A thought on Movies

Today’s thoughts are on movies and serials of today's era. Here I am not opposing the entire cinema. But I am presenting my viewpoint on a certain kind of cinema. It’s my opinion about the changes that I have observed. This post is more on a lighter side.

In today’s movies and serials, villains have changed a lot. In old days the villains were presented in darkest of shades because they mostly had greed, lust and clear traits of an evil person. But today some villains are doing bad to prove their ideology (now don’t mark my words here and start complaining that’s not entirely true and we have a huge variety of cinema that is created in the world). Few examples are Joker, Thanos, Asur (a web serial released in 2020), etc. I am not saying all the villains are portrayed in the same zone but these kinds of villains also exist in cinema and I will talk about them. In such stories, the villains will do killings in society to prove their ideology and play ideological games with those who are committed to protect the society. Villains have such a deep belief in their own ideology that they are even ready to put their lives at stake. And the effect of such stories in the current generation of social media can be easily observed with kinds of memes that are viral. People have simply started adoring the villain. There is nothing wrong in admiring the actors for playing their part so well, but the villains should not be adored as characters for the ideology that they want to prove. Though memes are not some serious stuff, it is intriguing that young people are liking the villains. But why? I feel the only reason is the conviction that villains have in their ideologies. Even though at the end of the story good people kill the villain but villains have made an important impact on the heart of society. The reason for that is that even after the villain is killed his ideology lives. There is nothing wrong to counter that ideology. Villains these days can make anyone believe in their ideology and make them join the evil army. On the other hand, the good characters must fight on their own. Even though they manage to kill the villain in the end but the ability of villains to influence people just by their words is fascinating. This is another reason why villains are becoming more admirable these days. A determined and convincing ideology is all it takes for villains to earn respect from their audience. And what hero of the stories have, just two things – a motto: ‘good always triumphs over evil in the end’ and a tragic story to grief upon. These things have become quite old-fashioned and thus hero characters now are only admired because the actors playing them are good looking and stylish.

Now my point here is that if the story writer wants to kill the villain in the end then why not challenge the villain’s ideology as well? As they give the weapon of ideology to the villain, they should also give a better belief set to the hero. ‘Good always wins over evil’ is not sufficient. Ideological fights cannot be fought with just one such statement. Rather it needs proper reasoning so that the balance between good and bad ideologies can be understood. If the villain is creating chaos in society based on his ideology then it is important to degrade his ideology first, doesn’t matter whether the villain dies or not.

Some time ago I watched a web series named “Asur”. In this, the villain has an ideology based on Hindu mythology. In the whole season, I saw the rat chase game and in the next season, I am expecting the villain to be caught and punished. But who is going to tell the villain, and in turn the audience, that his ideology is wrong? As the villain uses explanations from mythological stories to support his ideology, who is going to give explanations from the same mythological stories to counter his ideology? In old age movies, villains used to accept their mistakes and ask for forgiveness in the end. These days, because no one is countering the villain’s ideology, villains never accept that what they did was wrong, and their ideological interpretation was flawed. In the case of the series “Asur”, the mythological stories are being used to create the villain’s destructive ideology, but mythology was of no help to the hero. In my opinion, this puts Hindu mythology in a bad light as it projects that mythology can support bad people, but it can be of no help to good people.

In my opinion, a story should have a balance between good and evil. Just killing the villain, in the end, is not sufficient especially when mythology is involved. If a bad person is neutralized by a good person then bad ideology also needs to be neutralized by good ideology. This is important because though movies are made for entertainment, they have tremendous impact on the psychological fabric of society. The reason for this impact is that people tend to find their character in the story and thus connect immensely with it. A good example of this is a few seconds ads of fairness creams that were being criticized because they were promoting colorism. Now if a few seconds ad can have such an impact then a few hours of movie or series will surely impact social psychology. This impact may not be noticeable at once but if similar fashion stories are continued to be presented then there will be a sizable impact on society's mind. And thus, it is important to create a balance of good and bad ideology in the story.

x-x-x-x-x-x

Editing credits - Shomita Yadav