Black Friday: hypocrisy be damned!!
Considering that this is my first post on PFC, it might be a good idea to start with an opinion or a comment or whatever else you might like to call it. Audience reaction. Read AK’s introspective comments, spoke to Smriti and my sister, another movie maniac about it. I keep going back to the words said in the cinema hall. They haunt me still. The remind me of the horrors that might visit upon us if such fanatics are allowed to multiply and prosper in society. The Bombay riots of 1992 and the state-sponsored carnage in Gujarat (2002) seem like mere exhibits – precursors to a gruesome dream that might turn into reality anytime. Why are we allowing ourselves to be sucked into this vortex of hurt and vengeance?Reminds me of a maxim that my friend Sucharita uses quite often…something that describes the vitriol that poured out of people watching Black Friday…’do not cast pearls before swines.’
We don’t like uncomfortable things. Black Friday is uncomfortable for many. It exposes them. it bares their soul. And what do you find in there? Hypocrisy, fundamentalism, fanaticism, sadism, cruelty, Us…and Them. The film has treated Us and Them quite beautifully. It turns the concept on its head and points fingers at the self. A brave act and a difficult one to follow. Also the reason why there has been no debate on communalism and secularism after the film was released. Come to think of it, we are ruled by media messages. We are crippled by the onslaught of values and judgements that mill about on the TV screens and then cloud our own take on matters and issues. Take KANK for instance. It generated a debate on infidelity! What is worse, NDTV carried a special on it. But NDTV or any other channel for that matter does not consider the issues raised in Black Friday important enough for a public discussion on TV. Strange! Or is there something that we are missing? I don’t know. Maybe Anurag or someone on PFC might want to answer me.
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Quite true. In fact, while we were discussing this movie, a friend of mine just casually mentioned how there hasn’t been much furore or debate on the matter. Not only that she also pointed out how Parzania was not allowed to release because it showed the Hindu community in a not so good light whereas in movies like Black Friday the criminals being Muslims there has been no protest. In fact, the film has not generated the sort of debate it should have. Not because the film fails to raise such questions but perhaps because no one is ready to touch the subject again. Its easy to have a talk show and appear to be really elite and enlightened, but I guess various corporate concerns govern the choices of the media houses, which is why the real burning problems are never addressed. The editors do air them because they do not get you any trps.
*i meant don’t air them
Roshniji - Aapke baat mein dum hain, but unfortunately that is the truth yaar. But all said and done, we all should be happy that a film like black friday was made. Its all about buisness my friend. And what you have mentoined about TV channels is also very true, again for them its a matter of business Karan Johar sells, Anurag doesnt… you can find the answers now, why we are the way we are.
Roshni,hype around KANK was a creation of good PR houses. Also somewhere I read that Karan Johar had signed up with one leading news channel. No wonder that particular news channel went ga-ga about that horror of a movie and others followed the lead. Ofcourse bringing in Rani,KJ,Abhisek for interviews fanned the hype a lot.
Black Friday didn’t catch the media buzz except for reports of it’s release after long drawn court battles. One is because it lacks the star-factor and second is the topic it deals with is no longer a topic of debate. I might sound grumpy but this is not like Farenhiet that tells you things you didn’t know. Doesn’t even a kindergarten kid know by now that Dawood,sitting in Pakistan, had the remote control for these blasts. Tiger Memon was the executioner/planner. And also everyone by now knows that the Indian government is not going to do anything except catching small fries who were just a pawn in the game. Maybe if the movie would’ve been release earlier it might caught the buzz, but now it’s a good (perhaps great is apter word) visualisation of a story that we all partly know. May be this movie is helping us to fill in the dots and that’s all. And that doesn’t make a good news-story until unless the PR houses manufacture some hype out of it.
‘It turns the concept on its head and points fingers at the self.’
Thank God…finally people are gettiing what they should…looking beyond…beyond the continuity fuck ups and KK’s shoulders.
Roshni,
It’s quite easy to point fingers at the media. But I think there is only one underlying factor for the media to do what it’s doing : the audience. The audience wants this stuff and so the media is willing to provide it and make some cash at its expense.
