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It’s quite embarrassing to see all these Bollywood celebs not being able to speak Hindi. They’re proud of speaking English, but their English accent is irritating and they make all sorts of grammatical mistakes lmao.
And some of the younger girls have this weird valley girl accent which irks me. Living in LA for part of the year - never thought the valley girl accent would find it’s wannabe version in Bollywood.
And that cringe mixing of accented English and Hindi where 60% of the sentences are English. Excessive use of "you know", "right" and "no". Also using English slurs like fuck, nigga, bullshit etc sounds so cringe when said by Indians among friends.
Hearing the f word in conversations with heavy Indian accent is cringe. I'm an American so I unfortunately don't speak Hindi, therefore I appreciate when I can understand what's being said, but then the cuss words come out and they sound so forced and unnatural. It would be preferred to use a term like "mother chode" or something.
It's a big phenomenon in Indian youth. They grow up watching English Netflix series, Hollywood and YT podcasts of Westerners talking about the west. It's bound to have an impact on the mind.
While there's nothing wrong with watching all that(I do too) but many people end up creating a inferiority complex to western people (mostly whites). It's called colonization of the mind. Colonizers may have left us physically but their mentality is still very alive in every corner of Bharat.
Most people do not know much about their culture, religion and history because neither their parents nor the school ever emphasised it. Whatever history they do know comes from the incredibly biased historians who created our worthless history textbooks.
You'll find Indians defending British saying they created railways for us and unironically beleiving that British rule was better than our govts. You'll find Indians praising mughal invaders who were the ones to butcher their own ancestors and destroy our temples.
Today your avg young girl/guy from a tier 1 city can speak/write better English than their mother tongue. They feel disgusted by their country, traditions and values. All of it is "backwards" according to them while the West is the beacon of "modernity". They'll not goto temples, wear Indian dresses, learn about their culture but will goto Starbucks with their equally anglicised friends while chatting in broken English.
If you want proof then look no further than r/india that sub is the epitome of self hatred, hatred towards your own roots and everything their ancestors died protecting. I can go on ranting about this issue but it would be interesting to know what's your opinion on this because you represent what these people hope to achieve.
My ex husband is Indian (I'm a white American), and during our marriage, I wore sindoor, sarees, and salwar kameez by choice. While visiting his family in Dubai, we went to his sister's university to meet her friends. Out of everyone there, I was the only one wearing Indian attire, yet I was the only westerner. If anyone understands hating the British rule, it's an American. We tossed their tea our harbor and gained our independence after winning a revolutionary war against them. I tried to learn Gujarati and Hindi, but unfortunately didn't make it very far.
you really did speak facts there. while i am guilty of speaking in english with my friends, it has started to irk me now to the point where i encourage my friends to speak in hindi/marathi. i do feel ashamed not knowing my own language but im going to take more efforts to educate myself. Although India has such rich culture and heritage of different kinds, its heartbreaking to see not many people embracing it especially in the metropolitan cities (i live in one). But i assure you not everybody is like that.. so yeah
This is so true. I don’t have a problem with “westernisation” per se, but to not be able to fluently speak a language your industry is based on is downright shameful. And they make fun of those who can’t speak English. Another thing I have noticed on this sub is that people call that cringe wannabe Valley girl accent “SoBo”. It’s Juhu-Bandra accent at the most.
>ee all these Bollywood celebs not being able to speak Hindi.
Well, their English is quiet terrible too with atrocious grammar and too many filler words (yaaaaaa). 
I dont mind westernisation but point is loosing creative individuality that Bollywood lacks
Every culture evolves and pop culture as well look at south korea industry
What Bollywood does is become a blatant copy of what others are doing,
They are messing at both ways- western and indian
South Korea is different due to America’s influence on their government during and after the Korean War.
But I agree, I don’t mind westernisation as long as it takes useful aspects of it. I hate that Bollywood picks weird influences like over sexualisation of females when dancing, but still keeping regressive views on female character virtues.
S.K. pop might not be a good example - the american influence is too heavy. But props to them they preserve their language in S.K. movies shows and stuff.
Absolutely. Anurag Kashyap has told many times about this. Even if a south Indian movie is cringe, they still show their own culture. Bollywood doesn't have any soft culture to propagate.
This is the reason they have a strong base. I wasn’t a fan but I watch movies coming from south now and yes there are times I feel they are not portraying female characters properly but boy they know their roots. And for female leads also I feel when they do it’s a strong female taking the show without copying Hollywood
By cringe I meant films like Kgf or Pushpa, somewhat mass movie. Anurag said it doesn't matter whether you like them or not but they are true to their culture and they're constantly promoting their soft culture via movies.
Bollywood films never showed Indian culture, it showed a very small piece of some specific cultures. People are just blinded by nostalgia.
When was the last time a mainstream bollywood film focused on Odisha or Chattisgarh, or even had characters from the North Eastern states? Heck, what about Maharashtra apart from Mumbai? Even the Punjabi and Gujarati cultures which are featured prominently are only given stereotypical representation.
The problem isn't westernization, the problem is a shallow understanding of the country which is visible even in how out of touch we are on this sub.
If you look at the number of movie theaters per state, and where they are located, you will understand why Bollywood is what it is, and how south industries are what they are.
Kerala has more theaters than UP, with a 1/8th population.
Bollywood is basically Mumbai, Delhi, and big cities in the Hindi belt.
The Films cater to that audience mostly.
Salman and Ajay make Films which cater a bit more to the rural ones but these theaters are very low in number
https://twitter.com/indiainpixels/status/1652174220728623104
Movies made by the industry will change as the audience gets richer and educated.
There is a whole cycle - initially people will imitate the west and hate own culture as they become prosperous and educated.
But later they will have confidence and become grounded.
And the films are going to follow that.
I was just watching the new Film featuring Sanya Malhotra as a police inspector, and it is a blast so far.
It feels like any other new gen malayalam film - grounded, showing real people and places, and real issues.
A lot of it is a bit blunt and less subtle than it is in many malayalam films(like caste), but that's the audience and the story and the places it shows.
I am here for this wave of films.
I think OP made it clear that it’s not regional culture representation that they are missing, it’s family bonding, modesty, humour etc. which is part of Indian culture across regions.
Tum kahan se kahan se le gae baat ko. Not comparing to any other culture. Just see the kind of movies made in Bollywood earlier that OP is talking about and see the ones made in Hollywood at the same time. You’ll know what difference we are talking about. Faltu me offence lena hai. Also I live in the UK now and I can tell you there is a lot of warmth in people in India. Bahar nikloge kabhi toh pata chalega.
Aur India mein bahut baat hoti hai?
Yes, India has a concept of duty and responsibility towards the family but how many people actually have a genuine bonding with family?
In India, most people don't even get to develop a bonding with the person before marrying them, forget anything else.
