How Bollywood Is Using Heavy Emotional Quotient To Hide Average Content, And Its Working

There is a school of thought that says one should judge a film not by anything but by the way it makes you feel.  Going by this logic, it makes sense that films in Bollywood are usually made to evoke a particular reaction from people which mostly for Hindi films, is tragedy and romance. The fact that Bollywood has a special love for melodrama is not exactly news. Take any major Bollywood hit or all time blockbusters; melodrama has been an essential component of most of them. But the saving grace was that it was that the films were not pretending to be not melodramatic. The stories were written with an idea to give a smooth transition to melodramatic elements and thus it seemed somewhat justified. And thus melodramas have not only been an integral part of Bollywood, but also a formula that worked almost every single time.

The problem, however, arises when the films takes emotional tear jerking to be its only target. Taking a look at some of the biggest Bollywood blockbusters of recent time, it is quite apparent that e not only filmmkaers are engaging in this practice, but audiences are lapping it up as well and thus more filmmakers are doing it to chase the cash flow at box office.

Take example of the recent superhit Secret Superstar , which not only did well at the box office but also achieved record breaking overseas. Not discrediting the stellar performances put up by the cast, but come to think of it, is it a story that we have not seen in Bollywood in different packaging or variations?

Another movie that is set to break record at the overseas box-office, Bajrangi Bhaijaan suffers from the same issue. The plot of the movie would have been more or less same even if Harshali’s character was not mute and it would still made for a emotional journey, but making the character mute was a ploy to activate the tear ducts of the audience, which seems somewhat forced.

Even recently released Pari , which was actually a horror movie, which apart from its treatment was pretty average, felt the need to heighten its emotional quotient hoping to raise the box office number.

It is never possible to detach emotions from films, because without emotions stories cannot exist, however Bollywood’s tendency to dish out average content ride on the tear-jerking quotient is one sad trend that is not only rampant but would probably not cease because of the kind of success it is tasting.