Cinemas - Social Responsibility

This is another highly debated topics - the social responsibility of film makers. Mani Ratnam needs a special mention in Indian directors - mixing commercialism with some message. But is this message loud enough?

Look at the real problems facing India - more than a billion people, poverty, illiteracy, corruption, exploitation, injustice to women, bad judiciary and law enforcement, female infanticide, dowry problems..... tends to infinity. Of course the problems are real and very negative. But the movies need not be negative at all. It can target an individual improvement of herself/himself than, a superhero from upper middle class saving the day for us. Something which makes us think after the 90 minutes we spend inside the cinema hall. Not something which makes us laugh or cry and then forget about it in a week.

One bad thing in our cinema is it mostly focused on the hero. May be the idea comes from our mythology. Real life just doesn't work that way. These directors and producers have a responsibility to the public. After sucking their hard earner money, they do have an obligation to produce content that both questions the present state and provides hope that things can become better. Sure you can still have your "item" songs and fights interwoven. If you can do that with a crappy storyline, you can sure do it with a good story..