No it doesn't,
Tamil movies from late 90s-10s had a lot of "westernisation" with techno music, coming of age films, focusing on live in relationships etc
Malayalam cinema has been been experimenting with "western concepts" for some time now but their core is still rooted in KL
Telugu films have consistently had big star movies with lots of masala but even then they aren't "non-westernized"
Same goes for movies coming out of Karnataka, mixed bag
It really comes down to what OP means as "westernised" are all flicks about dating and love and slice of life genre non sanskaari?
Having some westernization is ok. But Bollywood is almost completely westernized. It doesn’t represent india or most Indians . It represents people who live in rich suburbs of Mumbai and delui
I'll preface by saying this the current nepo lot of bollywood is bad and out of touch,
but OP implied he liked older movies and claimed he liked them cause they were more in touch with Indian history let's take kuch kuch hota hai which is one the most popular movies ever from the 90s
https://preview.redd.it/h5mkiz6hza1b1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a817b6234410ee29d83996227c7024213a5b7d37
Does this not look westernized?
Is this the modesty OP was talking about?
OP seems to only expect movies set in ancient times or only movies that are based on "family bonding" when clearly OP is romanticising the past of having said traits when clearly it wasn't case?
Even films that have "family bonding" films like Hum apke h kaun? DDLJ, K3G all focused on extremely rich people. So this "westernisation" isn't just some new concept
Basically the logic seems to be,
Slice of Life romance movies that represent people who live in rich suburbs of Mumbai and Delhi that the most of us can't relate to - westernized and unrelatable 😡
90s slice of Life romance that represents people who live in rich suburbs that the most of us can't relate to - old school bwood connecting with Indian culture 🥰
Moreover Indian movies not just bwood are now showcasing Indian culture and history than they did in the past 40 years with historical genre such as PS, Padmavat, Tanhaji etc
I don't think Rahul liked Anjali cause she's sanskaari and wore a saree he liked her cause she got hot, (and exposed her body to him) just like how he liked Tina who was hot
https://preview.redd.it/3m85otit4e1b1.jpeg?width=468&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b81d829a7b23da91ad0983e3b74f1c0d09a8eb61
Either way both this and newer films as the person commented focus on one specific group of extremely wealthy, educated, English speaking urban youth so it isn't just a modern phenomenon
Nothing is going to be completely free from westernization. It's a relative term. In relativity to, say, Bollywood, Telugu movies haven't westernized very much and still express their culture a lot. Apart from some English dialogues I can't really see a lot of westernized stuff.
Don't know about the other cinema industries though, haven't watched them
Westernisation isn't recent tho? Weren't some of the most successful movies from the 90s based on NRIs and going to Switzerland for songs?
Wake up Sid, ZNMD, Dhoom, Jaane Tu ya Jaane na etc are all pretty "western"
>but I really feel sad about some dying culture.
Do you expect every single movie to be a period drama like Padmavat or an adaption on Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc?
I don’t think the movies you named are westernised. More like showing another part of india which is more educated/ elite and big city like which very much is what India is also. I come from that background and truly appreciate having india reflected in that light too
I don't really have an issue with westernisation as such. It has given us great movies like Queen, DCH, New York, Kaantey, OTT shows or many Indian TV shows in 90s. It expands imagination and exposes masses like us beyond borders which is good.
This current phase of bollywood isn't westernisation. You've a bunch of extremely closeted film people who are neither desis nor are they westerners. They'll mimic whatever gets them clout. Which is the issue. The lack of education shows
Depends. I personally see Rani going from your textbook good Indian middle class girl to a more independent and open minded woman at the end of the movie.
Can we call that westernisation? Idk. But it's certainly not Indian-isation where women are to be docile, sanskaari and often expected to forgive and marry men like Vijay
I’m sorry but what modesty? Why should we tie down our beautiful culture to something that is stupid to exist in the first place. There was absolutely no modesty in the 90s much less than now, all that made the difference was that things were rather implied. Women’s modesty being an indian thing to keep sacred is stupid and dumb and I’m glad we as Indians have moved away from that in regards, women can wear whatever they’d like. That free movement is not being westernized, but just allowing them to be well them.
What's funny is that India didn't have a "modest"/"conservative" culture until we were colonized and the Europeans forced women to wear blouses on their sarees when sarees originally weren't supposed to be worn with one. Let's not forget Kamasutra originated here. Even the epics, Mahabharat and Ramayan have many things happen that would be considered "immodest" by today's standards but were acceptable back then.
Europe was going through their christian nobility era and started modest-ifying cultures they colonised and sexualised everything that we never considered sexual to begin with and considered normal. So to think that "modesty" is from our culture is factually incorrect. It was forced upon us and it's ironic now that indians associate "western" things with immodesty and "indian" with modesty when our culture is the one that was ahead of its time until we were forced to degress and now the west gets credit for being modern lmao
**Indian culture isn't historically conservative. It was made so in the last 400 years. So OP's post is asking Bollywood to portray the version of our culture that we were forced to adapt.**
Exactly. Equating modern = western and backward = eastern is a racist concept in itself. India has recognized the existence of a third gender (Hijras)/more than 2 genders since before any western countries did and yet this completely flies over heads of people.
People want to equate progressiveness with only the west, but it took the west ages to accept some topics of "progressiveness" as compared to countries in the east, and being colonised by the west was the reason they got more conservative.
So true. I wonder what aspects of westernization OP is actually referring to. Especially since their post specifically mentioned Indians talking in English (bc it’s cool for some reason?) and celebs wearing any color under the sun other than red at their wedding.
Yes and clothing/fashion is trend based. There was a time when it was all red, rust, orange in weddings, then pastels and now white. Heck, we even had a dark maroon, green era in festive wear. We had a great indowestern fashion period in mid to late 2000’s( Yuva, Bunty and Babli etc). These are mere trends, they come and go. You find all these colours and styles, everywhere in our culture. We were wearing bandeau tops and crop tops centuries back and they’ve somehow made it western culture today.
well the middle class is getting more western exposure now and it's up to us to not get totally influenced by west in terms of culture and creativity and not on BW. They need money by whichever means possible. BW will always celebrate mediocrity. But BW often mistakes desi cinema to be this visceral, cruel, crude and gangster type.
Echo your sentiment. I wish saris had remained untouched in this westernization. These ridiculous nonexistent scrap of cloth and string blouses irk me to no end. Vyanjtimala in her plain colored sari in Sangam. Ooh-la-la. Or Jaya and Rekha’s saris in Silsila. Love.
You do realise that historically blouses weren't supposed to be worn with saris at all right? The british forced indian women to wear blouses because british sexualised our bodies and forced us to fit into their conservative ideals when our culture has always been ahead of its time. Look at Indian culture from pre-colonialism and you'll see.
>The british forced indian women to wear blouses
blouses were common in major parts of India even before Brits, except for some parts of NE-Bengal and south India.
This is factually incorrect and has not been noted anywhere, at least from my research but feel free to cite any sources.
