WHY INDIAN’S ARE BOYCOTTING THEIR MOVIES?

After the death of Sushant Singh Rajput amid covid fans were taken by shock. It was unexpected that an actor who had achieved success through skill and sheer hard work would give up after only a few setbacks. Soon rumours of his depression and use of strong drugs began to circulate. The Bollywood PR machine kicked into high gear to portray him as someone who couldn’t handle his success, relationships, and poor decisions. There were rumours that he was a challenge on the set of movies as well. If his supporters had not been upset by the manner in which their modest hero left the world, the news would have died a slow and silent death. The urban chatroom soon became overly active as the general public offered suggestions for how this death might not have happened and how he was boycotted from top banners of Bollywood as he was an outsider.

It all started with #JusticeforSSR and disheartened fans made up their mind to boycott Bollywood as well and the trend continued.

Another main reason for boycotting the movies is lack of original content and copy pasting the scripts of Hollywood movies while there is somewhere around 28 % GST on movie tickets audiences have started given preference to OTT’s platform where they get affordable, new and original content easily at their homes.

The interviews of star kids who are flag bearers of Nepotism have always been rude be it kareena kapoor, alia bhat, aamir khan who have asked audiences to not come and watch the movies as no one is forcing them. People have started believing that Bollywood is also a place where some powerful men control everything and they never respect and consider outsiders performing well. Another huge backlash which was received by Bollywood was that it is hurting religious sentiments and netizens opted for boycotting the movies while on the other hand Movies like Bahubali, RRR and many other southern movies were accepted whole heartedly by the masses for its glorifying representation of culture and the then society.

The audience mindset has grown over a period of time it has stopped entertaining mediocrity. Recent success of Drishyam 2 movie shows the expectation of Indian audiences they are fed up from watching selective secularism on screen, targeting Indian armies, making fun of own culture, questioning existence of gods and what not. The trend of Boycott Bollywood is not against every other movie it is just against nepotisim, criminal-bollywood and terrorist-bollywood nexus. Kartik Aryans’ Bhool bhulaiya 2 , Ajay devgan’ Drishyam 2 and many mothers have proved that a good script and storyline still have performed well on box office despite of these trends.

Thus it’s not like a lover of Indian cinema has overnight developed an affluent, refined palate. Because there are so many options available, they are simply more demanding now. Although it has not yet completely vanished, celebrity culture has undoubtedly changed. Well-marketed, excellent films will still find fans. Now all they have to do is compete for space with a variety of other, typically better, possibilities.

PRAGATI PRAGI

B.A.L.L.B HON’S 

N.L.U Vishakapatnam