love with Brinda, a rich damsel. Brinda's father send goons who beat up Raja who loses his memory. As fate has it, Raja comes back into the life of Brinda, but doesn't recognize her. Will Raja ever recover? Will Raja and Brinda marry? To find out, watch the "Kyon ki Pyaar bhee kabhee nafrat thee."

Of course, people rent it not because they actually want to find out if Raja and Brinda are going to get married. Even a five year old can predict the outcome of an Indian movie. They rent it because the movie has either their favorite star, or songs they like, or a separate "comedy track" that can be watched without following the actual movie.

Should we care so much about the movies? Aren't they just made for entertainment?

Consider an incident my friend narrated. He once visited a guy who has been living in the U.S. for a long time. In the course of conversation, this man told my friend that his daughter loves "Indian culture." The beaming father then took my friend to her room and the only "culture" my friend noticed in the room was a huge poster of 'shirt-less" Salman Khan.

Movies are a big part of Indians' lives and the fact that they are so rotten tells some thing about us.

Our elite producers/directors:

The rich and the mighty of the society, apart from promoting nepotism, like forcing their sons as heroes on the audience (but never their daughters as heroines), and making a load of crap in the name of "healthy commercialism," also have the gall to lament that "nobody makes good movies any longer."

The hypocrisy of the people who earn their living from the movie industry is staggering. Says a Telugu producer, " I always wanted to make a masterpiece. So, I am not going to compromise for money on this particular movie." That "particular movie," about a devotee, had a song that featured a male protagonist throwing fruits at the female character's navel! Talk about masterpieces…

Great directors have faded away. Good actors seem to have switched jobs. Most of the talented artistes have sold their soul just to earn the daily bread. Like Communism does, the mediocrity associated with our movies has succeeded in pulling everybody down to the same low level.

Producers who own the theaters, control the distribution networks and run the studios where the movies are made, dictate what kind of movies audiences should watch. Then they organize "hundred-day functions," where everybody gives shields away to everybody else. With a straight face, they talk about the how the movie was oh-so-different from the rest. Some people even touch the feet of all the right persons, to make sure they will share the dais again in the future.

There are flashes of brilliance - a good song, an occasional provoking movie, a stray award, a decent actor - but no wholesome movies. Even if there's one, a one-good-movie-to-a-hundred-bad-movies ratio is simply not enough. Professionalism doesn't mean completing a movie within time and budget.

If ever there was a vicious circle, Indian movie making qualifies as one. No respite seems in sight.

With hordes of film-crazy Indians cheering them on, just like the Roman crowds who egged on the gladiators, Indian movies continue to emit puss like the cankerous wounds on a diseased person, which refuse to go away.

Unless Kalki comes down and wipes them out…

More articles by Murali Chari

1. Do we need a movie on Bhagat Singh?
2. Raja and Rani visit Timbuktu!
3. Worshipping False Heroes
4. The English Media bites the dust
5. "Where We Indians Got it Wrong...."
6. "All this for the rest of us!"
7. Do we deserve the movies we get?
8. The 'friends' you need to dump
9. Raja and Rani visit Timbuktu!
10. "Where we Indians got it wrong….."
11. "When 98 is greater than hundred"
12. "How Easy It is...."