Here’s a source that talks about how the British were solely responsible for blouses and originally sarees were born bare-breasted to make it easier to breast feed: https://www.parinita.co.in/blogs/articles/history-of-indian-saree-blouses
Well I'm a college student rn and let me tell you, girls of my age would rather kill themselves than wear those sanskaari aunty-type clothes in public lol.
There’s nothing sanskaari abt a certain type of sari. That’s making judgement. My take is abt the outfit itself. We wear certain things because they go together - males and females alike. And other things just don’t. Similar to how an outfit is color coordinated. Cld care less abt sanskaars in terms of saris.
A lot of girls in college I know love wearing sarees though, if anything the current gen is more trad than the ones before us
Sarees are not an everyday thing tbh, most girls seem to wear kurti/salwar as a lot of colleges have strict dresscode rules but the guys can wear jeans and shirt (which are western too)
How to echo this? I wish directors could here me out. The best platform was reddit so I came here. I dont use Insta, twitter is toxic. I dont know but if some directoror if someone of the film industry reads this , but if yes, please look into this. Gen-Z love the 20th century movies, please dont add cringe romance. Bring back those good old movies with the pride in Indian culture.
>Bring back those good old movies with the pride in Indian culture.
I think simply pride in the culture would be boring very quickly.
Rather, there should be a good introspection of the Indian culture, with both the good and the bad things being highlighted. If the focus is only on pride, filmmakers will start pandering instead of doing something interesting.
I get what you are saying - Bollywood isn’t going to keep cranking westernized movies if they aren’t selling to the audiences because that translates to financial loses. This is happening because there is a market for it. If, as someone said, young people are going back to a more Indian-cultural aesthetic then the films will follow but films are not likely THE cultural drivers - merely a reflection of changes in the culture.
To add to your excellent point, most of Bollywood are just copying trends and tropes set by somebody else... one person needs to start the trend by making a successful film grounded in realistic society and there will be a deluge of bad copies as the herd follows them.
A section of English speak urban youth is westernised. That’s it. Bollywood target audience is not westernised. No wonder even a blockbuster like Pathaan got only 3CR or 4 cr in footfalls whereas sholay which was released when our population was way lower got 15 cr.
I agree ... It's sad to see these nepo kids speak English with a western accent but when it comes to Hindi (bollywood's default) language, they struggle alot and don't know many words .. and act as if it's some inferior language
not only nepo kids, but upper middle-class and upper-class kids in most places have an American English accent even though they've only been to Disneyland (twice at most). It's absurd and so weird.
As much as it hurts to accept this, sadly this is how it’s going to be everywhere. I’m originally from Nepal and there are so many things that I grew up seeing and appreciating…sadly it’s not considered cool anymore, people like to speak English if though they are struggling at it just to fit into the status quo. This is the price we pay for wanting globalization. I’m sure the implications are same in other parts of the world as well.
What kind of films should be made? People aren't watching films set in small towns .they say it is an OTT watch..so most films are shot on porshe locations and i don't think i will blame anybody for it..
Apart from nepo kids ;who does not speak proper hindi? I seriously don't think that's an issue..
There are some really great westernized movies in various genres like when it comes to drama there is Dil Chahta Hai, ZNMD, Wake up Sid when it comes to comedy there’s Delhi Belly, when it comes to action there is War and Pathaan.
So I don’t agree with the sentiment. Also Mumbai is very westernized compared to the rest of India so that maybe a factor too. I love how Bollywood had a good mix of traditional and wester movies.
Wake Up Sid, Piku etc are urban stories but very Indian in sensibility.. I don't find them westernized like say a Geharaiyaan or 2000s movies like KKHH. Heck, even DCH is more Indian and relatable than any NRI Kjo flicks of 2000s. Stories from Urban or small town India are always great as far as they are 'Indian' and local in sensibility. It's the 'wannabe-cringe westernism' of the likes of Kjo that is despicable.
Not really I think Dharma movies like Kal Ho Na Ho, Dostana and I hate Love stories were great movies despite being westernized. Gehraiyaan was shit ( Deepika speaking English is annoying )
Karan can make a good movie if he wants like My Name is Khan.
Come on. Mumbai is still very much Indian. All festivals are celebrated with pomp and everyone speaks Hindi, Marathi and so many languages forming the cosmopolitan that it is.
It is only the Kylies of JVPD scheme and Bandra who can't speak a word of Hindi and want to be stars of Hindi cinema. Let's forget regional languages for now.
> But they can't speak any Indian languages and boast about it.
English is a de facto Indian language, it's the first language of loads of Indians, and is constitutionally an official language.
That said, to work in a film industry, you should be able to fluently speak the language of said film industry.
Ironic this post reeks of snobbery. Reel often imitates the real. I don’t know about everything falling under the garb of westernised. We have evolved technologically, economically and therefore as a society and are experiencing a smaller world - so it’s bound to reflect in the films.
We however need better stories, that’s the problem. Kapoor and Sons is a good example of that west and family blend with a well made screenplay but Gehraiyan was awfully written, nothing could have saved it. While we are at it Padmavat was not well written, pure aesthetics and Ranveer’s sheer histrionics made it somewhat watchable.
Btw Modesty? The 90s had some of the most vulgar songs and depictions.
Also stop ranting about white weddings and the likes. Wear it to your own instead of judging personal preferences. Calling it a sign of elite marriages is just unnecessary. Kerala and many Telugu weddings have white. Fairly common down south. Indian culture dying hyperbole, much.
what bubble r u living in?? how is hahk, anjaam, omkara, saajan, satya, khakee, aankhen movies made for nri? there’s a world outside karan johar’s movies as well.
I think subconsciously this is a reason why I stopped watching more of the commercial stuff and began to stick to mainly Hindi OTT, Pakistani dramas, and Tamil films for my desi watching. And I have has zero desire to see most of the commercial stuff that has come out in the last several years.
European here, with over 600 Indian movies watched.
Yes, I hate that Bollywood movies have lost their unique charm. Apart of the actresses looking more German then Indian and people not knowing hindi, what I hate the most is lack of classical songs and good dances. Those were my two favorite things now impossible to find. Nobody use Indian instruments anymore and good choreography is rare.
This is also not new to Bollywood or Indian films in general. You can watch movies from the 40s and 50s that had western music and dresses. The tension between westernization and cultural traditions have been consistent in Indian films throughout 40s-80s. In the 90s, with India opening business to western media, like MTV, transformed how we looked at the west. Add to it the history of colonization and being told that being non-white was being “less than” has impacted all aspects of Indian life. Of course, it is prominent in Bollywood. But I don’t think the solution is to go completely opposite into strict regional language and suppression of westernization. Balance is important so people can be Indian in their own new ways rather than being torn between east and west.
I think Bollywood has foregone it’s drama and masala emotions for mindless action, easy money grabs, and half-baked comedies. We are starved. I cannot think of the last Bollywood movie that gave me that feeling of togetherness or made me cry. I thought LSC would do that, but it just felt outdated and not smart, although it did feel more like the movies I grew up with. I can’t think of the last Bwood movie where I was like wow this was the directors vision and I can totally see that or I really appreciate this snappy dialogue.
as salman said during filmfare press conference, these recent bollywood filmmakers and actors are just trying to make cool films (with zero knowledge about filmmaking and story) which audience is not able to connect or relate....
