We don't often pay much attention to what is happening to our subconscious minds! But in a nation where movies are often as good as a religious experience, it is important to be aware of this connection between what we see and what we retain in our minds.
Last week I was traveling through the famous local trains of Mumbai,and saw a little kid dancing to a tune of some Salman Khan movie. I couldn't hear the song as it was playing on a low volume on his mother's cellphone but the dance moves made it clear it was a Bhaijaan special. Included in his little routine was a rather striking move that disturbed me a bit. He took his little brother by the collar, shook him and returned to his bhai type moves. I can only assume it was to show his power,his confidence, but the level of violence in a simple dance move stunned me. This is a kid barely 6-7 years old and he is shaking his younger brother (barely 3 or 4 years old) by the collar? Where did he learn this? And why are his parents immune to this? Then I flashed back to all the songs I could remember, of Salman Khan and his patent Dabangg and Bhai moves. They are all about 'Me, look at ME, I am so powerful, I make my own rules, I don't follow anybody else, I am everything, I am the universe, I can shake your world, I am the Bhai, everyone loves this, I am so macho, I am the asli mard'. Don't take me wrong. I have no strong feelings for Salman Khan either way. But since he is the reigning superstar of our country whom people worship, I just found it strange that nobody is worried about what his 'macho' attitude is doing to our kids???
This reminded me of another incident when I had visited my sister's college and met some of her juniors. They were talking about some classmates of theirs and frequently using all curse words you can imagine. 18-19 year old kids find nothing wrong with calling their classmates 'Bit#$' or "Basta#$' and this is considered normal??? Then I remember, all the Hollywood movies I see also liberally use curse words, especially of our heart-throbs like Leonardo di Caprio! He is one of my favorite actors but then I saw his movie 'The Wolf of Wall Street' and I literally counted more than 100 curse words within half an hour! Is this considered cool? YES, by our young generation, IT IS!
And of course we all know the notion of 'Romance and Love' as portrayed in movies. In Twilight, a worldwide blockbuster, we see Edward Cullen, a stalker who enters Bella Swan's room without her permission and she considers him as her soulmate! Recently,I saw Baahubali, a fantastic movie, but one particular scene stood out. The main hero goes to woo his lady and how does he do that? He almost strips her,then forcibly puts makeup on her,she keeps squirming and trying to fight him, he keeps twisting her ankles and finally when she sees her 'transformed' face and how beautiful she is, she falls in love with him! How can anybody find that romantic??? Well, why not. We have lyrics like 'Kab tak roothegi chikhegi chillayegi..ek din haseena maan jaayegi'. I will not even start describing how horrific those lyrics are and remind me of all the kidnapped women in the world, many of whom are found later trapped in someone's basements! Is it a wonder then that we hear of so many stories where jilted 'lovers' throw acids on women's face?
When we see someone 'cool' on screen, we want to emulate them. And if that cool person is punching someone else and not getting punished for that or forcing a woman to like him and the woman does, then our kids also learn that this behavior is okay. It is normal!
When we see our biggest blockbusters spreading violence so freely,not only in romantic scenes but in our songs, then our kids get a natural affinity for violence. They think this is how they should behave too!
When we hear our biggest heroes on screen talking in curse words, our younger generation also tries to ape them and slowly it becomes a part and parcel of their vocabulary.
I am not against fun,especially the harmless kind. But I wish more of us paid attention to what is happening around us and how our religion of CINEMA is actually creating a society that is turning dangerous inside out, the impact of a tsunami that we are perhaps not ready to acknowledge yet!
This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.
