Why is there a dearth of originality in Bollywood?

Since the 1970s, Bollywood has been known as the world’s largest film producer. But in today’s era, a lot has changed, in terms of the style of filmmaking, the concepts, the technology being used and so on.

This gives rise to a very pertinent question. Is our film industry trying to ape Hollywood unlawfully? Many of our movies that seem to be potentially strong on the script, are mostly an interpretation of some Hollywood movie.

For example, a fabulous movie like ‘Chachi 420’ that was not only strong with it’s casting but also the entire concept, was in reality a copy of a Hollywood film called ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ (1993). We can pinpoint plenty of such instances when B-Town has blatantly copied the concept of a Hollywood movie.

But these days, in terms of technology too, we seem to be following their footsteps. The VFX and special effects that are used for a superhero flick seem to be influenced by the West. It’s not an unknown fact that Hollywood has always been a top-ranker when it comes to technology. So, this is a point where our industry is trying to challenge them and come up with the latest ever technologies. This move looks in the right direction because it’s only going to benefit our films in the long run.

Another aspect of aping the West seems to stem from the fact that “s*x sells”. Yes, that’s right! Gone are the days when two flowers in a garden were shown making love and it was well assumed, but today the amount of love-making that we get to see on the screen has just gone up. The pressing need to depict an intimate scene in an erotic manner and get maximum audience to flock towards the cinema halls seems to be an ideology of the West.

The song and dance culture has been an inherent aspect of Bollywood, but many a times the tunes of songs have been lifted from a song from the West just to attract eyeballs. We undoubtedly have ample talent in India. So why the need to derive influence from Hollywood? It’s about time we pull our socks and create something which we can call our own, don’t you think? Let us know your views in the comments’ section.

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