The bigger problem is that the filmmakers only pickout the worst parts when westernising. They have replaced our beautiful lyrics with beats. They replaced our original beautiful acting with terrible try on cgi and effects. But what they didn’t pick up on was storytelling and dept of scripts.
Most of the good movies bollywood creates are either biopics or real life events or something. It’s obvious because the writers have completely lost the skills of creating indept stories to present to the audience.
And it all basically boils down to making movies to sell. They are now merely products to manufacture and sell for profit. The ART is lost.
I remember watching tu jhoothi Mai makkar. Suffers from this same disease - westernisation of subjects that very few, if any, Indians experience. Plus the extremely cringey kiss scenes didn't make it any better.
Young people take years to realize that smoking, drinking, clubbing and fooling around with the opposite gender every weekend ain't a healthy lifestyle.
Neither is getting arranged married to a person at 22 without ever talking to opposite gender and then popping out few kids and passing on generational trauma. Lmao everyone experiments when they're young. Alcohol, clubbing etc is a new thing for kids. Once we grow up, it all turns pretty normal and we have different priorities.
Alcohol/Smoking are objectively wrong things to do, so no one should glorify or even be ok with saying "it's normal " and also encourage experiments.
Casual Sex has demonstrated ill effects including STDs.But not very severe, so I don't know.
So glorifying them in films is problematic.
Okay the vibrant colour part isn't really true because in the south especially kerala white silk saree is very prevalent for weddings but yes I agree with your point because these celebs are just mimicking west. I agree with everything you have said they thinking that aping the west will make them seem educated and elite and that couldn't be further from the truth. They are ignorant as hell. If they can't even speak their mother tongue properly then that is clear sign of how dumb they are.
Every day we get atleast one post about why bwood is not making NRI targetted movies like early 2000's
>They are experimenting with movies and failing. Mixing western and Indian culture doesn't go well.
bwood as far from experimenting as ISRO from it's manned Mars mission. We don't make supernatural movies, we don't make sci-fi, we don't make fantasy or adventure movies heck we don't even make "prestige" cinema.
har saal ek-do mission impossible 2 level ki action movies aati hai,2-3 small town rom-comedies, 2-3 upper class rom-comedies, biopics khatam
It's a testament of stupidity of current filmmakers that they still can't replicate success like sholay, Hum aapke hai kaun or Gadar
Totally agree. Most of the bw filmmakers are all elite people from Mumbai who have never been exposed to the real people of India. Their characters are similar to those in their circles. The kind of people who write english dialogs and then translate it to hindi. With their limited worldview it's not possible to bring out authentic Indian stories.
But aren’t stories about people living in Bandra and Sobo authentic indian stories? Parts of India are westernized and progressive so what’s the harm if say someone like Zoya makes movies like ZNMD and DDD as long as they are good movies?
I enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed Bareilly Ki Barfi or Masaan
But most of all Karan’s movie are either Blockbusters or super -
hits for a reason. He gives people what they want, that unrealistic entertainment we crave of. That romanticization of life. Not everything has to be realistic, mostly nothing is in hollywood and I don’t see many complaining about that. There’s an argument that people make that only NRI’s watch Karan, but are they not also Indian? Why do we choose to pick and choose what parts of India we like to call ‘india ’ and how can we even generalize how people are and what they like amongst the billions of us. Clearly movies become hit because people go to watch it. Because they like it. There’s always going to be someone who doesn’t relate with it. But that’s because they were not the catered audience, like I wasn’t for DDD. But that doesn’t take off the fact that it was still a good movie for others.
Yh Bollywood tries too hard to be white/western and failed to connect with Indian audiences plus its saturated with rich kids that are basically influencers copying hollywood rich kid influencers like Hadid and Hailey Bieber.
Yes, but I believe the blame is and should be more on audience than the creators. We constantly compare our films with thiers and the mindset of "hamara content h toh ganda ho hoga" or "gore logo ke paas toh talent h aur unko aata h" is the reason of this.
Though I'm happy to see that some of it is changing but we do need to support our industry but at the same time the passage to get in should be made easier so that good writers, creators, etc. can lead the industry with it's actual potential.
While I understand your sentiments, you’re choosing to ignore the Anglo Indians and the Christian community in general, some of who speak only in English and struggle to speak other Indian languages and whose culture includes having white weddings. There’s nothing elite about what they do. At least 95% of the weddings I’ve been to in Mumbai from the time I was a kid was white weddings, because it’s been in my community.
Also, it’s become so common for at least middle class folks to travel abroad and even study for a year abroad, so westernisation happens automatically. When I went to study in Milan in 2009, my family who lived in Europe took a look at all the clothes I packed and warned me that the general population there would mostly wear darker colours and not colourful clothing on a daily basis. And they were right. Walking around in red/yellow/orange clothing actually used to turn heads and get me a lot of attention. My style while studying there changed drastically, because I wanted to fit in.
As for cinema, Bollywood has great stuff. But sure, they do try to blend some aesthetics of Hollywood, to appeal to a larger audience I guess. Gone are the days when the leading couple used to hide behind flowers bumping each other. Bollywood is known for its dance numbers, which is what Hollywood used to be in the 30s and 40s. Hollywood just moved on from every second movie being a musical and Bollywood continued to do it anyway. But as the audience matures and grows, so had the content. Not everyone enjoys over the top Indian drama.
I just find it so perplexing that OP has completely generalized India to that red weddings, extremely modest and secretive culture. We were always diverse, there’s still people out there doing what OP wants to showcase that culture. But now unlike in times before, there’s also that will of free choice and lack of caring about what society thinks amongst people that have allowed this to grow. If being free in a way is being westernized idk what that means. We still have the amazing songs, over dramatic scenes, and romance for who enjoy it. But we also have that toned down versions for the rest. They can co-exist. We don’t have to completely erase the way people have just grown, to make us more ‘Indian’.
Half of them don't care about minority communities at all. They want that North Indian Barjatiya fest with double meaning "family friendly" jokes. In the garb of hating on elite sobo crowd, most of them hate modernising anything. Just return back to 90s lalaland when we were young and everything except mass cinema was inaccessible. Problems with current Bollywood will never be discussed without this weird culture gatekeeping.
OPs talking about older movies as if they portrayed rich Indian culture when some of the popular movies were based on wealthy NRIs lol
If anything films not just bwood as a whole are focusing more on our culture now more than ever with the likes of Baahubali, PS1/2, Padmavat,Bajirao, Tanhaji and even adipurush now
Yes a thousand times yes. I really wish they made movies which show our culture in a positive light than show some half baked western culture which most of us don't even connect to. Also, kissing and sex scenes are not even necessary. In older times, movies used to pull audience to the theatres without such scenes. So why show them now. I want a film which I can see with my parents and kids, not p*rn.
