sady
Hit playback singer
Posts: 1,876
Favorite actor: SRK, Prabhas, Naga Chaitanya, Nivin Pauly
Favorite actress: Kajol, Sonam, A. Shetty, Tamannaah, Kangana
Upcoming release you're most excited about: Simran, Rani of Jhansi, Veere Di Wedding, Padman, Saaho
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Post by sady on Jun 29, 2015 19:16:47 GMT
A recent Bollywood flick, Dil Dhadakne Do, deals with the life of super-rich Punjabi Indians and their first-world problems. High on picturesque offshore beauty, this Zoya Akhtar-directed movie was described by critics as “shallow” and so far removed from India’s third-world reality that it is “difficult to give a damn about the people in the film.” But, dismissing all such reviews, the filmmaker in a recent interview said that “the Indian audience doesn’t want to watch poor people.” Whether that’s true or not is hard to say, but India’s popular film industry definitely does not celebrate diversity—and not just in terms of class, but also caste, religion and gender. A recent analysis of lead characters of more than 250 films released in 2013 and 2014 by The Hindu newspaper revealed that only six lead characters belonged to a backward caste. The Indian national daily collected information available publicly on characters as well as the storyline of each of these films for its report. According to Box Office India, an online film database, 184 films were released in 2013 and another 201 films in 2014. So, the Hindu’s analysis covers about 65% of the combined Bollywood films released in two years. In 2014, the films that dwelled upon caste were Manjunath, a real-life account of an Indian Oil employee who was murdered for speaking out against a corrupt oil dealer; Highway, which showcased a distraught criminal from the Gujjar community; and the biopic on India’s pugilist Mary Kom whose lead character was a member of the Kom tribal community from Manipur. In 2013, too, Bollywood had a total of three characters from backward castes. The films were Bandook, the story of a lower caste man’s rise to political power, Kangana Ranaut’s Revolver Rani, and Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela. Looking beyond hindusThe most common character in Hindi films is also a Hindu, according to the Hindu report. Only very few roles are written keeping in mind a Christian, Muslim or Sikh. In 2014, only two films had lead characters who were Christian, three had Sikhs and nine had Muslims (including the critically-acclaimed Indian adaptation of Hamlet, Haider). Meanwhile, as many as 66 lead characters were upper caste Hindus, while the rest were Hindus whose caste was not mentioned or was unknown. In India, according to the religion census of 2011, Hindus comprise 78% of the total population, followed by Muslims at 14.2%. Sikhs and Christians are about 2% of the population. Evergreen sexism
Apart from this low representation of caste, class and religion, there’s another category where Bollywood lags behind: Gender. For decades now, male stars get screen time and lengthy monologues, while women are cast for item numbers in skimpy clothes. In a gender test of last year’s blockbuster films, nine out of ten movies failed by a long shot. Only one movie passed what is known as the Bechdel test—that a film casts at least two women, incorporates a scene or two where they interact with each other, and they talk about something besides a man. However, in the recent years, some filmmakers have invested in strong female characters, and it’s a formula that has worked. In fact, the first—and so far, the only—film to make Rs100 crore ($16 million) at the box office in India in 2015 was led by Kangana Ranaut, a female star.
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Post by jabimetbollywood on Jun 29, 2015 19:53:38 GMT
This may be an odd thing to pick out from that, but... "backward caste"? Is that really the term??
Interesting article, although not surprising information. A good reminder, however, that helps me understand why Queen was such a hit despite being, imo, quite dull and unimaginatively made. With an audience so starved for female-centric stories, a movie like that can get by on an interesting premise, a good lead performance, and a "you-go-girl" narrative.
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Post by emily on Jun 29, 2015 21:14:18 GMT
This may be an odd thing to pick out from that, but... "backward caste"? Is that really the term?? That caught my eye as well. Pretty callous, if it is indeed the term. EDIT: Apparently there's a thing called "Other Backward Class"...groups of people the Indian government has labeled as educationally or financially disadvantaged. Here's a website.Anyway, back on topic...
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odadune
Star of the item number
not around much due to stuff in my personal life.
Posts: 1,494
Favorite actor: Currently a certain Kumar, but I like most of them
Favorite actress: whoever's in films I'm interested in this week
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Post by odadune on Jun 29, 2015 21:59:29 GMT
Yeah it means that they were "held back" by discrimination/oppression in the past (and often still are though hopefully to lesser extent) and are therefore eligible for certain kinds of affirmative action. Similar to the american concept of a protected class.
