Myopic Media: A review of Naina and a comment on shortsighted Indian film critics
One of the more unpleasant faces of Indian journalism, if you can call it that, is its recent U-turn into the driveway of Bollywood Plaza, directly across the road from the Page 3 Pasha Palace, and diagonally opposite the Politickos Politbureau.
In other words, in recent years, Indian journalism has clearly shifted away from serious reportage of mainline issues of societal value into fluffy, celeb-hyping, star-hopping, filmi-gossip-ishtyle-tabloid coverage.
And it’s a national tragedy.
Why have they done this?
Well, to hear the editors and reporters tell it, the ostensible reason is that ‘this is what people want to read’.
Apparently, readers are bored of reading about politicians and social journalism and ‘problems, problems, problems’.
The success of the TOI brand of infotainment in particular, and the huge success of the Page 3 breed of media coverage, in terms of attracting the young, upwardly mobile readership that was rapidly moving away from the newspaper-magazine reading habit, as well as the ability of such glamour coverage to attract more high-value niche advertising, more or less sealed the deal.
So, sometime in the late-Nineties, a soft revolution swept across the media biz.
Today, you can see the altered landscape.
A sterile wasteland peppered with neon signs advertising the latest Bollywood blockbusters, film stars, entertainment stars, and celebs of all walks of life.
Even the sports pages haven’t been spared: you’re likely to see more pictures of half-clad SO’s of famous sports stars than the sports stars themselves these days. Often with only a tenuous connection to some dubiously newsworthy ‘event’.
In short, journalism has taken a backseat to glamour coverage.
Not only has this resulted in a new breed of Page 1 journalism, that is, journalism which seeks out front-page stories with suitable entertainment-titillation value rather than real news value – so, for instance, Mallika Sherawat’s peekabo dress on the Cannes red carpet, rather than the winner of the Palm d’Or at the same film festival – but it’s also caused a curious snobbery among journalists.
So, for instance, because films and celebs are the bread-and-butter of the media biz, they’re treated like royalty.
Gone are the days when film stars were sneered at and movie stars had to either be caught committing murder or be murdered themselves in order to feature on the prestigious above-the-fold lead story on the front page of a major national newspaper.
Today, all they need to do is wear a tight, revealing lowcut gown.
Or have a doomed, unrequited love affair with a co-star.
And if you watch how journalists coo and cuddle up to movie stars, or even hot directors-of-the-moment, your stomach will curdle.
On the other hand, anyone else is fair game.
So, it’s fashionable and acceptable to slash and burn a non-filmi, non-Page 3 personality who may genuinely be doing something of real worth, because such personalities aren’t essential to contemporary journalism.
So long as you suck up to the celebs and stars on whom your business depends, and whom you need to go back to month after month, for quotes, profiles, interviews, and let’s not forget, item numbers in the stage shows accompanying your media group’s annual film awards function.
And from time to time, it’s also acceptable to attack one particular star or film maker who isn’t particularly media-friendly, just to vent your venom – and Dog knows today’s so-called journalists have a lot of venom to vent – so long as everyone does it together and the target isn’t vital to their future work.
This happened earlier this year with PNC’s Shabd. Where the media blatantly took sides with Gauri Khan and Karan Johar (and by logical extension, Shah Rukh Khan) against Rongita Pritish Nandy and her eponymous father over what should have been a tiny insignificant petty squabble over a complete non-issue.
(As you probably know, the non-issue was that Mrs Khan and Mr Johar were asked to leave a private screening of Shabd by Ms Rongita Nandy, and they took huge offense to that, which resulted in Mr Khan boycotting PNC’s major film awards event, The Sansui Viewers’ Choice Awards.)
Now, if this had been restricted to just coverage of the non-event itself, that would have been bad enough.
But the media didn’t just stop there.
They gleefully used the non-incident as an excuse to bring out the knives when reviewing and covering the movie release of the film itself.
So Shabd was slaughtered mercilessly by the critics, most of whom are nothing more than journalists who have seen far too few movies and pride themselves on displaying their lack of knowledge of the medium.