I don’t watch television, I kind of gave up on TV news a few years back. But once in a while, I’m able to get hold of something or the other. NDTV featured a decent debate show about the whole Shilpa Shetty ‘racism’ affair. The surprising thing is most of the people debating agreed that it wasn’t racism, that it was all just a farce. It was quite surprising that a TV debate show was willing to air such views. I guess it’s not all that bad … but then again I wouldn’t know …
We can claim to be ‘enlightened’ by the truth and other such factors. But that doesn’t apply to others. A good majority of the people don’t give a damn. They are happy to go about their jobs, come home, watch some TV and sleep. And this is not just the story of India, it is the story of your common man in any part of the world. They are aware of the social issues present, they just don’t want to take that next step. They are satisfied at being aware of it, anything more is stepping into the ‘not-my-priority’ zone.
Eventually it all comes down to money (and I hate admitting that!!) And unless and until we can come to not giving a damn about money and not letting it dictate our lives, there won’t be a solution.
(somebody should fix this blog so that these long lines become a paragraph)
Previously it was leaders who were on the target of the people and cinema, now its media, which is being targetted. Fair enough, we do deserve this afterall we debated KANK but not Black Friday, but is it right that Black Friday was never debated at all? may be the movie was not debated in detail or in a single one hour long show, but was KANK debated in datail in the whole media for long? I dont think so, infact the media gave more serious debate on Bombay blasts. Anurag Kashyap chose a book to make his movie which was already published and read by many people, but can he say that either he or his movie was not debated? may be not in a single show but his sound bytes were running throughout the day. Anurag Kashyab’s plot (Bombay Blast)is explored too much in the media, on every hearing there are live feeds, live reporting and constant repitition of 1993 story. Whome does this movie exposes? I dont think anybody, the movie tell the expected story and screenplay, there were some unanswered question left unanswered in the movie, we did not get any answer of the question which were not answered by police, court or anybody. KANK was a psychological disaster but it was something new and unexpected, Black Friday has nothing unexpected. The whole world knows the connection between Dawood, Tiger Memon and the Bombay Blast, so people who wanted to have sensational cimetic experience were disappointed. I know media is biased for big names like Yashrajs, Karan Johars and SRKs but aren’t you to somebody else? Anyway I hope Mr. Karan Johar will make good movie in future so if he comes to any news channel in a debate our freternity should not be seen as as biased as it looks now…
(And by the way I dont work in NDTV at all.)
True roshni.
The point is whether we care or we don’t.
Kashyaps care and johars dont. We r not lookingfor some one to preac on us on our ways of living, but at least some one should care about the truth. Its happy time, we have people now who care
news media like any other is sold out . period. :d
pratik
to ur comment the way media functions is not as simple as audience …they create audiences …in today’s time they ae pro agencies more than news agenicies …escpecially wnen it comes to entertainment…not for nothing they are called media partners …
i meant pr agencies
Dear Rockstar
Its not the media is sold out, you can say time slots are sold out! When we say Media is sold out it sounds like we are anti-national… till now I dont think the media is anti-national…
media is not anti anybody..its pro themselves..
like everybody… isn’t it anurag?
Just watched Black Friday.
the best indian movie i have seen after bandit queen.
It can be compared to ‘Z’ and ‘battle of algiers’.
I will kill somebody if BF is not india’s pic for next yr oscars.
no kidding!
AK..you must be proud of joining my list of ‘must watch no matter what’ directors.
well others are subjective..but objectivity is the first and most primary lesson taught in journalism..and today’s media is pro-inc than pro-ink..
it itself is subjective, we need to be alive to be a journalist, we show mirror, its upto u what u see in the mirror, there are prejudices I can’t deny that but belive me, its people who drives us, like cinema, we too have commercial constrainrs, who establishes a channel for a loss, like who makes a movie to be flop, we all are being drived by people, so i guess we both are suffering from same illness and on the contrary the cause of our illness is our cure too…
I HATED the movie KANK…n many more like Krish, Dhoom2 n all that. But guess what,they all are super-duper hit. It cant be only pr,publicity, deabtes n all that. Its more than than. Check out Vivah’s box offiec report…its been declared a block buster. It had nothing but even then. If there was a single formula then everyone would have followed it na.
Black Friday….got some good publicity, hype, media coverage n all that as well. But sometimes it works, sometimes doesnt.And whoever said that famous quote….audience to chu**** hote hain saale….is true to some extent for sure.
