Whew, it’s been two days since Shah Rukh Khan spammed everyone who's ever interacted with him on Twitter, with the Dilwale
trailer. At first glance, the trailer looks amazing. But when you
really think about it, you realise it's just a mash-up of Romeo and
Juliet meets Josh on Fast and Furious cars in front of Windows
98 wallpapers (hat tip to Twitterati). Blogger Arnab Ray commented:
“Even an Amit Shah speech fills me with greater anticipation.”
Frankly, the trailer, in 3:17 minutes, demonstrates everything wrong with Bollywood. Here are some things that struck me:
India is very, very, very tolerant
On his 50th birthday, Shah Rukh Khan held forth on the topic
that has been hitting headlines in the nation for a while –
intolerance. Frankly, the unstinting way the audience tolerates the
mediocre fare that Bollywood
dishes out, should re-assure SRK about the nation’s extremely high
tolerance levels and should’ve been a point used by Anupam Kher and co.
during their ‘tolerance march’!
There are zombies among us
It seems like half the people in this nation are now zombies without
the ability to think. Don’t believe me? Just check any of the first
responses any star receives from their fans on social media. It’s hard
to believe that there are real, evolved Homo sapiens with opposable
thumbs that are actually typing those comments. That also explains why
people are willing to dole out their hard-earned money to watch whatever
movie that Bollywood puts out, despite knowing fully well that it will
be horrible.
The Khanploitation of Bollywood
Ever since Salman Khan's Dabangg became a hit, the Bollywood
fraternity came to the conclusion that to make a movie a hit, they'd
require a Khan or a Khan-lite (Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Hrithik
Roshan), an item girl, a Honey Singh party song and high-budget fight
sequences. It doesn't matter how good the plot is or how well it is
executed, the audience will constantly flock to the hall simply to see
their favourite star.
Reports of people willing to dole out Rs 750 to watch Salman Khan seduce someone 20 years his junior, can only evoke responses like this PRDP dubsmash.
Also Read: (The dummy's guide to promoting a Bollywood film)
Selling the same story
The only good thing about the Dilwale trailer was the
chemistry between SRK and (a surprisingly white-washed) Kajol. The
saving grace is that at least SRK is romancing someone age-appropriate
in a long time. On the other hand, we have to again endure Kriti Sanon
(who tortured us along with Tiger Shroff in Heropanti) and Varun Dhawan who will again try to convince us that he is menacing like he tried in Badlapur.
The Great Spam Story
There was a time when the marketing of a movie was reserved to
putting up a couple of posters and releasing the trailer. Now the
promotion of a movie has many specific stages like first look, first
trailer, first annoying hash tag (#PRDPinTheatresTomorrow and
#Fastest9MViewsDilwaleTrailer) and the first time it made Aamir cry, so
that by the time it actually hits the screens, we're too sick to
actually see it. The release of the trailer saw Shah Rukh Khan taking
spamming to a whole new level when he decided to tweet to every single
individual on the face of the earth.
It's sad, because we know how good Shah Rukh Khan can be. But the
changing face of Bollywood means we will probably never see performances
like Darr, Chak De! India or Swades because producers
are too scared to risk anything, which is ironic considering the Khans
could probably sell anything if they wanted.
No comments:
Post a Comment