Well, the Padmavati issue has taken a slightly different turn, the release is actually delayed. I haven’t seen that with a big Hindi film recently, although I know it has happened before, both in Hindi and other language industries. And the delay and some other comments indicate that this is beginning to move into a different category, politics and violence. Which means you are all going to get mad at me again when I try to address it, and I may lose a few more readers (well, a lot of readers). And get a fair amount of notice by trolls and hate groups (don’t worry, I will block most of them). But I also feel a bit of an obligation to address it. And this is the toned down version, my original post was a lot angrier.
Non-Usual Disclaimer: I am not an expert on Indian politics or history or anything like that. But in my study of the films, I have ended up learning a bit about Indian society, and it might be helpful for you to have this knowledge that I can pass on. And if I am to address this issue at all, I feel an obligation to address it in its entirety.
Film in India is a soft target. It gets political groups a lot of headlines, and the government, the police, the media, even the most vocal part of the public, are not interested in defending it. And so there is a pattern that happens. A big name film is about to be released, the filmmakers have done a lot of publicity, and everyone is excited. And at that point a political group swoops in and siphons off some of that publicity for themselves by coming up with a random objection to the film.
What bothers me must, every time, is how incredibly gullible the vocal part of the Indian public is. It seems as though there are three categories. The regular audience members who just want to be able to watch the movie. Who care more about enjoying art than about any trumped up political motivation. They are the victims here, the ones who are denied the enjoyment they want because of forces beyond their control, and who aren’t really allowed to have their voices heard. Taking Padmavati as an example, the trailer set records for views as soon as it was released, cleary millions of people were excited to see this film. And yet I’m not hearing a lot of people speaking for them, or them being allowed to speak for themselves, to simply say “I like watching movies. I was looking forward to watching this film. Now, there is nothing for me to see for the next several weeks and that is a disappointment to me.”
(These people. The nice people who just want to go out with the wife and see a movie on Friday night)
And there are the filmmakers, and other intelligent people, who are perfectly aware of this pattern and how hypocritical it is and are just clenching their teeth and trying to swim through the sewage of it. They are to some degree also victims, but at least they have a tad more control, they can speak up and be heard, make moves for their own defence, and so on and so on, instead of just reading the news and hoping it turns out they way they want.
And finally, there is the group that we hear from the most, the group that I find most unpleasant. The bullies, the ones who get their kicks from feeling they are in the right, they are justified in their anger. And the ones who refuse to, or are not capable of, thinking beyond the inane talking points vomited into their mouths by immoral leaders benefiting from these toxic lies. Which brings me to Padmavati! Which I will use as my first case study for how this, the “Big Lie” of propaganda, works.
In this case, the “big lie” is: Padmavati is history. It is NOT history!!!!! I already went over this in my last post, but it bears repeating. The objections to the film revolve around the depiction of Rani Padmavati not being historically accurate. There is no way to make it historically accurate, because the very existence of Rani Padmavati does not hold up to scrutiny, cannot be accepted as fact. It may or may not be true, it may or may not have happened exactly as Bhansali chooses to show it. There is no possible justification for an argument as to historical accuracy one way or the other.
(This one, on the other hand, yes! It is history, you can object to accuracy, and you can ask historians whether or not it is accurate. But no one suggested it)
The people protesting Padmavati are selling to the public a fantasy that they are under attack, that they have a common enemy, that they have a justification for their anger, for making themselves the center of attention. And the public are eager to buy this fantasy, so eager that they are not willing to put in one moment of rational thought and spot the flaws within it. The argument is that the way Rani Padmavati is presented in the film is not accurate to her “true” story, and therefore is insulting to Rajputs. The “true” story, as close as we can come, the only source that even mentions her, says she is from Sri Lanka. So any changes to her story are an insult to Sri Lankans, not Rajputs. Or else that version isn’t the “true” story, in which case nothing is necessarily true (since it is the only source that even mentions a person named Padmavati), and Bhansali can change the film as needed without insulting anyone.
