Changing Trend of Film Journalism

Seeing the film critics’ mixed reviews and the also the reactions from the film makers against the negative reviews, I am compelled to write this piece of my thought.

To a country like India where cine-stars are considered as Demi-God; not to forget the facts and figures of actor worshipping  in the form of life-size statue in a separate temple like place  . We know how difficult it is to give reviews on film in which the demi-god plays the lead role (Rajnikant, Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh khan). Because, any negative review could lead to an insult to the Superstar from the fan’s point of view. As a result, (I believe you understood the probable result). Few media organisation gives a favourable review to a superstar movie, so that they can have good rapport with the superstar, and further helps in extracting out information of the superstar and his colleagues of film industries to get comparative TRPs. Sometimes, even if reporters feel like yelling out to the audience (Don’t go for it, it’s a super-flop), your boss won’t let you to do so, why? Obvious answer; It will affect the relationship.

So, keeping all these in mind, we cannot ignore the fact that Film criticism is one of the most highly responsible and difficult job (especially in a place like India, where the demi-God rules).Huge funded and massive Publicity has become a indispensable part of movie making, because it will attract (In fact compel) people to come and spend money on movies to find out whether the film is doing justice to its publicity. Some film makers are guilty of pandering to market force to promote their movies and some of them had even accepted it. Further, it won’t be hard for us to remember how Ram Gopal Verma has been linked up with his entire lead actress. Now-a-days, a drastic change in Indian film making can be seen, I remember, how the rumour of Fardeen Khan and Koena Mitra went around the news channel with their exotic intimate clips of the movie, ‘Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena’. Recently, Mahie Gill and Randeep Hooda’s intimate clip from the movie ‘Sahib Biwi aur Gangster’ was the talk of the town. Earlier, such intimate scenes were kept aloof from the media and even succeed in getting good revenues out of it. Because, audience were compelled to come and see the the jaw-dropping scene (can’t forget: Ram Teri Ganga Meli, Satyam Shivam Sundaram and Bobby) in those days (secret and concealing is beautiful). With the passage of time, the publicity stunt also changed, and now the trend is; open and revealing is beautiful.  

Here a question pops up! What and who brings these changes?

The monumental change in the film reporting has been the sudden shift from the process of film-making to a celebrity’s personal life mainly relationships and affairs, which are perceived to be of people interest. Even for a non commercial artistic movie maker, in order to compensate his/her investment, they are resorted to detailing of gossips that happened on the set.  

Many film makers had expressed their plight in film reporting that if they start talking about the inspiration of the film and difficulties went through on it, reporters seem not to be interested and they could see the boredom on their face. As a result, the reporting ended up as boring session with a boring film-maker. And chances of their movie’s news and pre-reviews to be published in popular dailies become rare, resulting in poor publicity. So, to save their hard work from going into dust-bin, helpless film makers are naturally compelled to provide some spicy details or gossips to get huge publicity. Even film reporter is resorted to extraction of celebrity’s private info so to get a pat from their BOSS for the exemplary heroic work. Can we imagine what could have been going on, in the mind of a film reporter when she/he has to ask an inflammable question to aggressive actors?  For new actors to get more recognition and publicity, they unwillingly become a victim of publicity stunt. There is no denying with the bottom-line of all these that it has become a necessary evil for both sides because of gossip loving audience. In spite of all these, both never stop blaming each other for the ugly side of film-journalism.

In any big events, if actors are asked to give their take on film critics, almost all actors give a mixed answer with an ironic smile. Nowadays, we can find filmmaker unanimously voiced their discontentment with the tone of film critics.

Consequently, we can sum up that over the past 60 years film journalism has evolved from being careful, serious reporting to frivolous reporting.

                                                                       

However, for a few good film critic and reporter, they are writing what has to be written to prevent the misled media-hyped or influenced people, from becoming 3hrs victim of a stupid movie. In today’s media controlled world, critics should leave alone to decide whether he/she wants to act like a consumer guidance activist or a teacher. Film Reporting or reviews is not about few words for them, because it requires a lot of thinking and writing. You have to write the 3hrs long story in few hundred words and that is the moment of truth for them. So, good film gets good ratings and bad film gets negative rating. So it is quite a responsibility.

 The need of the hour: Criticisms always hurt, but being an icon, superstar should maintain that image rather than involving in media’s tussle, and the two parties should stay true to their profession without compromising their work ethics.