Bollywood film industry and cultural impact

Bollywood

It is believed that the word Bollywood has been inspired from Hollywood, meanwhile the B. comes from the initial of the city Bombay that is now known as Mumbai, which is the center of the film world in India. It has been known that the India cinema was initiated in the year 1913 with the silent film that was known as Raja Harischandra, which has been labeled as the very first Indian feature film. The producer of this film, DadasahebPhalke was also the producer of 23 feature films in India over the years 1913 through 1918. Needless to say, Bollywood had to struggle in the beginning (Grant, 2013).

In the beginning of 1920s, there was a rise in the Indian cinema as many production companies were formed. The movies of this time were historical or mythological in nature. Moreover, imports of the Hollywood plots were also made and were well received by the audience in India.

In the light of social and political changes, movements were seen in the Bollywood industry during the 1960s. The dominating directors of this time were MrinalSen, Ray and RitwikGhatak. They were inspired to offer the Indian audience with an increased sense of realism and tried to base films on the lives of the common man, something that was not done previously. Before the 1960s, most of the movies were commercial production and was more or less a mixture of different genres that included comedy, action with a punctuation of melodrama by means of almost six songs. This is the model that is still being used in most of the Bollywood movies today.

One of the most successful directors of Bollywood during the 1970s, Manmohan Desai is considered to be the father of what is referred to as the Masala film. He believes that he wants people to let go of the misery in which they live for some time and enter into a world of dreams where there are no social problems like poverty and there are no beggars on the street and everyone is well taken care of by God. Therefore, the combination of action, comedy is romance is the kind of template that is still more popular in the Bollywood industry. However, many people have now started to pay attention to the plot, the development of character and the dramatic tension that is there in the feature film. Yet, in most cases start power is considered the sole determinant of the success of the film.

Recently, Bollywood has produced films that attained international fame like Slumdog Millionaire that caused a lot of foreign capital into the industry and opened in a new chapter in the history. The world has now started to pay more attention to the films that are being produced in the Bollywood industry. The main question here is that whether or not Bollywood will be successful with the mainstream audience in America.

Bollywood vs. Hollywood

Hollywood is the film industry that dominates the world, as of now. However, in the recent past, Bollywood has been making a good name for itself by producing films with a solid plot. These films have not only done well in India, but have also been able to gain a great deal of International fame.

There is no denial in the fact that the Bollywood industry is huge. According to some reports, it is the largest film making industry in the world pertaining to the number of films released and tickets sold out. Some statistics have revealed that on average four billion tickets are sold every year in Bollywood. However, the industry has not been able to earn as much as the Hollywood industry does, probably because of the difference in the price of the ticket and the cost that comes to produce and record these films (Hoad, 2012).

There was a time when the Bollywood films were thought to be of lower production quality than the ones that were being produced in Hollywood. Since the western television and Hollywood movies have become popular throughout India, Bollywood is trying really hard to keep up with the Hollywood quality. Even though most of the films that are produced in India have a much lower budget that ones that are produced in Hollywood, the difference has become quite less.

Regulations in the Film Industry

The government of India has been working hard with Bollywood to make sure that the industry performs well within the country as well as internationally. However, the government also has to make sure that the content that is being shown in the films that are produced in Bollywood is appropriate for the Indian audience. There is a censor board in the industry that makes sure that no such scene is on aired that has some content that might be controversial for some people. Many scenes are cut in the movie that goes to the censor board. The main concern of the members of the censor board is to remove any such scenes that show sex or nudity. However, as the country is becoming modern, the censor board has also relaxed its censorship rules (Kapoor, 2012).

Another issue that the government needs to address at a much larger scale and more enthusiastically is that of piracy. The reason why Bollywood is not able to make as much profit as it should keeping in view the number of tickets that are sold and the number of films that are produced is that the movies are pirated and the people do not pay the actual cost of the film. Many steps have been taken by the government to prevent piracy from becoming prevalent but there has only been little success in the matter.

Indian Economy and Bollywood

Bollywood has been contributing a great deal in the progress of the Indian economy. Many sectors in India have shown slow growth. Software, which was once considered to be the sole financer of the economy, has also now failed to earn significant profit. The sales of telecoms and cars have also declined. However, Bollywood has been able to produce one block buster film after another in the recent history.