This is always the case with these controversies, one second of thought unclouded by self-indulgent emotions would show that there is no real controversy. Last year it was Ae Dil Hai Mushkil that was in trouble for daring to star a Pakistani actor. At the time the film was made, India and Pakistan had a good relationship. Fawad Khan was generally welcomed in the country, this was his 3rd Hindi film, no one brought up any issues or seemed to care that he was Pakistani instead of Indian. He finished the movie, and went home to Pakistan, Karan Johar and the team at Dharma edited the movie and planned the promotions and set the release and got a distribution plan set and everything. And then, weeks before the film came out, the situation between Pakistan and India worsened. And suddenly groups sprung up saying Karan was a terrible person, the film industry was terrible, this movie should not release.
But, what changed???? None of these people were speaking up back when Fawad was first announced, or when his other two successful films came out. If they didn’t mind, why should Karan Johar? And why should Karan and his film be criticised, but not Sonam Kapoor and her film with Fawad that first brought him to India? Even if you accept that Pakistani actors should not work in the Hindi industry, it’s blatantly obvious that the only reason Ae Dil Hai Mushkil was picked as the protest site was because it was a big showy film with a lot of publicity, not because of any sincere offense. And again, I am most angry at the public and media and everyone else who was not willing to put in one millisecond of rational thought to see through the false arguments.
(And then the protest was called off, once Karan humbled himself. And so it was more about causing a stir and proving power than the actual issue)
Here’s another one. Wake Up Sid, years back, showed the characters referring to the city where they live as “Bombay”. Which is the common name, or at least a name used interchangeably with others, by Bombaiites. But the film was threatened with a boycott because everyone was now supposed to call the city “Mumbai” (this is why I use “Bombay”, by the way, because I am contrary like that, and if mob violence is telling me to say one thing, I will say the other). People in real life, and plenty of other media, were using “Bombay”. But this was a film with some good buzz around it, and a vulnerable producer. So this is the one they picked on.
You know how there are certain kids that tend to get bullied in school? The ones who are “different”, so none of the other kids really want to stand up for them? There are certain filmmakers like that too. Karan Johar is gay. Shahrukh, Salman, and Aamir are Muslim. Bhansali less frequently, but he has a track record of no one standing up for him. He had to change the name of his “Ram-Leela” film at the last moment, and since then he has been recognized as a soft target, one who gets a lot of publicity but not much defense. So he gets hit by these kinds of “controversies” over and over again too.
(The title “Ram-Leela” is insulting, but put “Goliyon Ki Raasleela” in front of it, and magically it is okay)
That is what makes me angry, furiously angry, that no one stands up for the fim industry, not really. They prevaricate, they talk about “free speech” and “art” and “film fraternity”. But they don’t stand up and say “You are bullying them simply because they are weak and you are strong. You are the ones who need to change, not them.” I don’t even want the film industry to stand up and say it, they have said it enough, they have indicated that they need support, they are in the right, they deserve the faith of the public. And they never get it, so why should they keep making themselves into a target? It is time for someone else to take a chance and say something in their defense, acknowledge that this is wrong.
A few people from film are taking a risk (again) and defending themselves (again). Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi, they both pointed out that this is clearly just to make sure the BJP wins the Gujurat elections next month. But Shahrukh and Karan and others have not yet risked speaking, possibly because they are too angry to speak, possibly because they are saving their strength for the next time they are inevitably targeted themselves.
Prasoon Joshi, head of the Censor Board, he has a difficult line to follow. I don’t know why he is delaying the certificate of Padmavati. The simple answer is that he wants to keep this controversy going, because he is in the pocket of the government that appointed him. But I like Prasoon Joshi, he has worked in the film industry for years, he knows these people, and I have to think he has some loyalty to the industry as a whole. Along with delaying the release of Padmavati (which the filmmakers already announced anyway), he is trying to ensure that other films release rapidly in its place. At the moment, most of December is a wasteland film release-wise, because everyone was trying to stay away from Padmavati competition. This is terrible, this is the real immediate danger to film, that loss of profits. And I also feel the need to mention that Bhansali is notorious for going over budget and over schedule, I find it easy to believe that he delivered his film for censorship only a week in advance, giving them barely any time to view it. Compare that with similarly controversial films that have been carefully submitted months in advance, in order to allow time for court cases and re-submissions and so on as needed. That is the one tiny part of the blame for this whole mess that I will lay at the feet of the Padmavati filmmakers, they could have predicted it and been better prepared in advance.
