The other day, S wanted to know if there were any ‘good’ telugu movies online we could watch. I laughed and told him there’s no such thing as a ‘good telugu movie’ these days. My brother left a very funny status message today on FB “Breaking news to all movie goers parama veera chakra washed out in moosi river. Balayya babu ajnaatamlo ki velladanta.. Daasari daasanna ayyadu” 😀 hehee This is the state of almost all the telugu movies these days…especially the ones which have star kids and their kids in them.
In the year 2010, around 149 movies released in the telugu film industry out of which, I watched only 7 and out of them…I liked only 5 and they did not have anything to do with ‘big’ actors!!
- Maryada Ramanna
- Vedam
- Raktha Charitha 1
- Prasthanam
- Andari Bandhuvaya and
- Bhimli Kabadi Jettu
These days, I logon to a telugu movie website and just browse through it. There’s Ravi Teja pulling Richa Gangopadhyay lip while she smugly looks at him….. and Balakrishna wearing an army officer’s uniform pretending to lead a country to revolution….or there is Nagarjuna dancing around with girls half his age and there’s Mahesh Babu who is potrayed as ‘God’ who’s come to save a bunch of villagers. These are just a few movies that’ve come out this year…I can keep going on and on about the Ram Charans, Allu Arjuns, Jr NTRs and Pavan Kalyans and their ‘bheja fry’, utter non-sensical movies.
In spite of big budget movies like Komaram Puli, Orange, Khaleja, Ragada, Nagavalli and most recently Param Veera Chakra declared as being biggest flops of the year, our producers, directors and actors continue to churn out senseless movies…..where almost in all of them, the female lead can be equated to a skimpily dressed plastic doll. Anushka, who was brilliant in Arundathi and Vedam…..gave a string of flops like Panchakshari and Billa and now she is back playing a bimbo beside biggies like Nag and Venky. Female actors in the Telugu film industry are not given ample opportunity to prove their acting skills and what annoys me the most is how they are potrayed in most telugu movies.
The word ‘osey’ has become synonymous with addressing the female leads in Telugu movies. There’s this need to show the hero as the ‘man who saves the day for everyone’ and how does he do it….by disrespecting women around him…expect the mother of course. The heroine is the desperate one…the one ready to jump in the bed with the hero where as the hero is under control…though in real life…most of know this to be false. The heroine always needs a man to save her….if she is kidnapped, if she being raped…if there’s a bunch of guys teasing her on the road. She is incapable of protecting herself even in the simplest of situations. Most female characters are dumb and simply listen to the hero…..and a female character, if by the grace of God, is portrayed as being independent….she is a *bitch*……who eventually comes running back to the hero….because she realises it is the man in her life that matters…….and not her career! This is the recipe for most Telugu movies these days with a minor changes here and there of course.
How long will our narrow-minded, egotistical and self-righteous fraternity keep making such movies? Will this trend ever change?? Even though the number of people watching their movies is thinning out year by year, they still declare their movies as being the biggest hits of the year and organise bogus press meets….trying to fool us. But, are we fooled? I don’t think so!
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That’s the trend in the telugu movie industry itself. The woman is treated like dirt in real, no wonder the reel also shows the same. Its precisely why the local telugu girl doesnt want to become a heroine and the producer gets someone from bollywood or from the north who has no qualms showing skin or is too desperate to make money. Not to mention she doesnt understand the double meaning dialogues and the snide remarks that are passed at her during shooting by the hero, producer, director and the rest on the set.
Look at the telugu movie producers too. Most of them are some businessmen wanting to make their black money white. They have no qualms paying money to have a deal with the heroines.
The only telugu girl I know of in the TFI is Swati 😀
yeah colours swathi is a good actor! 🙂
Thanks for trackback from Hemanth’s blog. I mentioned the problem in my comments there, and here you added another dimension/perspective to the problem by calling *them* fraternity. True to a great extent, I guess its really upto the big-wigs (behind and in front of the camera) in deciding everything, including what the audience must watch. Cinematography, dialogue or humour can be differentiated from movie-to-movie; the subtleties go only a certain distance, but the big deal is the overall value!A Tollywood film actress – don’t even get me started on that. A song-dance requirement, purely eye-candy, arm-candy, subject of lewd jokes inside and outside the movie, yada, yada, yada. Viola! That even defines her! Your rant covers it all!