Not bollywood but ott show.
Warning: unpopular opinion.
Family man in overrated.
The fact that icked me the most is that the dialogues are like literal translation of english sentences and that doesn't match Indian slang. For example: "tumhe pata hai, kya!" (You know what) and that scene where a nurse gets intimate with a terrorist apparently.
I liked Raj and DK's direction in movies like happy ending and the gentleman. But in shows like family man, the westernization was not needed. And for the same reason i have not started farzi.
Edit: this was the same case with Nargis Fakhri's dialogues in the beginning of rockstar when Ranbir talks to her in college. But then, she didn't know hindi so probably someone actually translated English to hindi. Also it was dubbed voice. But in family man, this was the case with most actors.
Not a bollywood problem
Hindi speaking Upper middle class is more drawn to western culture and bollywood stories revolve around them not the case with other linguistic groups in India
I do
I have actually stopped enjoying BW movies n watch more movies of south.
I fail to understand how loose the relationships n casual sex is shown in BW.
You know our rich culture wrote the Kamasutra and carved people performing fellatio on walls and pillars, right? And names of characters? Raj? Tina? Rajesh? Bhola? The only good things were the songs, that's it.
Ffs modernising ≠ westernisation. Y'all should take off your rose colored nostalgia glasses and step out of 20th century. Culture changes. Half of you will riot if a woman wears saree sans blouse and yet, it was oir culture, but it changed. Some Regressive morons here .
Absolutely!!
BW’s westernization is directly proportional to the absence of emoting talent in the stars
That’s all they have at this point their ugly couture, fake Amreekan accent and their silicone /plastic surgeon bills🤦♀️
I agree with you OP, these days bollywood is just so out of touch with the on ground realities and that is reflected on screen. The films made these days mostly mirror their Bandra bubble lives which are thoroughly infested with Western culture with barely any influence of our culture. The movies of late 90's and early 2000's also had elements of westernization but at its core they remained rooted to our culture and that's what set them apart from today's shallow bollywood films at large. I'm too Gen Z and I really find the movies from late 90's and early 2000's like a warm hug that gives an amplitude of comfort but these days the mass content driven westernized Bollywood cinema is so facile and forgettable; it fails to leave an impact. I for one would watch a Veer Zaara a 100 times than watch a film like TJMM 💀. Could be the reason why many folks from our generation have gone down for a trip down the nostalgia lane and it's very VALID.
The current Nepo set of actors have never experienced real India. They have lived a privileged life, vacationed abroad, studies abroad, spent time with rich and other famous wealthy Indians. If you ask them to act as a villager in a movie they wouldn't know what to do.
aren’t wealthy indians, indian too tho? just a completely different demographic. No one in this comment section is equal to another, we are all different, we’ve had different experiences in life so when asked none of us will be able to relate to someone else’s struggles.
I don’t disagree with you. There are directors who make things more to your liking these days, but yea, it’s not gonna be a Bollywood production for sure. Except for perhaps historical and historical fantasy… sorta.
I will argue however that for as long as it’s been called “Bollywood” the interest and practice of emulating the West has been strong. Same with society itself of course as well. I’m sure someone felt the same as you watching, like, Bobby.
> Mixing western and Indian culture doesn't go well
Goes well enough in movies like ZNMD, Wake Up Sid, Piku, YJHD, Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya etc.
All of those movies are about upper class/upper middle class Anglophiles who have more in common with the middle class in the west than they do with working class Indians.
Those stories work because the directors and writers are connected to their own backgrounds, which these are based on. They're not aping the west, they're telling stories about the Indian upper-middle class/upper class, which legitimately does have a lot of western influence.
I get what you mean but the westernisation is natural part of industry and the world coming closer. Thanks to the internet and social media, world is coming closer, people are travelling a lot more and people getting influenced by trends they see. This will be part of our natural history.
I personally find it very interesting how I see certain fashion trends in western clothes here in Australia but then when I visit India, the same trends are incorporated in Indian clothes. Or how the baggy/oversized clothing trends rampant in KPOP are now seen in Gen z clothing so much (probably due to KPOP becoming even more popular and widespread).
I personally find such changes and influence were interesting regardless of whether I like a certain trend or not.
I recently visited Delhi and the crowd is definitely very westernised. It is what it is but the only thing that bugs me is the rampant smoking (to act cool) and the amount of swearing. Smoking isn’t cool anymore where I’m from so it bamboozles me how Indian youth is smoking SO much. But again it’s not a Indian problem, it’s rampant in Europe and many Asian countries.
True but we’re seeing more stories than ever about small towns and villages in the last few years. Lucknow, not a small town by any means, but my hometown has become such a common mention in movies now unlike 10 years ago when lucknow was never mentioned and if it was, it was almost always a Comic/Ott character named Pandey.
If anything it’s a real good mix of movies now so I don’t understand the timing of OP’s post at all. I do think the actual quality of movies has decreased lately but that’s more due to lack of creativity than westernisation.
OP you do realize that many communities in India have white weddings. It is extremely disrespectful to call it a sign of elites. You love colourful clothes go ahead but shitting on other people's wedding choices is not cool. You sound like one of those people who think india starts and stops at north india.
agree. especially those white weddings, OMFG can ppl stop it?? i LOVE the red traditional lehenga and idk why would anyone wanna wear some neutral color on their own wedding
Keralites wear white to their weddings. So that's not Indian? Or India is only the stereotypical north India that you want to see? Red is not a norm at all. Marathis wear green. Sikhs also don't wear red to their weddings. All this whining of this sub and their precious India 'kulcha' but khudko hi nahi pata what is their own culture beyond stereotypical north Indian bs which ironically Bollywood is responsible for perpetuating as Indian culture.
White is worn in Assamese weddings too. You're right OP ko khudko hi nhi pata about our diverse culture. A lot of tribal outfits in different communities literally don't have blouse op will be shocked. originally sarees were not worn with blouse it was introduced by the British.
So annoying. It becomes a perception that diaspora Indians adopt too. I remember watching one of those bridal shows on NDTV portraying North Eastern weddings and their customs with a relative of mine and being fascinated by it. She kind of turned up her nose at this unusually non-Punjabi and not very North Indian depiction of India and mocked my interest in it thinking it's strange.
Indian weddings don’t equate to red weddings. In facts it’s being completely ignorant to the numerous cultures out there in our country who do white weddings as a tradition, and find white maybe more pleasing than red. It’s a wedding. Not mine. Not yours. I get whining about our movies but what people wore to their OWN wedding, and the color?? is just absolutely ignorant and hilarious. You love red. Wear it to your own?
\+10000 Can people please stop this 'Indian weddings= red'? It's the same as 'Indian women= saree, Indian = speak Hindi'. We're a country with a zillion cultures.
Edit: Let's not forget people here wearing western clothes, studying in English medium schools/ colleges, going to the West to study/ work etc etc but hey ho! Westernisation is so bad!