(This is just so beautiful. I feel like I have to believe the man who wrote it has some depth in his soul)
It is also possible that Joshi is encouraging the delay of the release, and the top stars are not speaking about it, because they want the controversy to die down. They want it to be safely set aside before the elections in Gujurat begin in a few weeks. Which brings me to another thing that has become increasingly clear over the past 30 years of Indian politics (and 10 years at least of American politics): Hate Unites. If you want to win an election and there is absolutely no good reason people should vote for you, you just need to make sure you are the flag-bearer for hate. People will rally to you and back you blindly, so long as you keep feeding their addiction to hatred. The other side, the side of love, intelligence, indifference even, they are still thinking people. They are capable of being independent, of voting for a variety of candidates based on a variety of issues. They are the majority and in a fair election, they would win. But if every unintelligent person is somehow magically brought together and herded into the polls at the same time, they will win. And thus, Padmavati. And other examples which I will not mention here as they are too serious to belong on a blog about film.
Footnote: I myself find the Padmavati film, based on what was presented in the trailer, troubling (my post on it is here), but not for the reasons mentioned by any of the groups attacking it now. And that is unrelated to this story, because this story is unrelated to the actual content of the film in anyway, it is a separate political move.
dontcallitbollywood 
Watch Vandanam on hotstar for the next malayalam film. This is a romantic comedy with mohanlal in the cast.
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Oh yes, Margaret, I remember the VERY animated discussion when you wrote about the Padmavati trailer (and more)…there were more than 170 (!!!) comments.
Your anger reflects mine (or my anger reflects yours 😉 ). And I think you are right: actually, it is not the task of single people of the filmindustry anymore to clearly point out the mobiles and mechanisms behind the misusing of easy targets…
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I’m realizing now that part of this is from the discussion we just had in Sunday School last week about bullying 🙂 The key is to comfort and support the victim, and show that the majority of people are with them, and the bully is in the wrong. It’s not about confronting the bully, or even interacting with them at all. It’s about building up the victim so they feel safe.
On Sat, Nov 25, 2017 at 11:20 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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We will see what the “15 min Blackout” demonstration tomorrow will get as echo…
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What right wing movements the world over are really good at doing is creating a shared identity around core values and then identifying an existential threat to that identity that has to be fought against. It’s not just about hate, it’s also about fear. We are good, upstanding people, the guardians of the moral order, and those other people are trying to destroy us so we need to strike them first.
The thing is, the same strategy could be used by the film industry, just in a more positive way. The film industry needs to create a marketing campaign to counteract what’s going on before a specific controversy erupts. Identify their core values and then figure out how to align those values with the moviegoing public and then promote it. Basically take all the skills they’ve learned from promoting movies but use it to promote identity and core values instead. Also to identify the shared threat they all face and how that threat is equally dire for moviegoers. The value of movies and storytelling for the public and what happens when the storytellers are silenced.
This is related to my job so I can wank on about this at length but basically people rally around shared identity, which means appeals to reason don’t work. Instead it’s about “these are my people and I need to stand up for them.”
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I agree with your idea. Of course the challenge is that it is not just an ideological battle, but a physical one. The film industry has to be willing to risk the threat of actual physical harm, even more than they are already experiencing, and convince their followers to do the same. While the other side has little to fear in that respect, since at the moment they are the dominant physical force in the country.
Shahrukh and Aamir and Salman have all spoken up and gotten only punishment in response (mobs, lost box office, Aamir had his police protection pulled, Salman’s many court cases and time in jail is at least party because of what he represents). Although they have also all backed off most times. Karan, after his last “hostage video” experience said that he regretted it, he shouldn’t have backed down. That’s probably the key, to face down public opinion and physical violence until the tide turns back in their direction, no matter how long it takes.
