To be or not to be

Hi all,

   I watch a lot of movies, those who are with me know it better. But nowadays its most common among the youth of the nation, weekends are meant for movies, no matter whether the movie is good or bad, there are people who see them all. One thing I notice nowadays, there are some movies, which are good and realistic, but some look far over-fetched to an extent that they show normal heroes as super heroes. That’s altogether a different issue. Aye, speaking of heroes, portrayal of heroes has been one significant change when compared to old/mid films to the ones coming now.

 Movies which came in the early ages of cinema were mostly real life stories, so only good things appeared in the screen, though all movies had villains, the protagonist was always a good Samaritan, so no harm done so far. But, directors began to experiment with different generes of movies, and hence anti hero subjects began to come. Some anti hero movies are good I agree, but still the essence of the movie is good, but individually if we consider all scenes, are they good?? 

The traditional movies had the hero introduction scene as a goodwill act, while the villain’s intro will be a bad act as always, and either smoking or drinking, which is not necessary, but just to create a impact among the people that the character shown is bad one, they used those. Sadly, all this is archaic now.

Nowadays, hero’s introduction scenes have become the opposite, though the hero’s introduction remains to be a goodwill act or some gesture of a good personality, it shows the hero with either a cigar in his hand or a beer. If the movie’s protagonist is shown like smoking a cigarette or drinking beer, does it serve any good purpose? If the hero belongs to a slum or lower part of society, they are shown smoking a beedi, if middle class hero then cigarette, if college student or something like that beer bottle too finds it way in the screen. For fun part of the movie, it serves its purpose, but in the real world , there are many people who watch the movies repeatedly, and hence scenes and activities shown in the movies gets registered in their minds. As a result of which, people hardly realize the fact that smoking or drinking alcohol is harmful.

Am not making myself a follower of Ramadoss, who says heroes in movies should not smoke in screen, ( though he did that for a political motive, to target the superstar during release of his flick Baba ) , all I want to say is that, drinking and smoking are injurious. Nowadays people hardly realize that, just because hero in the movie are shown smoking, people follow it, and the irritating part in the whole episode is they make fun of the guys who don’t drink as unfit to be in this world.

 
Those who drink, say that they get to discover themselves more, as thoughts flow freely, and often they speak without controlling themselves. All they want is the inner peace , which those alcohol give them, for a short amount of time, but grow up , there are much better ways of attaining inner peace ( watching kung-fu panda2 for instance) than drinking or smoking. That too in IT field, weekend party means boozing away, for god sake, haven’t our parents or grandparents struggled , and yet managed to live in peace abstaining from these, and in fact those in business have to work all 7 days a week, and non-IT employees, have 6 working days a week, and we IT people work only 5 days a week, and still blame work pressure as the reason for these activities. Am not comparing the work loads, but still work is work , and we will get to kno the difficulties of them only if we do it, not just by seeing it.

The funnier thing on the whole part is hero’s shown with alcohol or smoking is never considered bad, this is what is called as paradigm shift.

Who is to blame for that, either the attitude of the people which changed allowing hero’s to drink and smoke or the directors who made it like that ??

Though the movies, show the statutory warning message before even the first scene of the movie is opened, people hardly notice that and its considered  just as one of the ads or the news reel which are put by theatre owners..

Though most of the popular heroes in tamil have made a decision that they wont smoke on screen, the trend is yet to pick up in bollywood, hopefully in the future, they pick up this also, along with the movies, which they pick up for remaking..

Celebrations or get-together need not have alcoholic beverages, it can just be with some nice chats than speaking in an unwanted manner, it will do with a calm dinner in a small hotel or even home than in a pub with smoke and drinks, but still there are educated people , who work in well known organizations get addicted to these bad things.. Well yea, to be or not to be is in ones own mind, and no one else can justify or change it..

 Bye til nex,