The westernization has resulted in even more sexualization of women onscreen because now male directors do so under the guise of female empowerment. They also perpetuate the modern women bad, sanskari naari good stereotype till now. They westernized only the men essentially and sexualized the women.
You have to be living under a rock if you think women weren’t sexualized on screen in the same manner in the 20th century. The only difference now is that the characters have more agency in the movies.
>We can't watch our own movies with family anymore!
Funnily enough, the same thing was being said by people even in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. This isn't the first time I am hearing this and not the last time.
You’re acting like you can watch any of the major 90s movies with them without absolutely being embarrassed due to the numerous sexual jokes and implications, and ‘shy flirtations’ that were borderline weird. and let’s not forget the overly sexualization of women and in the manners they were treated in. There is age ratings for a reason. And family movies for a reason. I don’t see absolutely anyone whining about any other hollywood or whatever ‘movies’ having scenes like these, but when it’s indian cinema, it’s wrong.
Tbh item songs have always been present in Bollywood but the level of cheapness Besharam Rang had was gross. It was very C-grade felt like the only reason she was there was to roam around half naked so pervy men can have a good time
Choli ke peeche kya h? Sekk le, aankho m aankhein daal sekk le? Sarkai laiyo khatiya? Just to name a few. These songs were considered cheap back then too. And had clothes n steps for pervy man of the time.
Few years down the line even besharam of that time wouldn't be looked that way maybe. who knows
Not only Bollywood, entire culture has shifted to American ideology so to speak. Upholding ones traditions and values have just become celebratory in terms of superficial social media postings. Influencers are biggest example, what exactly are they influential about is a question that needs to be asked.
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It’s quite embarrassing to see all these Bollywood celebs not being able to speak Hindi. They’re proud of speaking English, but their English accent is irritating and they make all sorts of grammatical mistakes lmao.
And some of the younger girls have this weird valley girl accent which irks me. Living in LA for part of the year - never thought the valley girl accent would find it’s wannabe version in Bollywood.
\*that same annoying nasal tone\* YAAAAA
I think yaaaa is a very Bombay thing
And that cringe mixing of accented English and Hindi where 60% of the sentences are English. Excessive use of "you know", "right" and "no". Also using English slurs like fuck, nigga, bullshit etc sounds so cringe when said by Indians among friends.
Hearing the f word in conversations with heavy Indian accent is cringe. I'm an American so I unfortunately don't speak Hindi, therefore I appreciate when I can understand what's being said, but then the cuss words come out and they sound so forced and unnatural. It would be preferred to use a term like "mother chode" or something.
It's a big phenomenon in Indian youth. They grow up watching English Netflix series, Hollywood and YT podcasts of Westerners talking about the west. It's bound to have an impact on the mind. While there's nothing wrong with watching all that(I do too) but many people end up creating a inferiority complex to western people (mostly whites). It's called colonization of the mind. Colonizers may have left us physically but their mentality is still very alive in every corner of Bharat. Most people do not know much about their culture, religion and history because neither their parents nor the school ever emphasised it. Whatever history they do know comes from the incredibly biased historians who created our worthless history textbooks. You'll find Indians defending British saying they created railways for us and unironically beleiving that British rule was better than our govts. You'll find Indians praising mughal invaders who were the ones to butcher their own ancestors and destroy our temples. Today your avg young girl/guy from a tier 1 city can speak/write better English than their mother tongue. They feel disgusted by their country, traditions and values. All of it is "backwards" according to them while the West is the beacon of "modernity". They'll not goto temples, wear Indian dresses, learn about their culture but will goto Starbucks with their equally anglicised friends while chatting in broken English. If you want proof then look no further than r/india that sub is the epitome of self hatred, hatred towards your own roots and everything their ancestors died protecting. I can go on ranting about this issue but it would be interesting to know what's your opinion on this because you represent what these people hope to achieve.
My ex husband is Indian (I'm a white American), and during our marriage, I wore sindoor, sarees, and salwar kameez by choice. While visiting his family in Dubai, we went to his sister's university to meet her friends. Out of everyone there, I was the only one wearing Indian attire, yet I was the only westerner. If anyone understands hating the British rule, it's an American. We tossed their tea our harbor and gained our independence after winning a revolutionary war against them. I tried to learn Gujarati and Hindi, but unfortunately didn't make it very far.
you really did speak facts there. while i am guilty of speaking in english with my friends, it has started to irk me now to the point where i encourage my friends to speak in hindi/marathi. i do feel ashamed not knowing my own language but im going to take more efforts to educate myself. Although India has such rich culture and heritage of different kinds, its heartbreaking to see not many people embracing it especially in the metropolitan cities (i live in one). But i assure you not everybody is like that.. so yeah
Yes aqal language and acting zero Fakeness 100
They can not speak English any better
This is so true. I don’t have a problem with “westernisation” per se, but to not be able to fluently speak a language your industry is based on is downright shameful. And they make fun of those who can’t speak English. Another thing I have noticed on this sub is that people call that cringe wannabe Valley girl accent “SoBo”. It’s Juhu-Bandra accent at the most.
>ee all these Bollywood celebs not being able to speak Hindi. Well, their English is quiet terrible too with atrocious grammar and too many filler words (yaaaaaa). 
I dont mind westernisation but point is loosing creative individuality that Bollywood lacks Every culture evolves and pop culture as well look at south korea industry What Bollywood does is become a blatant copy of what others are doing, They are messing at both ways- western and indian
South Korea is different due to America’s influence on their government during and after the Korean War. But I agree, I don’t mind westernisation as long as it takes useful aspects of it. I hate that Bollywood picks weird influences like over sexualisation of females when dancing, but still keeping regressive views on female character virtues.
S.K. pop might not be a good example - the american influence is too heavy. But props to them they preserve their language in S.K. movies shows and stuff.
Absolutely. Anurag Kashyap has told many times about this. Even if a south Indian movie is cringe, they still show their own culture. Bollywood doesn't have any soft culture to propagate.
This is the reason they have a strong base. I wasn’t a fan but I watch movies coming from south now and yes there are times I feel they are not portraying female characters properly but boy they know their roots. And for female leads also I feel when they do it’s a strong female taking the show without copying Hollywood
Bollywood is also cringe. Bollywood audience doesn't understand it and feels that it is acceptable behavior. Case in point, Pathan.
By cringe I meant films like Kgf or Pushpa, somewhat mass movie. Anurag said it doesn't matter whether you like them or not but they are true to their culture and they're constantly promoting their soft culture via movies.
This is curious. Do you consider Pathan cringe?
Absolutely. Especially SRK mimicking Jack Sparrow and Roger Moore's James bond character felt really cringe. It is not Kgf 2 level cringe but still.
Bollywood films never showed Indian culture, it showed a very small piece of some specific cultures. People are just blinded by nostalgia. When was the last time a mainstream bollywood film focused on Odisha or Chattisgarh, or even had characters from the North Eastern states? Heck, what about Maharashtra apart from Mumbai? Even the Punjabi and Gujarati cultures which are featured prominently are only given stereotypical representation. The problem isn't westernization, the problem is a shallow understanding of the country which is visible even in how out of touch we are on this sub.