On Sat, Nov 25, 2017 at 11:48 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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You do realise that the entire Rajput identity rests on making a huge noise about their Rajput birth?
That’s exactly what’s happening with this film too.
The Rajputs of Rajasthan won nothing, defended the land against no-one, conspired with everyone else to take down their rival Rajput Kingdom. Even Padmini/Padmavati’s choice to do jauhar was because she didn’t want to fall in the hands of the Rajput prince she’d scorned by not marrying him.
https://scroll.in/article/858619/history-lesson-padmavati-was-driven-to-immolation-by-a-rajput-prince-not-ala-ud-din-khalji
Indian films and Indian film makers are not a soft target. Amitabh Bachchan got named in both the Panama and the Paradise Papers and everyone in the industry kept mum about it because every one of them has moolah parked in offshore accounts.
Nobody expects them to have an opinion on this matter either because everyone knows this counts as free publicity for the filmmaker. You know who co-produced Padmavati? Viacom 18. Aka the outfit owned by Mukesh Ambani. Aka the man who’s dictating policies to the Indian government. Aka the man who own 85% of all indian news media.
If the Padmavati controversy were real and a real source of trouble, MA could easily have his news channels run positive stories about the film 24/7. He could get the censor board to approve the cut within minutes. And he could make the right wingers pull the leash on their dogs.
But none of that is happening. Is that a surprise? With a very important election for the oligarchs just around the corner? With corruption scandals, labor and farmers’ lakhs-strong marches, the death of a judge under suspicious circumstances (who was on the case against the PM’s right hand man), a corruption scandal in the supreme Court, EVM hacking stories being reported all across India?
We have so many real news stories. But there’s only Padmavati on the news. It’s for show. It’s a distraction. Bhansali is part of it. That’s why nobody wants to stand with them.
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That’s one thing Javed Akhtar said, that the Rajputs are so strong about never being conquered and so on, but no one talks about the years under the British.
Your point about Bhansali being part of it would match with my initial impression of prejudices from the trailer. And it might explain why Shatrughan is the most vocal person in the film industry heating this all up while everyone else stays silent and waits for it to go away. It’s different from the other times, even as recently as ADHM, when everyone lined up together.
On Sat, Nov 25, 2017 at 12:08 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Bhansali doesn’t make historicals. He makes fiction. That’s it.
Padmavati doesn’t even matter historically. She probably didn’t even exist. Nether did Jodhabai. Probably. Mastani maybe did. But none of these women are historically relevant and have no achievements to their names. And usually there are no controversies. Like no Rajput outfit protested Hindu and fictional Jodhabai being shown as a conquest for the Muslim emperor. No protests for a dancing kashibai either. They didn’t exactly condone royalty dancing you know.
This entire thing is a farce and the more hype it gets, the surer I am that the film might be a classic Bhansali. Unless he’s learnt something from Bahubali and there’s a half hour battle scene at the end.
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Not just a battle scene. A battle scene with awesome anachronistic, futuristic, McGyver-worthy weapons! I just re-watched it last night and am still in a daze. Also, Baahubali has some excellent lessons for our own political times. And elephants!
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And most of all, Bahubali was honest with the audience!!!! It didn’t pretend to be a known story, or “history”, it just was what it was.
On Sat, Nov 25, 2017 at 12:32 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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There is a lot of talk about the cost of the battle sequences, so sounds like he’s trying to pull off a Bahubali.
And I remember this, there was controversy over Jodha-Akbar! In the same specious “it’s not historically accurate! Based on this very vague source that isn’t really applicable” way. I know that I should be more angry on behalf of humanity and free speech and so on, but I have this angry history major part of me from college that just gets infuriated by the way no one in India seems to know the difference between history and fairy tales.
On Sat, Nov 25, 2017 at 12:24 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh tell me about it. Living as I do in a state that still worships the Lost Cause.
