Randomized Thoughts

It takes an innovation to make a difference in the world. Many corporate gaints come out of disaster because of an innovation. Mustang for Ford and Pulsar for Bajaj were life savers.

Similarly cinema industry has seen many films made from time to time which had caught public imagination there by becoming part of a rich cinema history. But are these path breaking films really innovative? Typically in Indian context, a film is defined by its Hero. Likes of Amithabh's dialogues, Ranjini's style, Hritik's moves has been the USP for films in many era.

Viewed from a broader perspective, Indian audience love their cine heroes and the villains are equally disliked. Kids remember Rajini as Baasha but how many would revere Raghuvaran as Mark Antony. It goes without saying that hero worship has been a part of the semantics of word "Entertainment" in India. Annals of cinema history would reveal many actors who have determined a films success in box office relying on their popularity and a huge fan base. If movie industry is to be personified, it might just say
"Heroes may come, Heroes may go
But I go on for ever because of them."

Such is the effect of heroes on the success and failures of projects of Indian film industry.

Why should only heroes are acclaimed most of the time? The role of anti-hero is not very popular among audience. But why aren't the actors playing anti-hero as popular as their counterparts?

It may be because of Hero is the Last Man Standing. The villain may have an army of hit-men, an over-flowing inventory of all the gadgets and weapons (which even Osama Bin-Laden would love to possess), but he is still not worshiped. In contrast the hero born in a poor hapless family struggles in life and in the end defeats the villain against odds like one in a trillion is adored. Reason is villain typically is beaten in the end and our hero will be named the crowned champion as always. Public loves underdogs. And if the underdog is made to look like a normal middle-class public, its become a irresitable combination.

It may also be because it always the Hero who gets the girl. Though the villain has many girls to satisfy his carnal itches, only the hero will have a soul-mate. The hero gets to sing songs in the rain, endure group dances that the heroin would demand but hey, he gets his girl. Almost all the famous love songs portray the hero. I can't think of a single famous love song for villain and his mistress. Whenever villain is portrayed, the back ground music is switched to an ultra pitched devil of a noise. But when hero woes his girl, industry has produced some wonderful songs. In the end hero saves the girl from the evil clutches of the villain, but the villain loses his power, dignity and mistress in a swoop of 10 odd minutes climax. The writers are not generous enough to make the villain rot in hell but in the company of his mistress.

The entire genre of "Goodguy-beats-Badguy" films or stories essentially portray the good nature of the hero and bad nature of the villain in an emphatic way. But has the good nature of villains has ever been discovered by a typical movie audience. Ravana in Ramayana is a ulitmate bad-ass. He is abominable with his 10 heads. Did anyone observed that Ravana was as wise as person as to be described as a person with intelligence of 10 people? He could have been master of 10 different fields. But no, the audience want to watch a Ravana with 10 heads.

Isn't there space in the story for a villain to retain his self-dignity? There are legendary villains like Gabbar in Sholay, Mogambo in Mr.India. But they have to run like a beaten mice in the end. Atleast Ravana in Ramayana had the dignity. He says to Rama before dying "Rama, whenever people remember you, they will remember me". Only handful of villains enjoy getting their ass kicked with dignity.

It all makes me wonder, is the Indian audience atrocious in its demands or are they deliberately manipulated by the industry to shape their taste of entertainment? Why doesn't audience get to see a more good-looking, very intelligent anti-hero? The greater the villain's acumen, the sharper his plot the hero who eventually will have to rise all the more higher in stature to overcome him.

Agreed that hero has to take care of his family, pay fee of his siblings education, struggle in life and does not lose hope when broke. But isn't it odd for a hero to have a family and villain to be a loner? Even if villains do have family, why should their children be side-kick villains?

In all likelihood, the actors playing villain would get lesser paycheck than his counterpart. The audience should make judgment of a movie based on performances of its various elements, rather than just dumb hero-worship. I find some movies which were box-office hit (especially some Tamil movies and SRK movies), based purely on the heroes popularity. Movie industry like any other industry had become a money squandering industry. Profit is the decision maker. Lot of questions have been asked in this posts. Questions for which we all know the ready made answers to. The general public will always be served with the same desert with different toppings. Its left to the audience to decide what they want to eat. Its like Henry Ford saying
"Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black"

In a country where movie industry has a profound impact on its political history, where the next Chief Minister could easily have come from movie industry, shouldn't the audience be more aware and sound in its judgment? For all its history, only heroes have become popular. Wouldn't a corrupt politician use this to his advantage and pull-up a popular hero to canvass for him? Would any politician ever call villains to canvass for him? How easy is it to use this Hero-Villain divide to move mass popularity?

When will the audience judge their villains based on the performance? I would love to see the day when an anti-hero actor gets paid more than his adversary mainly because of his performance. Or an anti-hero actor becomes the next Chief Minister, based on just one criteria. He should be a good leader. That would mean that the public understands the real definition of a hero.