It’s rightly said ‘When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do’ but never at the cost of your roots I repeat never. Be yourself. Have pride in your motherland, culture, language and at lasty yourself. Blindly imbibing customs and practices of the host can invariably cause the loss of one’s own cultural identity and values. And something of the same pattern was evidently visible in RRR team present at the Golden Globe’s stage.
Believe you me, the desperate need to seek validation from a person entertaining contrarian viewpoint has never worked for anyone and case in point is the needless appeasement moves that was seen being done by the RRR team in pre and post award functions held in America.
Decimating the progress made so far
Knowingly or unknowingly, through Bollywood, Hollywood or other means of entertainment, a negative stereotype of India has been peddled. In this notion, romanticisation of everything had taken the driving seat. Our rich and beautiful cultural, historical, linguistic or social aspects are thrown out of the window or vilified to suit the narrative of vested interests.
But off late, things have started to change. Films like ‘Kantara’, ‘RRR’, ‘Kartikeya 2’ and ‘The Kashmir Files’ among others tried to challenge the set narrative. They demonstrated the lesser talked facet of India and the real power of Cinema which is more than just to give leisure moments, groovy songs and crazy dance moves.
When the entertainment industries rose to the occasion, audiences throughout the nation wholeheartedly backed them. So much so that, the positive PR by impressed audiences didn’t let the buzz fade away around these films. After a collective backing from India, these films consequently went on to make their proud way to the global stage.
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Evidently, cinema lovers, entertainment industry and the entire nation was elated at ‘RRR’, ‘Kantara’, ‘Chhello Show’ and ‘The Kashmir Files’ receiving wide admiration, nominations and recognition at the global stage. Later, the ‘Nattu Nattu’ song from RRR getting the Golden Globe for best original song was like icing on the cake.
But as it is rightly said, ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, and at the end things do not seem to be going well for the RRR team. Yeah don’t be shocked. Its the fact. RRR, after getting all the acclamation, adoration and love from public across the nation went on to make few mean acts, statements and idiosyncrasies that soured the celebrations of RRR among the Indian mass.
In Awe of Hollywood, overwhelmed RRR team acted like immature fanboy
The RRR squad acted wildly in Hollywood rather than acting poised, losing sight of the fact that they were there to represent India. In an interaction with a Variety reporter, movie leads Ram Charan and Jr NTR displayed their oozing desire to work in Hollywood and consolidate their standing in the West.
Instead of balancing pride for the Indian Entertainment industry and admiration for certain aspects of Hollywood, the leads seemed indulging in sycophancy of Hollywood. In sheer appeasement of the Westerns, they completely shunned their Indianness so much so that they started overdoing things by acting, behaving and sounding more American than ordinary American citizens would.
Dear RRR Hero,
In media interaction,Fake american accent is not at all required – A day before one was cringeworthy indeed.
American media, people have no complaints at world accents and dialects – Especially Indian 🇮🇳 ; We can stay original #RRRMovie
— Telugu360 (@Telugu360) January 10, 2023
If reel life characters were alive, I am sure that the miserable urge to adopt a fake foreign accent by Ram Charan and especially by Jr NTR would have been thrashed by Komaram Bheem. The character played by Jr NTR was a crusader against the oppressive regime of colonisers and their cruel act of imposing so-called self-righteous ways of White supremacists. Their fake American accent and desperately seeking homage in Hollywood trampled their own stature and that of Indian heroes.
In an attempt to put down Bollywood, director SS Rajamouli disappointed everyone by resorting to regional chauvinism and the ill-intentioned terminology of North and South.
He said, “RRR is not a Bollywood film, it is a Telugu film from the south of India where I come from, but I use the song to move the story forward rather than stopping the film and giving you a piece of music and dance.”
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Having presented our disappointment, here are a few questions that only the RRR team can answer to dispel our ‘misgivings’, if any, or clarification of what they really intended to mean by those statements. These answers will be in the interest of the public as well the film members.
No, we don’t have any question on why RRR was openly nationalist, or why its songs glorified our rich culture. Rather we have been backing them on those points and other similar movies with all our might. Our questions are rather simple.
Did they represent the entire Indian entertainment industry and India on the global stage or were they there just for pitting one industry against another and scoring brownie points over Bollywood and other industries? Ironically, when the team was touring across India for the promotion of their film, they seeked support on the claim of it being an Indian film. Were those statements mere PR strategy?
Further, do they believe that the movie succeeded without the love and support of every Indian?
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