It’s easy to criticise something just because you can. It’s more easy to think that you are right in your opinions when you have got appreciations for the same. But neither criticism means that something is trash nor the appreciation means something is perfectly great. Same happens with commercial Hindi cinema, which is often regarded as brainless and crass.
A typical Bollywood film would have action, romance, heavy dialogues, drama, songs and sometimes exotic locales. This, gives a huge volume to films and probably these are the factors which have made our kind of cinema popular abroad. Probably these are the factors which have put Hindi cinema on the global map. Is demeaning this kind of commercial cinema truly justified?
It’s very easy to say that films like Dabangg, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Housefull, Baaghi, Sultan, and Kick among others do not serve a great content and therefore films like these should not be Box Office success. However, what we fail to notice is how much entertainment quotient do these films generate. How much of employment do these films give? How much of engagement do these films have and most importantly, how much of moolah do these films get at the Box Office, which is what our film industry needs to keep making films.
How fair is it to even pit content and commerce against each other? Can’t we have films which are both commercial and content driven at the same time? Bollywood or Hindi cinema is changing, and this change is a constant process. As a viewer, one has to just keep supporting this evolution, because:
“Filmein Bas teen cheezon se chalti hai…”
