HOW INTELLIGENT IS AN AUDIENCE THAT ENDORSES ROWDY RATHORE, HOUSEFULL 2, BODYGUARD & AGNEEPATH?

The huge success of Rowdy Rathore was, strangely, predicted more by the pseudo-intellectual brigade than by the normal Hindi film buff, who is always a shade apprehensive that the film does not prove a catastrophe like, say, an Agent Vinod or a Rascals.

The ivory tower inhabitants, especially those who write reviews in national publications (read English), either condescendingly stated that the film will rake in the greenbacks irrespective of “quality” (or similar) and their opinion of it (!) or just rubbished the entertainer. These worthies, full to the gills of international (off-beat or niche) cinema and (back home) the Anurag Kashyap-Vishal Bhardwaj kind of sensibilities, failed in all their ‘wisdom’ about cinema to understand that the films they endorsed were of a different kind, made for a small and different chunk of audiences, and anyway were far from original. After all, original is not only about story or script but also about formats and techniques.

Most critics’ favourites are those that are not mass-friendly, whether it is Indian cinema with its element of nautanki, folk and our epics, or the cream of Hollywood. Anything that connects with the masses is lowbrow, cheap and not “happening,” say they, as they consume vada-pav from a roadside stall. But why these ‘cinema-literate’ people want a Dabangg, Om Shanti Om, Murder 2, Dhamaal, Bhoot, Krrish et al to all be like their pet films (usually foreign and preferably dark fare!) is beyond me. How can every film be evaluated on identical parameters? It is insanity and cinema-illiteracy of the highest degree to apply the same yardstick even to two completely commercial films like Housefull 2 and The Dirty Picture, how then can we apply it to totally different subjects? Can a Deewaar ever be like a Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge?

Ha! And that’s not the only contradiction. Like bad foster parents, they look at movies as wayward children who should fall in line (sic), come up to their expectations and ‘benchmarks’ (sic) and not disappoint their hopes. The same ladies and gentlemen who run down mass-connect composers like Anu Malik for his few plagiarized songs or Sajid-Wajid for their rooted melodies and extol a Rahman or Amit Trivedi for their innovation (simply because they are influenced by oh-so-happening alien genres like rock and world music) continue to hover metres above terra firma in their blinkered glasses and are apologetic about a Rohit Shetty or Anees Bazmee failing to live up to Tarentino / Majidi /whatever, who are geniuses no doubt in their respective countries.

One film review of Rowdy Rathore even psycho-analyzed its filmmakers! It asked whether producer Bhansali was struck by avarice to make such a film. Well, we wonder what would happen if this critic ever invested his own money in a film?

Correction – that was till the ‘90s that filmmakers would literally come on the streets if they persisted in disregarding the audience. Today, the producer pockets the moolah, and most of his corporate financiers who lose the money do not personally suffer either as the money is not going from their own pockets!!

And here’s a standing joke we all know: Ivory tower critic slams Heyy Babyy (yes, I too did not like it, but had to respect its mass connect). Sajid Khan directs Housefull three years later. Convenient amnesia strikes and as this new film is being butchered in their ‘review’, we read the gem of a sentence, “Heyy Babyy at least had a certain wit (or whatever)…, but Housefull lacks even…”. Two years later, poor Housefull 2 releases to deserve a higher gem, “Housefull had its moments of wacky humor, but this film…!” And so on!

But perhaps the worst aspect of all this is the way this brigade (which sadly also includes a small chunk of film buffs and a lot of GenY film-folk) casts aspersions on the intelligence of the audience that turns Dabangg, Ready, Singham, Agneepath (I hated the film, but so what? There must have been a reason why it made so much money!) and now Rowdy Rathore into such blockbusters. The audience is moronic becasue it does not endorse their (re)views, see?

I think that it’s time they were soundly told – while they are relishing their sadak-chhap bhajiyas as if they are exotic and un-Indian caviar – that, hello, guys’n’gals, get real! It is the very same audience that has loved Chak De! India, Taare Zameen Par, 3 Idiots, The Dirty Picture, Kahaani and Vicky Donor that has endorsed Murder 2, Yamla Pagla Deewana, Golmaal 3 (I did not like this one either), Dhoom 2 and Gadar –Ek Prem Katha.

The audience is greedy for value-for-money cinema – of any and especially diverse kinds. Period. And that’s why the best of so-called offbeat, different or ‘arty’ films have always proved hits down the decades – whether it was a Padosi in the ‘40s, Pyaasa and Do Ankhen Barah Haath in the ‘50s, Kanoon (a songless film then!)and Aashirwad in the ‘60s, Anand and Ankur in the ‘70s, Arth and Ardh Satya in the ‘80s, Maachis and in the ‘90s and so many films in the millennium.

Make no mistake – the audience is and always has been far, far more intelligent than any ‘intellectual’ – critic or otherwise – can ever hope to be.

The prosecution (not the defence) rests.



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