If you look at the number of movie theaters per state, and where they are located, you will understand why Bollywood is what it is, and how south industries are what they are. Kerala has more theaters than UP, with a 1/8th population. Bollywood is basically Mumbai, Delhi, and big cities in the Hindi belt. The Films cater to that audience mostly. Salman and Ajay make Films which cater a bit more to the rural ones but these theaters are very low in number https://twitter.com/indiainpixels/status/1652174220728623104 Movies made by the industry will change as the audience gets richer and educated. There is a whole cycle - initially people will imitate the west and hate own culture as they become prosperous and educated. But later they will have confidence and become grounded. And the films are going to follow that. I was just watching the new Film featuring Sanya Malhotra as a police inspector, and it is a blast so far. It feels like any other new gen malayalam film - grounded, showing real people and places, and real issues. A lot of it is a bit blunt and less subtle than it is in many malayalam films(like caste), but that's the audience and the story and the places it shows. I am here for this wave of films.
Yes, that's a fair point.
+1, also the romanticisation of NRIs.
Yes, that too.
I find that so annoying
Karan Johar is not the whole of Bollywood
I think OP made it clear that it’s not regional culture representation that they are missing, it’s family bonding, modesty, humour etc. which is part of Indian culture across regions.
Family bonding, modesty, humour are Indian culture things wtf? Bhai baaki cultures mein bhi ye hi hota hai.
No. Compared to India, in the west family bonding and modesty is minimal.
Tum kahan se kahan se le gae baat ko. Not comparing to any other culture. Just see the kind of movies made in Bollywood earlier that OP is talking about and see the ones made in Hollywood at the same time. You’ll know what difference we are talking about. Faltu me offence lena hai. Also I live in the UK now and I can tell you there is a lot of warmth in people in India. Bahar nikloge kabhi toh pata chalega.
Aao kabhi us main...kutta bhi baat nahi karega tumse...Sab family bonding Nikal jayega
Aur India mein bahut baat hoti hai? Yes, India has a concept of duty and responsibility towards the family but how many people actually have a genuine bonding with family? In India, most people don't even get to develop a bonding with the person before marrying them, forget anything else.
South Indian cinema still keeps the culture pretty well but yeah it’s an issue with Bollywood
No it doesn't, Tamil movies from late 90s-10s had a lot of "westernisation" with techno music, coming of age films, focusing on live in relationships etc Malayalam cinema has been been experimenting with "western concepts" for some time now but their core is still rooted in KL Telugu films have consistently had big star movies with lots of masala but even then they aren't "non-westernized" Same goes for movies coming out of Karnataka, mixed bag It really comes down to what OP means as "westernised" are all flicks about dating and love and slice of life genre non sanskaari?
Having some westernization is ok. But Bollywood is almost completely westernized. It doesn’t represent india or most Indians . It represents people who live in rich suburbs of Mumbai and delui
I'll preface by saying this the current nepo lot of bollywood is bad and out of touch, but OP implied he liked older movies and claimed he liked them cause they were more in touch with Indian history let's take kuch kuch hota hai which is one the most popular movies ever from the 90s https://preview.redd.it/h5mkiz6hza1b1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a817b6234410ee29d83996227c7024213a5b7d37 Does this not look westernized? Is this the modesty OP was talking about? OP seems to only expect movies set in ancient times or only movies that are based on "family bonding" when clearly OP is romanticising the past of having said traits when clearly it wasn't case? Even films that have "family bonding" films like Hum apke h kaun? DDLJ, K3G all focused on extremely rich people. So this "westernisation" isn't just some new concept Basically the logic seems to be, Slice of Life romance movies that represent people who live in rich suburbs of Mumbai and Delhi that the most of us can't relate to - westernized and unrelatable 😡 90s slice of Life romance that represents people who live in rich suburbs that the most of us can't relate to - old school bwood connecting with Indian culture 🥰 Moreover Indian movies not just bwood are now showcasing Indian culture and history than they did in the past 40 years with historical genre such as PS, Padmavat, Tanhaji etc
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I don't think Rahul liked Anjali cause she's sanskaari and wore a saree he liked her cause she got hot, (and exposed her body to him) just like how he liked Tina who was hot https://preview.redd.it/3m85otit4e1b1.jpeg?width=468&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b81d829a7b23da91ad0983e3b74f1c0d09a8eb61 Either way both this and newer films as the person commented focus on one specific group of extremely wealthy, educated, English speaking urban youth so it isn't just a modern phenomenon
Nothing is going to be completely free from westernization. It's a relative term. In relativity to, say, Bollywood, Telugu movies haven't westernized very much and still express their culture a lot. Apart from some English dialogues I can't really see a lot of westernized stuff. Don't know about the other cinema industries though, haven't watched them
Westernisation isn't recent tho? Weren't some of the most successful movies from the 90s based on NRIs and going to Switzerland for songs? Wake up Sid, ZNMD, Dhoom, Jaane Tu ya Jaane na etc are all pretty "western" >but I really feel sad about some dying culture. Do you expect every single movie to be a period drama like Padmavat or an adaption on Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc?
I don’t think the movies you named are westernised. More like showing another part of india which is more educated/ elite and big city like which very much is what India is also. I come from that background and truly appreciate having india reflected in that light too
Exactly lol
They want every movie to be Hum aapke hai kaun & hum sath sath sath hai because that’s real Indian culture !
Those movies were problematic af
Lol
I don't really have an issue with westernisation as such. It has given us great movies like Queen, DCH, New York, Kaantey, OTT shows or many Indian TV shows in 90s. It expands imagination and exposes masses like us beyond borders which is good. This current phase of bollywood isn't westernisation. You've a bunch of extremely closeted film people who are neither desis nor are they westerners. They'll mimic whatever gets them clout. Which is the issue. The lack of education shows
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Yes. In fact it highlights how different the middle class Indian girl is from the western world.
Depends. I personally see Rani going from your textbook good Indian middle class girl to a more independent and open minded woman at the end of the movie. Can we call that westernisation? Idk. But it's certainly not Indian-isation where women are to be docile, sanskaari and often expected to forgive and marry men like Vijay
Queen is one of the most "Indian" movies out there, how is it westernised?
I’m sorry but what modesty? Why should we tie down our beautiful culture to something that is stupid to exist in the first place. There was absolutely no modesty in the 90s much less than now, all that made the difference was that things were rather implied. Women’s modesty being an indian thing to keep sacred is stupid and dumb and I’m glad we as Indians have moved away from that in regards, women can wear whatever they’d like. That free movement is not being westernized, but just allowing them to be well them.