A friend of mine says that our media is too leftist oriented - not really pro business and says is controlled by China. Any one of you feel that way? As an example, he showed me pictures of the left protesting Bush’s visit by the side of muslim communities and some of them were holding placards saying “Osama Bin Laden Zindabad’. He says the media will ignore that. This is not really film related - but I guess obliquely is.
@anurag
pro - inc rather than pro- ink….i think that sums up the whole thing.
@ mohit
someitmes the mirror is cracked , sometimes it is colored or optically coated, sometimes blurred , sometimes its surface is not flat enough to see the tru picture …impressionable minds are made to believe wha they want them to…
survival is another thing truth is another
and thats sad
comparing news media and filmmaking is like comparing the army to cricketers …
why we dont see honest people getting their due in any field
is because our media which has such power , if it thinks long term , if it rises above perosnal gains, doesnt execute that power . dont take it personally mohit but i find these media people
such wannabes.
we ae talking about films here so i will stick to films
our critics , som of these do not deserve to be called critics , i dont have a problem with taran adrash(he has his agendas , he is not a critic, he predicts box office and thats not bad) even …but there are so many of them . our critics do not know anything about cinema
awards are not used to promote talent and newer things in cinema.
phoenix…ofcourse the media hype cannot be the reason alone . but media hype is one major reason .
Pratik, I completely agree with every word of yours in comment 6 (”It’s like your readin my mind man”). No really.
Its not just the media hype. Its the people. Its the fact that the vast majority of cinegoers don’t see Hindi Cinema as a valid mirror to reality.
They’ve been trained for decades to understand that Hindi cinema, with its “vibrant colours”, “song & dance routines” and “melodrama” is purely escapist. They WANT the masala. They want films to be light and frivolous. They dont even care if the scripting is downright terrible. They still associate Hindi cinema with mindless entertainment. It’s what they’ve grown accustomed to and its what they want.
Anurag, your damn right man. Media is in it for themselves. Doesn’t matter if your sitting in India or North America, its all the same. All your getting is the part of the story which either will sell or fits into the agenda of that particular media outlet.
I used to work for a so-called “news” channel doing camera/editing. Stories would be manipulated in the name of “perspective”. Bullshit.
This one time we went to cover a story about a mother and father desperately searching for her missing 10 year old girl. The journalist told me she was going to ask a question and wanted me to slowly zoom in as a dramatic effect for the answer. As I began to the zoom, I heard the question: “Have you thought about the possibility that your daughter may be no more?”. As the mother broke down and cried helplessly, the journalist tapped my shoulder to ensure I was capturing it dramatically enough. How fucking cruel was that??
Needless to say I decided there and then that media really wasn’t for me.
tony khera and phoenix,
pls watch the actual audience response on the film eklavya and actual response of people on PFC who have watched the movie….and compare it to the media going ga ga over it ..especially the channels they have tied up with (which in this case are all the big chanels)…any comments??
Roshni ndtv carried a debate on kank because it was a media partner on that film. that debate was a promontional excercise.
i had the chance to feel what i havent for all these years-i felt hollow inside n at the same time found it difficult to keep my embroiled mind at rest!there were questions looming at large.the movie if not anti-anybody is anti-peace in the sense because it rots u from within on thinking that we were simply onlookers whlist rioteers preyed in braod daylight,we were cats lapping milk when it was poured down by our leaders,n above all we were primitive when it was required of us to showcase our inherent characteristics ,that on which we take pride in-our minds!!!what are we ashraful-maqhluqaat(most intelligent of all creatures made by God)for if we fail ourselves ?not once ,not twice but time and over again…in delhi,bombay, ahmedabad,kanpur.
i used the word ‘fanatic’ for the audience and not for the characters in BF. Something i felt i needed to clarify…
khalid..the film is not anti-peace…if anything it tells us the truth up front…and truth like i said in the post is uncomfortable…that is the USP of the film…it exposes you and me…
Anurag, i can understand that the media is in it for themselves…every entrepreneur is…that is the backbone of capitalist enterprise…cinema too is an offshoot of capitalist development…however the mirror effect of the media needs to be tapped for whatever it is worth…if communal politics and polarization is not a matter of debate and discussion, then what is?
brilliant write up on the film.. keep it up. i too agree with ur point of view…. the film does not generate hate but forces us to introspect and find out clues about why the blasts actually happened.. great analysis. keep it up.