So in India the distraction is films, and the US gets a bottomless pit of sex scandals.
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Technically, Padmavati is a sex scandal! 😂
On a more serious note, did you know the ruling party released a sex tape of a 22 year old boy (who’s leading a political movement in Modi’s home state) which featured no sex and nothing unconsentual? 😂
We also have plenty of freaky godmen involved in sex scandals.
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I also think that it is a farce…but a very bad one, one where non-audience and non-creative and non-artistic forces have the say but pure capitalistic and power interests have the say.
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Everyone in India has a political opinion and a political inclination. So many of our top actors are members of parliament and local assembly members while being active in films.
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Thank you for that background. Fascinating. So do you think they scheduled the release date around the election date on purpose?
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Yes. Undoubtedly
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Ah! This is also what happened to Bahubali 2 as well! Kattappa said something stupid and a bunch of politicians and their supporters in Karnataka refused the movie to be released in Karnataka. After Satharaj apologized, the politicians obliged.
Do you think there is anything Bhansali could do to lessen this situation?
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I don’t think so, just because there is never anything the victim of bullying can do to lesson the situation. They can fight back, but that is only a temporary solution, the bully will just bring friends and beat them up more the next day. It’s up to the people around him to say that this is unacceptable and the authorities to enforce justice.
I mean, you’ve seen this kind of thing before just like I have, right? There are limited options. You can get the support of the producer’s association and you can visit the chief minister and try to get help that way, a firm statement that the film will/should release. You can hope for the police to call it a law and order situation and offer protection to movie theaters. And you yourself can issue an apology and some token sign of giving in. Doesn’t seem like the politicians or the police are interested in getting involved in this case. And Bhansali could apologize and change something, but it seems like it has moved beyond the “token apology” point, they want the whole film not to release.
And of course the big thing, this is going to just keep going and there is nothing to stop it until the elections are over. All Bhansali can do is sit and watch.
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A slightly off topic point: There are broad similarities between Padmavati & Baahubali-2 – that is two men fighting over 1 woman. I think what made Baahubali work was that it was out and out fiction, never pretended to be based on real events. Bhansali’s movie is a bit pretentious trying to mix fiction with real events.
big budget movies such as this are the most vulnerable to blackmail by fringe groups, because of the potential for inflicting huge losses. Parties such as shiv sena have made a successful career of political protests and it has become a cottage industry today.
I was reading up Wikipedia because of this controversy and most of the successful kings had to be very cruel to kill their own fathers, brothers, cousins, uncles etc. No way they will show leniency to smaller kings that oppose them. Just see what happened to gullible uncle & father-ib-law Jalaluddin, and you will understand that it doesn’t pay to be soft when you want to rule a large kingdom.
One more thing we should differentiate between raiders such as Ghori, Ghazni, Timur (& even Makik Kafur) vs rulers such as Khilji & Babur. Babur (originally from Samarkand), in fact came to India based on the invitation of existing governor or punjab from the Lodhi dynasty. He was more keen on winning back Samarkand but he was invited into India. That is why the “Mughals”(derived from Mongols), stitched up so many alliances in India, because they came to rule & not to raid. The jauhars were originally in response to raiders who came from the northwest, but became an unfortunate tradition in Rajasthan, I think.
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Yes, I just put up a new youtube video on this same topic focusing on how and why these films are vulnerable. They spend sooooooooooo much money on publicity campaigns based around a particular release date. Which makes it tempting for other groups to come in and hijack their publicity. And which makes the films vulnerable to blackmail, to paying off such groups so that they can release on time. Although it seems like something more is happening here, it is past the pay off time.
On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 10:10 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I have the feeling that the movie wasn’t ready for release…not really in the way the director wanted his cut…
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I had the same feeling, there seemed to be a lot of stories about filming delays coming out.
On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 12:05 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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You haven’t posted the video here yet. Should we talk about it there or here?
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Oh right, it’s going up this afternoon. I was trying not to cluster posts. Oh heck, I’ll just put it up now.
On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 10:24 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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It’s too long
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