"MOVIES AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY" --REALLY!?

"This is all a political conspiracy. It is against our culture. What message does it give to the society? I really did not expect this from a director of his stature!”

To this day, I do not understand this line of thought. The idea of any form of public media giving a ‘message’ to the society, itself seems questionable to me! 

With all the talks in the town about PK, the rest of this post may invoke a few questions in you. Some useful questions that might convince you that this whole idea might need some reconsideration. 

A movie is capable of a strong form of ‘expression’. Expression of an idea, a story, an opinion, or simply wild creativity. Saying it out is the independence of the movie maker. But when it comes to receiving it, that’s the discretion of a viewer. If a movie “is giving a bad message to the society”, that’s because the people of the society are probably ‘taking’ it!

Let me ask you a question. What’s your favorite flavor of ice-cream? Vanilla, Butterscotch, Chocolate? Of course, you’ll have a favorite. Why? Because you’ve tasted all kinds of ice-cream there is, and your favorite is the best! Now, imagine that you’ve only had Vanilla all your life. Do you think Vanilla would be your ‘true’ favorite? No points for guessing that one!

Why did I just talk about ice-cream? Because culturally, majority of us are in the same position! If you do not open your mind to understand and respect all kinds of cultures, then how would you ever know why yours is the best for you? 

It’s that simple when I say it.

Be open-minded.

If a movie has an opinion about a social issue, welcome it. It may be true that the opinion in the movie is weak, not logical enough or absurd. Nevertheless, it is an opinion. It exposes us to different questions. It encourages us to reconsider and reinforce our beliefs and expands our horizons of thinking. But by simply boycotting the movies, all we are doing is making our society more and more delusional and handicap. 

It is understandable that conformity is essential for smooth functioning of the society. But being one geographical home for a country full of people where there is a diversity of culture across every 100km is not easy! There will be hitches. But if we always protect ourselves from them, we are never going to get past them!

All our society has been doing, is ‘protecting’ us from modernization when it really had to be ‘exposing’ us to it! 

Why are we so worried about the impact that movies are creating? Because we are not successful in empowering our people to think in different directions and make their own decisions about their beliefs. Yes, it would create disagreements. But when are we ever going to learn to accept the disagreements when we are suppressing them all the time?  

Summing things up,

What we are doing: Raising our voices against the display of movies with strong non-conforming opinions and trying to boycott them.

What we should be doing: Watching them, discussing about them with an open mind, having healthy arguments and encouraging others to do so.

This might all look very ideal. It is also quite natural that no social problem is an isolated one. But, all I want to do with this little write-up, is reach the educated class and tell them that instead of labeling and boycotting things with our personal bias, we need to sit down, receive new things with an open-mind and talk about them. 

Let's do more towards growing, shall we?