I guess Tollywood is in for a revolution of sorts in this decade in terms of both talent and management. Fan following also creates unwanted frenzy, simply to project a star “higher”. Thankfully, its not so much of craze with the younger actors, who’re actually trying new scripts. It’s totally another thing that these youngsters from film-families can afford to do so, but it takes guts to pick up the baton to do something really creative. I would think that producers and key people must go on talent hunts much more to look beyond the ‘fraternity’! Diamonds in the rough are still what they are, just waiting to get polished. Nice post.
I agree with what you’ve said (Diamonds in the rough are still what they are, just waiting to get polished). Nani is a very good example. I personally think he’s a very good actor, and hopefully, his efforts to make it big in the TFI will be successful.
you cannot really on a movie without actually seeing it !! can you??
I see you haven’t really watched any movies (one in 2 months) and you are commenting about good and bad movies.. funny
yea 2010 isn’t really a good year for the top stars and yeah PVC has terror written all over it, but then the question that is never asked is “why did u go for a bala krishna movie on day 1?” a. to criticize it.. b. your job asks u to do so.. c. nandamuri fan
can’t really help for the b category guys but otherwise u got what u’ve wanted..
And its really irritating to see a tripper acting as if he knows everything..
then again its ur blog.. then again its my comment
ps: commenting here out of ur completely illogical and nonsensical analysis of tollywood.. it had some good movies actually (read orange and khaleja) which didn’t work out ‘cos the people aren’t really ready for those kind of movies.. aah.. would like to give you some more of my mind but sleepyyy.. zzz
Ajay: The answer to your question (you cannot really on a movie without actually seeing it !! can you??) is in your reply. I am not a fan of anyone in the Telugu film industry so what actually takes me to the theatre are the trailers. If they are appealing, I am ready to spend 100 bucks otherwise it stay safe in my purse. The 6 movies I did watch were solely through word of mouth…just like Bommarillu, which released many years ago… I wasn’t disappointed. It is one of my absolute favourites.
Coming to Orange, Khaleja….I did watch those movies…the first 5 minutes of orange and half of Khaleja. How can anyone watch a movie where the hero shouts at one of leading ladies’ ‘osey neeku piche…osey neeku ade…ide’ etc..etc… is above my understanding. You first need to learn to give respect to women and then make a movie. Men calling women ‘osey’ and women calling men ‘orey’ is not my sensibility hence I simply shut down the movie. Khaleja was good…only half way through…as long as there was comedy in it but when they started building up Mahesh as ‘GOD’, I had enough!!
Bring it on!!
I totally agree with your post and it saddens me. The fact that the industry is male dominated and degrades a telegu women in every possible way has to change. However the fact is that people are still demanding for such movies and as long as the demand is there…film reel is going to be wasted on such senseless movies. There is a silver lining their are young actors and actresses that are experimenting with new material slowly,but steadily. Movies like Missamma, Anand, or any Shekar Kammula movie for that fact actually have stories that are digestible and respect woman. The industry can only change if the people willing to see such movies change their own attitudes.
Your blog brings out the frustrations of many self-respecting women. I completely understand your feelings and a lot of my friends in their 30s actually stopped watching telugu movies. There were days when telugu movies had telugu girls in them. It was like watching ourselves in some sense. Bapu brought out beauty in dark skin, K.Viswanath brought out the best in many female actors. Did you notice that even K.Viswanath roped in a marathi girl for his latest movie? Did you notice the absolute dearth of telugu girls in the industry? I hate watching a girl who doesn’t look even 1% like a telugu girl, can’t speak her own dialogues, makes absolutely no attempt to speak in the public in our language, why pay them money? Already telugu as a language is going through such turbulence with letters like la in pelli being pronounced as la in pilli. Add to that the non-telugu speaking heroines who wud do anything for a bit of fame and a bit of money. Unless we audience widely talk about this and stop watching telugu movies that insult women, demean them, stop watching bombay girls only because they have a fairer skin or ready to drop their saree at the drop of a hat for cheap entertainment, this won’t change. This needs revolutions in frnt of theaters. Blog everywhere and shout until the world hears it. WE DON’T WANT SUCH MOVIES !!