Lumping characters of unmarked caste (ie allowing the viewer to project onto them) in with explicitly uppercaste characters feels like a slightly dodgy piece of methodology to me, and I find it hard to believe that all those lower class masala and gangster heroes are somehow upper caste
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Post by jabimetbollywood on Jun 30, 2015 18:36:50 GMT
Yeah it means that they were "held back" by discrimination/oppression in the past (and often still are though hopefully to lesser extent) and are therefore eligible for certain kinds of affirmative action. Similar to the american concept of a protected class. Yes, I'm aware that that is the case, but I had never seen the term "backward caste" before. In my dialect of English, the word "backward" doesn't connote "held back," but if it doesn't offend those involved, it shouldn't worry me. Lumping characters of unmarked caste (ie allowing the viewer to project onto them) in with explicitly uppercaste characters feels like a slightly dodgy piece of methodology to me, and I find it hard to believe that all those lower class masala and gangster heroes are somehow upper caste Good point. I wonder about that.
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odadune
Star of the item number
not around much due to stuff in my personal life.
Posts: 1,494
Favorite actor: Currently a certain Kumar, but I like most of them
Favorite actress: whoever's in films I'm interested in this week
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Post by odadune on Jun 30, 2015 22:34:47 GMT
Yeah the term made me blink the first few times i saw it too, but i think it's just like you said, one of those times when desi english is different from desi english.
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Post by James on Jul 2, 2015 1:06:19 GMT
Lumping characters of unmarked caste (ie allowing the viewer to project onto them) in with explicitly uppercaste characters feels like a slightly dodgy piece of methodology to me, and I find it hard to believe that all those lower class masala and gangster heroes are somehow upper caste Agreed. In fact, those 'unknowns' are purposely thus, to avoid bringing any caste identity to play, thereby allowing all backgrounds to identify with the character, in which case treating them as upper-caste for lack of an identifier is actually egregiously wrong. I also find it slightly dodgy to compare national statistics to Hindi film characters. The Hindi film audience in India is large and expands outside of the Hindi speaking parts of the country, yes, but it is still true that talking about 'cow belt'/Hindi speaking region statistics would be more appropriate since that is presumably whom they would be representing as an industry. Since Muslims are heavily concentrated in the north, that might be worse for Hindi movies than the statistics mentioned above, I haven't done the math so suspect but cannot confirm that, but that type of comparison would still be more relevant. As an aside, if we are going to take the national perspective as the article does, I think it would also be interesting to look at how different ethnic groups in India are represented in Hindi films (the article breaks down population by religion and caste, but ethnicity is surely as relevant a question, no?). I suspect Punjabis would be clear winners of over-representation, even though they technically belong to a different language group than the medium of Hindi films, but that's owing to who makes the movies in large part. That aside, it's interesting to see Hindi films being called out in this way to be more representative since they have been regularly heralded as a vanguard of secularism and a tool promoting communal harmony, though I guess it is true we're rather far now from those films in the 50s or the 60s that sought to build national identity, or the 'Muslim social', which brought more attention to that religious minority. It still is true that the film industry itself is remarkably open to people of all backgrounds to work in, at least, though that is a separate issue from what the article above is discussing.
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odadune
Star of the item number
not around much due to stuff in my personal life.
