Life, Movies and the real Villains

Movies and life are mirror images of each other. Movies reflect life and vice-versa. Script writers draw inspiration from the life around them. Movie viewers are influenced to some extent at least by what they see on the screen. Audrey Hepburn went to the extent of claiming that “Everything I learnt I learnt from the movies.”

Movies do influence people. But can we ascribe to movies all the violence and other forms of evil in today’s world? A fellow blogger raises the question in this week’s Indispire: “Is the portrayal of women in Cinema one of the reasons behind increase in sexual crimes against them? Do commercial movies merely reflect prevailing attitudes or do they shape and contribute to those attitudes as well?”

Did our ancestors burn thousands of women on the funeral pyres of their husbands because of movies? Were millions of women kept confined to hearth and home for centuries because of movies? Were thousands of pubescent girls abandoned in temples in the name of devadasi system because of movies?

It has been a man’s world all along. A few matriarchal tribal societies in the northeast may be the only exceptions. Even the matrilineal system among the Nairs in Kerala was a system forged by the Namboothiri men to exploit the women sexually.

The 21^st century has entered adulthood. Yet have men’s attitudes towards women changed significantly? Women are not free to walk about where they like, when they like, and with whom they like. Men will make the choices for them even today in countries like India.

India has been taken backward by a few centuries in the name of culture and religion. The movies are not the villains. You know who the villains are. Unfortunately you will vote the same villains to power again.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 305: #VulgarityInCinema

PPS. Having read my previous post, New Year Resolutions, a friend texted, “So really you gonna change your style of writing? Ha ha ha. I have a doubt.” Her doubt is proved valid by the very next post of mine, this present one.

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