Are Indian audience prejudiced against adult comedies?
Are Indian audience prejudiced against adult comedies?
Introduction:
Adult comedies in India are becoming highly popular owing to some bulk releases recently that were well received by the audience but whenever such a movie hits the theatre, there are always some protests and downgrading of the actors and directors. The adult comedy cinemas is liked by many but the hate graph also shows no decline.
There is a taboo associated with adult comedies, considering the big names of Bollywood would never do these kind of movies, but are now actually coming out to render support to them. The audience, on the other hand, is showing displeasure and concern about the future of cinemas if such movies are allowed to bourgeon.
“Kya kool hain hum” and “Masti” series have been the ones to receive good box-office treat from the audience but at the same time, the actors of these movies have been confined to this genre of movies only. Are Indian audience prejudiced against adult comedies?
Yes, let’s accept it:
1. The posters made them cringe: The posters of most of these adult comedies are gradually becoming sleazier, basically shouting what the audience could actually expect inside. Our recent adult comedies like “Kya kool hain hum 3” broke all terms of decorousness when their trailers and posters went out. Just looking at the posters, Indian mothers made up their minds not to allow their teenagers or not-so-teenager kids to ever watch those movies.
2. The “sanskar” police: Our moral police or the ‘sanskar’ police as we would like to call them went dread faced when they saw the movie (or the posters for that matter). They started crying shame and protesting against these movies, accusing them of corrupting our virtuous nature. Some went along to taint the posters black and others took to Twitter to show hatred. Recently, we saw how a senior journalist would want to embarrass Sunny Leone in the interview by hitting at her past unceasingly.
3. The censor board drama: Whenever one such adult comedies would face the wrath of censor board, half of the film would be cut and beeped to leave it only with lame and cheap jokes. There are list of banned words these movies can’t use and there are bunch of people who would never be pleased no matter what.
4. We aren’t ready for it: The Indian audiences aren’t ready to handle adult comedies not because they cannot enjoy a good laughter but because they would like to stick to the vanilla of two flowers touching to depict a sex scene and voila – you get the world’s second largest population just like that. Even a comedy show that has good adult jokes in it will be booked under some section for violating the rules of Indian Television.
5. We don’t talk things ‘adult’ openly: Intimacy is a private affair for us and so are adult jokes. We could only secretly giggle at them, but not openly in theatres. You’ll be called a spoilt brat if you do so and might even get charges against you just like Sonakshi Sinha got when she laughed out loud at the AIB Roast.
6. No real comedy in adult comedy: Our adult comedies do lack good humor anyways. The so called adult comedy movies that we get to watch are nothing but a series of raunchy stares, cheap double meaning jokes, a bunch of leggy girls only for the glam factor and of course, full of voyeurism. There is no cleverness in the jokes, just some bimbos and perverts trying to woo each other. ‘Grand Masti’ could have been a good experiment if it did not underwent the famous 218 cuts to pass the censor board test.
No, we like good humor:
1. These movies have been a hit: The moral police might scream as much as they want, the censor board might lay down thousands of rules but still these recent series of adult movies have been a big hit. They are liked by the audience which is clear from the box-office results. Yes, we shy from appreciating our likes but the result says it all. Indian audiences are evolving to appreciate good adult humor.
2. But we don’t like copied versions: Bollywood copies the West a lot. In order to ape the West, we get to see completely lost plots with no intelligence but dirty jokes and too much chaos. ‘American Pie’ and the likes of those movies cannot be expected when Bollywood starts to experiment with adult comedies of its own kind. What we see are crooked men demeaning women and treating them as sex objects. The Indian audience knows better than to appreciate without understanding hence the dislike.
3. We love Sunny Leone: The entire film fraternity came out to support Sunny Leone when she was deliberately made to feel embarrassed in an interview about her past and we absolutely loved her grace and valor with which she answered them all. India is no longer hiding behind masks of hypocrisy. Being the top consumer of pornography in the year 2015, India has definitely come out to accept their like for adult themes.
4. And we don’t like comedies demeaning women: Indian adult comedies are mostly about skin show and sleazy to the extent that they become demeaning towards women. Indians is all up to appreciate good humor but it has to be sans objectification of women, racists comments, and has to have real characters in real plot rather than imaginary ones with no intelligence at all.
Conclusion:
Suggestive lines, cheap jokes and sleazy scenes prevail in the so called adult comedies of India. If 2016 has to see a change in the ongoing trend of adult comedies, it has to stop copying in the name of “inspired from West” and start being creative about their stories.
Delhi Belly was one good adult comedy though it went gross at times but at least it had a real plot with real characters that were believable. The movie was liked by many. Pleasing everyone is not important and practically impossible but a good humor that could generate good laughter will always be welcome.
Yes, we might be a bit prejudiced against adult comedies because of the sleazy cheap trend and if that has to change, they movie makers will have to go through an entire evolution of the stuff they create. An Indian version of ‘American Pie’ is not what we are asking for. We are asking for an Indian style adult comedy.
