Bollywood's reflection of tastes

In a good year Hollywood produces 500-plus movies and India churns out more than 1,000 across 20 languages. Unlike Hollywood, it is difficult to define a Bollywood movie to the extent that there is almost a genre known across the world as “Bollywood”. What is so unique about Bollywood productions? Well, they are a mix of many flavours, just like our cooking. IMDB, the movie database, defines or categorises movies in 24 genres: action, adventure, animation, biography, comedy, crime, documentary, drama, family, fantasy, film noir, history, horror, music, musical, mystery, romance, sci-fi, short film, sport, superhero, thriller, war and Western. I am sure each society has its own special favourites that do not feature in the IMDB genre list. For example, a genre like “religious” or “mythological” may be an apt way of defining some Indian films (Baahubali is categorised as “action” by IMDB). That said, many Bollywood films can be categorised as action, comedy, drama, family, romance, and musical. A movie like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge may tick numerous boxes.

Movies reflect the changing societal narratives and even economic imperatives. Bibek Debroy, in an interview (BusinessLine, August 15, 2020) on a research he had done on “movies and economic transition”, commented: “Films… began to reflect liberalisation, with a time lag…. At the time of land reforms, the typical villain was the landlord. Then, when the Essential Commodities Act came along, the villain was often the hoarding ration shop owner. Then during the phase of urbanisation and land conversion, the real estate mafia was the villain.”

Rachel Dwyer, in her book Picture Abhi Baaki Hai, has also looked at how the rise of Amitabh Bachhan’s angry young man was a reflection of youth discontent and unemployment. In a more recent book, The Three Khans, Kaveree Bamzai has spoken about how SRK, Aamir and Salman have each reflected the yearnings of a different “India”: SRK of the NRIs, Aamir of the urban intelligentsia and Salman of the semi-urban masses.

Have Bollywood movies, in terms of genres, been changing as well? Or is Bollywood still churning out a standardised masala mix product. A report in The Mint (July 13, 2020) analysed the genres of Bollywood movies from the 1970s to 2010s and compared them with the evolution of the Hollywood genre. It found some parallels. While in the 1970s Bollywood movies were largely Drama (67 per cent), Action (28 per cent), Romance (23 per cent) and Family (14 per cent), the genre mix in the 2010s started looking a little different: Drama (53 per cent), Comedy (23 per cent), Thriller (20 per cent), Romance (17 per cent). Comedy has emerged as a strong genre, so has Thriller. Interestingly, Hollywood has always had a mix of Drama, Comedy and Thriller in the top four genres. The authors asked the question, “Is Bollywood becoming more like Hollywood?”.

The analysis done by the researchers looked at all the Bollywood movies released. Will the analysis change if we look at the biggest box office successes?

We decided to look at the top ten Bollywood hits of each year from 1990 to 2019. A total of 300 movies were analysed using the IMDB classification as well as our own judgement on the specific “genre” to slot a movie. Consciously, movies were slotted into one genre bucket. Movies were analysed in decadal format; movies released in the period 1990 to 1999 was the first cohort; the second was 2000 to 2009; and the third was 2010 to 2019. We had a hundred movies in each decadal cohort. Some interesting trends emerged. In the 1990s, the top 100 billers were romance (43), action (31), drama (10), comedy (7) and musical (5). Let us see how this has changed in the 2010s: romance (24), action (29), drama (11), comedy (14), thriller (6), sci-fi (4) and sports (3).

How is this of relevance to what will happen to Bollywood when cinemas open all over India?

We are today wondering what kind of movies will bring viewers back into cinema halls. Has OTT changed them dramatically by offering them a multi-coloured palette? The truth is that the writing was on the wall. From the days of dominance of romance and action, the hits of the 2010s have a wider variety of flavours. And hence movie-goers have been sending signals to movie-makers that maybe their taste has changed.

In the 1990s, romance and action accounted for almost 75 per cent of the top hits; in 2010, the same two accounted for only 53 per cent. Chances are that when movie theatres open fully by end-2021, we will see their dominance decline further as movie-goers, who have been exposed to multiple forms of storytelling, crave for a different flavour of masala mix.

Will the core of Bollywood change? Experts are divided in their opinion. Some feel that big city audience will not accept the standard fare, while the small town cinema lover is still craving for it. As David Lunn, a researcher at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, observed (Bloomberg Businessweek, August 3, 2020), “Rather than signalling the end of the big box office numbers, instead we’re seeing a broadening of the field. In this new, more diverse landscape, there will be greater space for experimentation and novelty – and failure – and filmmakers are already trying their hand at new formats.” While he said this about the rise of Hindi and Indian language OTTs, I think the same will spill over to movies, too. As Sameer Nair of Applause Entertainment observed in an article, “This is not to say that our love affair with star power is over, but just that everyone will have to work harder to tell better stories now.” And the signal has been coming for a decade.

The writer is a best-selling author, brand coach and founder, Brand-Building.com, a brand advisory. He can be reached at ambimgp@brand-building.com. Research and analysis assistance was provided by Dr Sugam Pagaria