Laws of Attraction

What used to draw us to the theatres initially? Any guesses. The formula for attracting the audiences to the movies has evolved a lot through the past few decades. Kudos to the respective directors and the production houses, who have come up with something special and innovative everytime.

Being an avid movie follower, I have taken a more than what can be called a keen interest in the stories behind the camera. And it is quiet funny to see how the laws have been conveniently changed and then tried and tested on the public.
As far as I remember, the audiences have been very happily fooled may be 8 out of 10 times giving the movie-masterminds a chance to walk with a huge bags to their swiss accounts.

The directors used to try their hands at some halka-fulka stuff (conventional and comfortable) like

The dying hero
The reincarnated hero
The hero with the budhi maa and andhi behen (or vice –versa.. who cared..)

Then the directors realised that these things are turning out to be cliche’. So they brainstormed with the team and came out with some behetar options. They did some more experimentation and presented us with

The rags to riches hero
The villain cum hero
The heroine who could act for a change :)
The hero who looked young for a change :P

But this was not enough with the rising competition and the advent of generation next it became important to also have some necessary (read unnecessary) fun and frolic which gives the director a chance to do some patch work. So there we were flooded with

A new phenomenon: The item girl
A new trend: Special appearances (Read unemployed best friends or indebted relations)
A new culture: Casting couch (Fodder for the media.. who pounced at once on our chota sa pyara sa nanha sa bacha..)

In hindi we say : “ Yahan tak to theek tha”
Until this stage everything was in the hands of the the movie makers but there was a set of more creative people ready to earn some good money through their direction and editing skills. Hmmm the Media. So we now had some breaking news like

Hero ka “scandal” ...... Heroine ki “sandal”....
Affairs: FOR the movies, OF the movies, BY the movies..
The hero who always wants to Kiss
The heroine who is actually not a Miss
Arghhh...!!

The movie makers soon realised the potential of the media and thought that instead of letting the media have all the fun why not unite in the effort towards creating a Buzz and forget all the fuss. So to our utter disgust / pleasure (depends on person to person) we are now being treated as morons who will believe whatever is shown and who will get carried away by all the fabricated or self-invited controversies surrounding the films. So now we have some very innovative stuff like:

3 idiots: Chetan Bhagat-Vidhu Vinod Chopra showdown or Aamir Khan’s disappearing act to roam around in disguise (But with the camera man in tow and a full coverage of the disappreance.. LOL)

My name is Khan: Look at the Marketing Mix..... Cricket, Politics, Religion and Bollywood... WOW..!!

Kaminey: The short-lived and long-ago died affair... Kudos..!!

I fail to understand when will the movie makers understand that we can see through the fabrication and we can decide for ourselves whether to watch the movie or not. I really don’t care if Chetan got his due or not. Whether Shahid and Priyanka are still together. Whether SRK got actually detained. And let alone whether Aamir could buy a house for his mother in Benaras. THE AUDIENCE IS NOT BOTHERED. But the whole issue shows that the producers don’t have enough confidence in their own product and so they have been miserably trying to establish a foolish connect with the audience through these fallacies.

These BRAND NEW LAWS are here to stay as long as they will keep attracting the audience and may be also help Bollywood and Media earn more money. Hence we already have Hrithik’s affair and divorce stories doing the rounds since 2009 and I guess the next controversy in the making is that of an illegitimate child.. :P (Remember.. Aamir had one just when Lagaan went on to become a super-duper hit).

Hats off to the creativity of these people. Nevertheless I think a good and honest movie does not need to follow any of these stupid laws of attraction.