Posts: 1,494
Favorite actor: Currently a certain Kumar, but I like most of them
Favorite actress: whoever's in films I'm interested in this week
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Post by odadune on Jul 2, 2015 3:53:52 GMT
It's probably quicker to list out people who have worked in Bollywood who have non-Punjabi ancestry/cultural ties:
-Maharastrian: Riteish Deshmukh, Urmila Matondkar, Tanuja and her daughters, Shraddha and Siddhanth Kapoor (mother's side), Sarika (Rajput/Marathi, raised as Marathi) and her daughters, Shruti and Akshara Haasan. -Tamil: Hema Malini and her daughters, Sridevi and her daughters, Shruti and Akshara (father's side), Surya (appeared in an RGV film), A. R. Rahman, Rajkumar Santoshi (mother's side), Waheeda Rehman -Farsi: John Abraham (mother's side), Farah and Sajid Khan and their mother, Farhan and Zoya and their mother, Boman Irani, Homi Adjania -Gujarati: Paresh Rawal, Anees Bazmi, Darshan Jariwala, Freddy Daruwala, Dimple Kapadia and daughters, Jackie Shroff (father's side), Abbas-Mustan -Telugu: Trisha Krishnan, Ram Gopal Varma, Rana Daggubati, Ram Cheran Teja, MM Kreem -Bengalis: Mithun Chakraborty, Pritam, Gulzar, Rakhee, Rani, Tanuja and Tanisha (father's side), Bipasha Basu, Raima Sen, Rimi Sen, Moon Moon Sen, all the Bachchans except Aish, Shoojit Sircar, Sujoy Ghosh -Konkani Christian: Genelia D'Souza, Ileana D'Cruz -Karnatakan: Prabhudheva and his brother Vishnudheva, Aishwarya Rai, Deepika Padukone, Prakash Raj -Sindhi: Tamannaah Bhatia, plus whoever's left of the old Ramsey Bros b-movie dynasty. -Kerali: Asin Thottumkal, Priyadarshan, scriptwriter Suresh Nair, Lisa Haydon (mother's side), John Abraham (father's side), Diana Penty (I think?) -Kashmiri: Anupam Kher -Northeastern: Tiger Shroff (mother's side), Danny Dezongpa, Cyndy Khojol (model who had very small roles in 7 Khoon Maaf and Khiladi 786), some supporting actors in Mary Kom whose names I can't think of -Bihari: Neeraj Pandey (father's side) -Uttar Pradesh: Tigmashu Dhulia
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Post by dancelover on Jul 2, 2015 18:40:02 GMT
more Bengali: Sharmila Tagore; Saif & Soha. D. It's probably quicker to list out people who have worked in Bollywood who have non-Punjabi ancestry/cultural ties: -Maharastrian: Riteish Deshmukh, Urmila Matondkar, Tanuja and her daughters, Shraddha and Siddhanth Kapoor (mother's side), Sarika (Rajput/Marathi, raised as Marathi) and her daughters, Shruti and Akshara Haasan. -Tamil: Hema Malini and her daughters, Sridevi and her daughters, Shruti and Akshara (father's side), Surya (appeared in an RGV film), A. R. Rahman, Rajkumar Santoshi (mother's side), Waheeda Rehman -Farsi: John Abraham (mother's side), Farah and Sajid Khan and their mother, Farhan and Zoya and their mother, Boman Irani, Homi Adjania -Gujarati: Paresh Rawal, Anees Bazmi, Darshan Jariwala, Freddy Daruwala, Dimple Kapadia and daughters, Jackie Shroff (father's side), Abbas-Mustan -Telugu: Trisha Krishnan, Ram Gopal Varma, Rana Daggubati, Ram Cheran Teja, MM Kreem -Bengalis: Mithun Chakraborty, Pritam, Gulzar, Rakhee, Rani, Tanuja and Tanisha (father's side), Bipasha Basu, Raima Sen, Rimi Sen, Moon Moon Sen, all the Bachchans except Aish, Shoojit Sircar, Sujoy Ghosh -Konkani Christian: Genelia D'Souza, Ileana D'Cruz -Karnatakan: Prabhudheva and his brother Vishnudheva, Aishwarya Rai, Deepika Padukone, Prakash Raj -Sindhi: Tamannaah Bhatia, plus whoever's left of the old Ramsey Bros b-movie dynasty. -Kerali: Asin Thottumkal, Priyadarshan, scriptwriter Suresh Nair, Lisa Haydon (mother's side), John Abraham (father's side), Diana Penty (I think?) -Kashmiri: Anupam Kher -Northeastern: Tiger Shroff (mother's side), Danny Dezongpa, Cyndy Khojol (model who had very small roles in 7 Khoon Maaf and Khiladi 786), some supporting actors in Mary Kom whose names I can't think of -Bihari: Neeraj Pandey (father's side) -Uttar Pradesh: Tigmashu Dhulia
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Post by chrisanthi on Jul 3, 2015 5:35:51 GMT
A few additions to odadune 's list Kajol is Marathi on her mother's side and Bengali on her father's. Atul Kulkarni is also Marathi. Vidya is Tamil as are Maddy and Siddarth. I was also under the impression that Trisha is also Tamil. Amitabh isn't Bengali - his mum was Punjabi and his dad from Uttar Pradesh Manoj Bajpayee is from Bihar.
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Post by Prem Rogue on Jul 23, 2015 17:26:39 GMT
I don't think caste itself appears much in Hindi films, unless I'm missing unspoken caste markers. The movies are often about upper-CLASS people, but I'm not sure about caste.
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