For the record, let me say clearly here, I know Pritish Nandy, but I am presently doing nothing for or with him or his company, so I have no vested interest in supporting him or them. Also for the record, let me add that I haven’t seen Shabd, and had no interest in seeing it either.
Some of the tactics employed were reviewing the film (badly, of course) on the very day of release, thereby seeking to derail viewers who might have been planning to check out the new release.
Others were to blow up the stories of the Khan-Nandy alleged falling-out (pure BS, of course) out of all proportion, thereby overshadowing the film itself.
This wasn’t the first time the media had its hatchets out for a particular film.
Not that long ago, they did much the same thing to SRK’s own film, the highly anticipated Ashoka, ironically for much the same reason – SRK held screenings for only select invitees from the media, deliberately cutting out the rank and file and earning their ire.
In that case too, the media didn’t simply criticize that particular act – hand-selecting one’s own ‘friends’ in the media in an attempt to bias the public opinion favourably for his movie – but went ahead and attacked the film itself.
So much for journalistic integrity and ethics and fair-mindedness.
Last week, I saw the same process repeated for the new Urmila Matondkar starrer Naina.
Now, it’s true that the film is a rip-off of several foreign films.
Notably the Japanese films The Eye and Dark Water, with heavy influences from other sources such as the US TV miniseries The Dead Zone (inspired by the Stephen King novel of the same name) and other horror films and shows.
And the media was right to criticize the film for ripping off such high-profile sources, at times almost copying them frame by frame.
But in doing so, they let their bias show once again.
Because there have been any number of Bollywood films that are poor rehashes of foreign films which have been praised, even celebrated by the media, with almost no mention of the rip-off itself!
The reason being that in those cases, the stars or makers involved were too big for the media to risk antagonizing.
While the makers and star of Naina – none of whom I know personally or even distantly, let me clarify here – were easy pickings.
The unfortunate thing was that Naina is actually a very good movie.
Yes, it’s horror. And horror is traditionally a critic’s favourite whipping boy.
It’s the kind of film that they’ll watch on the edge-of-their seats and then come out later laughing at and carping about the gaps in logic.
But it’s very well made. In my opinion, it’s India’s first horror film of an international standard.
See it for yourself and judge for yourself.
I think the script, even though it’s ripped off from so many sources, actually holds together brilliantly.
The special effects are excellent, as is the whole technical expertise involved.
The direction is masterful, the editing superb.
Let’s get this straight – I’m not saying this is a great movie. Hell, it isn’t trying to be one.
It’s a terrifically entertaining horror thriller that delivers what it promises: thrills, spills and chills.
And despite doing a virtual reprise of her Bhoot shivers and shudders and oohs and aahs, and looking her age, Urmila does a very fine job in the movie, carrying it on her able shoulders and delivering a performance that most so-called heroes would be hard-pressed to match.
I think Naina marks a great milestone in Hindi cinema.
Because it’s a heroine-led film with brilliant technical inputs that makes a much-abused genre work in a modern, international context, without songs, item numbers, or unnecessary subplots or an overdose of Punjabi joint family hysterics.
Not only that, it’s a film which depends on the emotional journey of the heroine rather than her glamour quotient – how many films can you say that about today?
With all its limitations and faults, and there are some, I don’t deny, Naina’s still a breed apart. And it’s well worth watching.
And, best of all, it’s a super-hit, opening to almost cent per cent collections in most centres.
Which proves yet another point about the Indian media and its sadly awry sense of ‘journalism’.
That today’s journalists have grown so close to the celeb-filmi culture that they depend on to provide fodder for their glamour-struck Page 1 biz, that they have fallen completely out of touch with the people that really matter, the readers.
To rephrase a tagline from a major national daily: It’s the reader that guards the leader, not the other way around.
It’s about time our journalists got their heads out of the butts of celebs and stars and returned to street level reality where the rest of us live.
Otherwise, they’ll be blinder than the character Urmila plays in Naina.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 24th, 2005 at 11:22 am. It is filed under Ashok.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
