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
21st 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.
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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