The latest benchmark for a film to be labeled as successful is Rs 1 billion as of the domestic revenues earned. This amount of revenue was not even in the wildest dreams of the Bollywood producers, about five years from now. This is the same time when the gross domestic product of India was declining at a significant rate. Since then, a series of Indian movies were produced that were nothing less than block busters and earned a significant amount of revenue. Movies including Ghajini, Three Idiots, Houseful-II, Dabangg, Bodyguard, BolBachan, Singham, Agneepat and Don-2 have done great not only in India but also in the international market. The success of all the aforementioned movies is nothing less than a remarkable achievement since there is overall recession in the world, businesses are not certain about their financial conditions, the cost of living is increasing and the quality of living is declining.

As of the recent reports, the yearly revenue earned by Bollywood is about Rs100 billion and this figure is expected to rise to Rs150 billion at the box office by the year 2016. This implies that the industry will record a 10% growth every year which is two times that of the whole country. Since Bollywood is one of the two ultimate avenues that the Indians look up to for entertainment, the second being cricket, there is a lot of potential in this industry to expand. Many multi-national companies look up to the Bollywood celebrities to endorse their products so that their sales in India could be increased. Furthermore, this strategy has proved to be quite successful.

The film industry in India that was centered in what was formerly known as Bombay has been able to produce about 800 movies every year. The average movie is about three to four hours long and has many songs and dance numbers along with action, drama, comedy, tragedy, music and whatever the directors think it would be appropriate to mix in for a happy ending that the audience looks for. Each and every Indian loves these films.

Many analysts have been trying to figure out that universal factor that makes the Hindi movies such a great hit at the box office. Most of the people try to entertain themselves with cricket by just sitting at home watching TV. However, films are not cheap to watch. The average price of a ticket during the weekend at a multiplex cinema ranges from Rs.250-300. Moreover, the cost of parking at these cinemas is around Rs. 100.

National and International Fame

Bollywood movies are loved by the Indian audience and that is what makes this industry so successful. The Indian cinema has come a long way, as a business project, as it had to face a great deal of competition at the hands of Western Media and Hollywood movies. However, with the passage of time, the industry has become a transnational one as it has depicted many different cultures in its movies. It has made joint ventures with Hollywood that have done quite well at the box office. The Indian movies are not only seen in India, but the industry has also made arrangements for showcasing their productions at International platforms, as these movies are dubbed and on aired in many other languages all over the world. In the past, most of the movies that were produced in India were Masala movies with no solid plot and mere glitz and glamor. However, now since these movies are sold all over the world and shown in cinemas throughout the world, the approach of the producers and directors is now changing. Keeping in view the demand of realism from the audience, the directors and producers now try to come up with a plot that is close to reality and something that the people can actually relate to. For example, the film called Slumdog Millionaire earned billions of dollars because it was so close to the reality of many people in India who live below the poverty line. This is the reason why it was also nominated for the Oscar Award. For any industry to do well in the local market, it is important for it to adapt to the culture of that market. This is exactly what Bollywood is trying to do and therefore it is gaining a good business in the national as well as international market.

Problems and Ethical Issues in the Industry

The biggest problem of Bollywood is that of piracy. People in India have the tendency to copy the films that are released at the box office. The copied films are then either sold to the public at a much cheaper rate or are shown to the public without any cost. As of now, there have been many films that have the potential to make billions of dollars but are even unable to cover for its own cost because of this piracy issue.

Analysts agree of the fact that if all the people paid the right amount of money to watch the film, then the industry could make much more money than it does now. Currently, the producers of the Bollywood films are trying to figure out a way through which piracy could be controlled. On the other hand, there are also some ethical issues pertaining to the content that is showed in these movies. When nudity and sex scenes are shown in the movies, people think it is not appropriate to take their families to the cinema because of such content. Not all the movies are accepted by all the Indian audience and this is because there are various groups in the country. Some conservatives do not approve of even the lightest of the kissing scenes. Moreover, any movie that revolves around the issues of religion, Kashmir and Pakistan tend to gain a lot of negative attention and controversies.