Why is competition necessary? Well, you don’t push yourself to excel until you don’t have any rival. You do not need to stand out from the crowd as there is no rival. But, having a competitor makes you work hard and look for creative ways to make an impact on people. This is the reason why Bollywood didn’t even think of doing better and offering some brilliant contents to the cinemagoers.
However, there’s always a turning point. Bollywood, now, has a rival. Believe me, when I say that the rival has emerged stronger than one can ever think of.
Bollywood’s new rival – multilingual cinema
The Economic Times, in its report titled “Bollywood is threatened by India’s other movie-making powerhouse”, wrote, “Bollywood has a serious rival now in India. It’s bigger, louder and is making more money than its prolific, glitzy Hindi-language cousin known for its signature dance moves and opulent wedding scenes.”
Let’s try to analyse who these rivals are and how they are a threat to Bollywood. The Masala films from Southern India are dramatically increasing their dominance on the country’s $24 billion media and entertainment market. Interestingly, in some cases, they perform beyond expectation. Be it Telugu, Tamil, or Kannada, every south Indian movie is drawing millions of viewers to the theaters displaying dubbed versions of them. Even the streaming platforms are occupied with such films making the audiences go gaga and taking subscriptions only to watch these films.
Bollywood is threatened by South-Indian films
Why should Bollywood be scared? Why does the Hindi film industry need to learn from its rival, that is, multilingual cinema? Well, not a single Hindi film this year has managed to perform outstanding at the box office. The most successful films which have taken the entertainment world by storm are in other languages. Telugu film ‘RRR’, Kannada film ‘KGF’, Tamil film ‘Vikram’ very smoothly kicked the Bollywood movies out of competition.
As far as Hindi film industry is concerned, except BhoolBhulaiyaa 2 and GangubaiKathiawadi, no other film has collected over 100 crores at the Indian box office. Even some of the good films including ‘Jersey’, and ‘Runway 34’ were crushed by the movies like KGF and Pushpa whose storylines were mediocre displaying nothing but male toxicity.
The South Indian films are not only limited to ‘KGF’ and ‘Pushpa’. Multilingual cinema is offering everything that Indian cinemagoers have been expecting from Bollywood. The Kannada films – ‘Avane Srimannarayana’ and ‘777 Charlie.’
Given the success of these films, the Bollywood cabal is frightened which is quite evident in the statement Karan Johar gave during an interaction. Karan had said that “films like KGF: Chapter 2 and RRR, which have earned over Rs 1,100 crore worldwide, have a clarity of vision that isn’t there in Hindi films, which are trying to be too many things at once.”
Read more: From KGF to Pushpa, South Indian films are crushing Bollywood in all aspects
Karan further said, “When I read the reviews of KGF, I’m like if we made this, we would be lynched. But here, everybody is like ‘Oh it was a celebration, a party’ and it was. I loved it. I loved it with all my heart. But I feel ‘hum yeh banaate toh?’ (What if we had made this?)”
Reasons behind the success of South Indian film industry
Mincing no words, I would like to make it clear that the success of multilingual cinema is nothing but the result of a two-decade trend in which Bollywood became “extremely westernized.” On the other hand, south Indian cinema believes in sticking to its roots.
Bollywood is going full woke and is busy disconnecting with the audience. Bollywood has disgruntled its fan base in order to please woke lobby of the west. Whereas, on the other hand, the other industries do not degrade the family system. To add to it, celebration of childbirth, college life, family-oriented love stories, and marriages; all are depicted beautifully.
Another reason is Nepotism which Bollywood seems to have accepted. Even south film industry have their fair share of nepotism, but its nature is starkly different. In Bollywood, new talents are ousted and South Indian movies, on the other hand, welcome new talent.
Well, it seems like Bollywood is having a tough time making its mark, and if it needs to survive even for a longer period of time, it needs to perform well.
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