Bollywood Trends

In many ways, Bollywood still aims at a lowest common denominator, escapist fare that the average Indian can watch and be entertained by. Serious dramas, while they exist, are not that popular, and certainly, movies that aim to be different or baffling are hardly made (to be fair, there are some arty directors).

Because India is fairly puritanical by Western standards, you won't see a great deal of things that come in Western cinema. For example, kissing is almost unseen in Indian cinema. Only recently, within the last year or so, you get to see a kiss that might last a few seconds, and often lacking some deal of passion. It's intriguing because the dancing and clothing are suggestive.

Despite actresses wearing provocative Western clothing, people seem to realize these are films and that women are expected not to imitate the women shown in these films. It's intriguing because these films talk about women in love with men (and vice versa) even as India (really the subcontinent, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka) is one of the few countries of the world where arranged marriages are still quite common.

Here are some of the conservative attitudes that simply don't extend in film. Single women, especially under 20, are expected to not be alone with men. Certainly, having unmarried women and men living together is very uncommon. It goes without saying that premarital sex is also much more uncommon among Indians. Because of arranged marriages, the importance of having one's potential mate be acceptable to parents is of paramount importance. One is expected to have quite close relations with one's parents.

I was talking to a coworker who said he had a relative in the US (an uncle), but he had basically cut off contact with his family and not even attended his father's funeral. Basically, such alienation usually means such a person is disowned.

The conservatism goes to other issues. Beer and alcohol, so common in the US, Europe, and Asia, is considered semi-taboo in India. The general perception is that alcohol leads to wild uncontrolled behavior and certainly one wouldn't drink in front of children. Restaurants often segregate the parts that serve alcohol so that families don't see people drinking alcohol.

Women are expected to be even more conservative. Women should not smoke, nor drink. Now, even as I'm saying a bunch of things that seem to Western standards very restrictive, Indians perceive this as creating a society that is free from some of the worries Westerners have. Indeed, this predominantly Hindu society has aspects that would be far more acceptable to Christian conservatives (minus the religion part) here.

To be fair, young men seem to be pretty polite as a whole, which may have to do with the hierarchical society, where lower castes tend to have to be polite and accommodate higher castes.

The one avenue that Bollywood is willing to push the limit is that women can dress sexy, be somewhat independent, and can give the impression that love conquers all. Parents seem missing in the few films I've seen (well, there is the mother in Krssh!).

Nudity, for example, is still highly taboo, both men and women. Revealing clothing is still not permissible (a bare midriff is fine, but showing too much bosom is a no-no). On the other extreme, you don't see much violence either. Although Western films are shown in India, I wonder if the violence is edited out. Some stuff, say, Scorsese's films are so luridly violent that one could hardly imagine it being shown in India.

I imagine, for example, a film where there is a city boy and country girl that meets, but due to their relationship (maybe she tries to pick up Western habits), she is eventually stoned to death by her villagers for behaving improperly. Are they willing to make a film like that which criticizes very conservative attitudes? As Indians tell me "in the cities, things are progressing", what's being left out is that the countryside, where more conservative Indians live, represents what many people think of as true India.

Indeed, it's not the case (I believe) that the people who live in cities look at the countryside with disdain, as they might in the US, where liberals in large cities look at rural America with disdain. The countryside represents a kind of ideal India, even as India is being transformed by technology.

As much as I'm told that things are changing, my own experience is that it's not changing as fast as people would say, though certainly it's probably quite quick by Indian standards. I believe the reason I'm told this (though I've hardly traveled enough to be certain) is because those who are trying to be modern stick out so much that one tends to overcount them.

To be fair, do movies affect the way people dress or act?

When Hollywood was in its heyday, during the 40s and 50s, actors lead lives that were seen as exotic. They got married and divorced. They lead hedonistic lives. The rest of America did not follow this lifestyle, though by the time the 60s and 70s rolled around, they did.

Will Bollywood transform India? Right now, it seems that it can transform it somewhat, but because parents still control much of what their children do, you expect that the changes are going to be slower.

Now, this begs the question. Do the changes make sense? If India becomes more Westernized, will people lament that women are now not marrying, leading independent careers, acting more sexy, forcing men to have to learn how to meet women? I think if you ask the average Indian about trying to go on a date with a woman, it would petrify them. They wouldn't know how to act or what to do. In a sense, men in their 20s act a bit more like men in their pre-teens in the US, hanging out with other males, and girls hanging out with other girls. People like the system as is, and it means they have a strong sense of family and to do right by the family.

Thus, family values, this "Christian" value is seen much more strongly in a Hindu society, and that the film industry, so popular in India, is possibly trying to erode this, with questionable success.

The key, I think, will actually be the Internet. You know what the Internet meant for many males in the US. Yes, porn. Will India attempt to block this porn? How will it deal with this (even as many of the models are going to be white or black or Southeast Asian, but not Indian?).

India is old and new at the same time, and it will be interesting to see how it deals with all the societal pressures it feels from the outside, and from within its own film industry.