Nothing wrong with masala films: Shobhaa De

Celebrity author Shobhaa De says that masala films are what we enjoy and that all commercially successful films are not "lousy".

De, who kicked off the Manhattan Short Film Festival India 2013 Master Class Series with her topic - Reviewing Film Reviews - Wednesday, educated students on how to truly appreciate Hindi cinema of today.

She told them not to let commercial success of a film influence their decision to watch a film or not.

"Don't go by the commercial success of a movie. Make up your own mind. Or don't even hold the commercial success of a movie against it. I know a lot of movie snobs, who say that if a movie has made a Rs.150 crore, it has got to be a lousy film," De said in a statement.

"It must be a mass entertainer, it must be a masala film. There's nothing wrong with masala films. These are the films we really enjoy. If I were to tell you that I enjoyed 'Rowdy Rathore', which I did hugely or 'Singh is Kinng', I mean you watch it and see it in the context the film was made. Bollywood films are really telling us a lot about ourselves," she added.