Bollywood: Progressive or Regressive?
The Indian film industry, dubbed “Bollywood” is the second largest movie marketplace in the world. Releasing over a hundred movies each year in the primary language of the country, “Hindi”, the industry surpassed 90 billion Indian Rupees in 2021. The movies churned out by the Bollywood industry cover every genre from romance to action. They not only tell stories but also immerse the viewer in an artistic journey of song and dance cleverly woven into the storyline, providing a true cinematic experience. Within the action genre, there are a couple movies that are simply to entertain and are purely fictional, while others take inspiration from the history of the country, educating their audience about events in India’s past, honoring the nation’s heroes.
In order to understand the inherent nationalistic pride present in these movies, there’s a little Indian history that one needs to know. India was living under British colonization for 200 years, which ultimately led to the partition of 1947, where the country was split into two- India and Pakistan. For years, there had been residual animosity between the two countries, causing political tension and conflict. This stereotyped Pakistan as “India’s biggest enemy” and created a “divide” between two religious groups: Hindus and Muslims. Overtime, this animosity between the people and religions has reduced, with India being an innately secular nation, Hindus and Muslims have lived together for the most part. However, there is an ongoing disagreement between the two countries concerning the land of Kashmir, where half the land is owned by India and the other half by Pakistan (POK- Pakistan Occupied Kashmir). The film industry has a bad habit of fanning the flames between the two countries, with their “historic retellings” that portray India and Pakistan in a light of hatred, so vastly different from reality today.
A recent movie that was released, Fighter, was an action packed - star studded film- that followed a story line similar to Hollywood’s Top Gun. Packed with Indian nationalism with a side of excessive jingoism, the storyline centers around the Indian Air Force having to execute a special mission to stop a Pakistani terrorist organization from attacking India. Right there,simply within the main premise of the movie- lies an intrinsic issue.Why does Bollywood return to the same tired storyline of Indian heroes and Pakistani terrorists even in today’s day and age? The way the main antagonist was portrayed with blow dried long hair, a bloodshot eye, built physique, and spewing words dipping with hate about India– is a boring, old and repetitive portrayal. Personally, I think there are more nuanced ways of making patriotic movies without basing the entire plot in predictable, unrealistic jingoism.
Besides the physical stereotypes of the characters, the dialogue used at some points in the movie- like “Soon every road will become India occupied Pakistan” could have been easily avoided. Lines like these leave an Indian viewer in today’s world feeling extremely uncomfortable and uneasy as this is not what our country stands for. The film has a catchy soundtrack and is a massive step for the Bollywood industry in their use of special effects and VFX, however these parts of the movie are overshadowed by the inherent hypernationalism present throughout the story.
Media especially films, are a massive influencer of public opinion. A movie like this being released to a global audience paints a certain image of the two countries and their relationship to the viewers. I am not denying that India and Pakistan have their ongoing problems- specifically regarding the land of Kashmir, but the over-exaggerated animosity in films of this kind display Indian values and people in a very specific light of extreme patriotism. Watching the movie made me disappointed that Bollywood was still making projects that are rooted so deeply in and biased narratives. It made me wonder how this would portray the relationship between the two countries to a younger audience who would not understand or acknowledge the exaggeration made in cinema.
I think it is important for filmmakers around the world,who make movies about complex and layered topics, to understand that over simplifying issues of global and cultural significance into biased narratives can have overarching detrimental effects. Art is always open to interpretation and as much as I support bold and strong opinionated movies, there should always be certain boundaries established while addressing political issues. I question how much the Indian film industry has truly progressed in the past years and if these new technologies are truly worth anything if the narrative and thought process being produced are still stuck in past ideas.