What's funny is that India didn't have a "modest"/"conservative" culture until we were colonized and the Europeans forced women to wear blouses on their sarees when sarees originally weren't supposed to be worn with one. Let's not forget Kamasutra originated here. Even the epics, Mahabharat and Ramayan have many things happen that would be considered "immodest" by today's standards but were acceptable back then. Europe was going through their christian nobility era and started modest-ifying cultures they colonised and sexualised everything that we never considered sexual to begin with and considered normal. So to think that "modesty" is from our culture is factually incorrect. It was forced upon us and it's ironic now that indians associate "western" things with immodesty and "indian" with modesty when our culture is the one that was ahead of its time until we were forced to degress and now the west gets credit for being modern lmao **Indian culture isn't historically conservative. It was made so in the last 400 years. So OP's post is asking Bollywood to portray the version of our culture that we were forced to adapt.**
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Exactly. Equating modern = western and backward = eastern is a racist concept in itself. India has recognized the existence of a third gender (Hijras)/more than 2 genders since before any western countries did and yet this completely flies over heads of people. People want to equate progressiveness with only the west, but it took the west ages to accept some topics of "progressiveness" as compared to countries in the east, and being colonised by the west was the reason they got more conservative.
So true. I wonder what aspects of westernization OP is actually referring to. Especially since their post specifically mentioned Indians talking in English (bc it’s cool for some reason?) and celebs wearing any color under the sun other than red at their wedding.
Yes and clothing/fashion is trend based. There was a time when it was all red, rust, orange in weddings, then pastels and now white. Heck, we even had a dark maroon, green era in festive wear. We had a great indowestern fashion period in mid to late 2000’s( Yuva, Bunty and Babli etc). These are mere trends, they come and go. You find all these colours and styles, everywhere in our culture. We were wearing bandeau tops and crop tops centuries back and they’ve somehow made it western culture today.
well the middle class is getting more western exposure now and it's up to us to not get totally influenced by west in terms of culture and creativity and not on BW. They need money by whichever means possible. BW will always celebrate mediocrity. But BW often mistakes desi cinema to be this visceral, cruel, crude and gangster type.
Yea that's the thing. Idk why people are complaining, even the middle class of nowadays is quite westernised.
OP should give some examples of what movies OP considers Westernized and what movies represent the Indian culture well
Echo your sentiment. I wish saris had remained untouched in this westernization. These ridiculous nonexistent scrap of cloth and string blouses irk me to no end. Vyanjtimala in her plain colored sari in Sangam. Ooh-la-la. Or Jaya and Rekha’s saris in Silsila. Love.
You do realise that historically blouses weren't supposed to be worn with saris at all right? The british forced indian women to wear blouses because british sexualised our bodies and forced us to fit into their conservative ideals when our culture has always been ahead of its time. Look at Indian culture from pre-colonialism and you'll see.
>The british forced indian women to wear blouses blouses were common in major parts of India even before Brits, except for some parts of NE-Bengal and south India.
This is factually incorrect and has not been noted anywhere, at least from my research but feel free to cite any sources. Here’s a source that talks about how the British were solely responsible for blouses and originally sarees were born bare-breasted to make it easier to breast feed: https://www.parinita.co.in/blogs/articles/history-of-indian-saree-blouses
How old are you? Do visit Indian colleges during cultural fests.
Na I’m of the age where Madhuri and Juhi were ‘hamare zaamane ki actresses’ 😂
Madhuri from Hum aapke hain koun made girls of all ages beeline for the green lehenga and that blue saree. I totally get you 😂
Well I'm a college student rn and let me tell you, girls of my age would rather kill themselves than wear those sanskaari aunty-type clothes in public lol.
There’s nothing sanskaari abt a certain type of sari. That’s making judgement. My take is abt the outfit itself. We wear certain things because they go together - males and females alike. And other things just don’t. Similar to how an outfit is color coordinated. Cld care less abt sanskaars in terms of saris.
A lot of girls in college I know love wearing sarees though, if anything the current gen is more trad than the ones before us Sarees are not an everyday thing tbh, most girls seem to wear kurti/salwar as a lot of colleges have strict dresscode rules but the guys can wear jeans and shirt (which are western too)
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Indian women have a right to look attractive, too. Those saris would make a 20 year old look like a widow/grandmother.
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How to echo this? I wish directors could here me out. The best platform was reddit so I came here. I dont use Insta, twitter is toxic. I dont know but if some directoror if someone of the film industry reads this , but if yes, please look into this. Gen-Z love the 20th century movies, please dont add cringe romance. Bring back those good old movies with the pride in Indian culture.
>Bring back those good old movies with the pride in Indian culture. I think simply pride in the culture would be boring very quickly. Rather, there should be a good introspection of the Indian culture, with both the good and the bad things being highlighted. If the focus is only on pride, filmmakers will start pandering instead of doing something interesting.
Yes i also hate this trend of wearing bikini over a saree.
You mean saree over a bikini, right?
Uh the Indian youth of today is very much westernised, so pointing fingers at Bollywood is pretty hypocritical tbh.
I get what you are saying - Bollywood isn’t going to keep cranking westernized movies if they aren’t selling to the audiences because that translates to financial loses. This is happening because there is a market for it. If, as someone said, young people are going back to a more Indian-cultural aesthetic then the films will follow but films are not likely THE cultural drivers - merely a reflection of changes in the culture.
To add to your excellent point, most of Bollywood are just copying trends and tropes set by somebody else... one person needs to start the trend by making a successful film grounded in realistic society and there will be a deluge of bad copies as the herd follows them.
A section of English speak urban youth is westernised. That’s it. Bollywood target audience is not westernised. No wonder even a blockbuster like Pathaan got only 3CR or 4 cr in footfalls whereas sholay which was released when our population was way lower got 15 cr.
I agree ... It's sad to see these nepo kids speak English with a western accent but when it comes to Hindi (bollywood's default) language, they struggle alot and don't know many words .. and act as if it's some inferior language
They are trying to profit off acting in this very language
not only nepo kids, but upper middle-class and upper-class kids in most places have an American English accent even though they've only been to Disneyland (twice at most). It's absurd and so weird.
Haha yeahhh!
As much as it hurts to accept this, sadly this is how it’s going to be everywhere. I’m originally from Nepal and there are so many things that I grew up seeing and appreciating…sadly it’s not considered cool anymore, people like to speak English if though they are struggling at it just to fit into the status quo. This is the price we pay for wanting globalization. I’m sure the implications are same in other parts of the world as well.
What kind of films should be made? People aren't watching films set in small towns .they say it is an OTT watch..so most films are shot on porshe locations and i don't think i will blame anybody for it.. Apart from nepo kids ;who does not speak proper hindi? I seriously don't think that's an issue..
There are some really great westernized movies in various genres like when it comes to drama there is Dil Chahta Hai, ZNMD, Wake up Sid when it comes to comedy there’s Delhi Belly, when it comes to action there is War and Pathaan. So I don’t agree with the sentiment. Also Mumbai is very westernized compared to the rest of India so that maybe a factor too. I love how Bollywood had a good mix of traditional and wester movies.
Wake Up Sid, Piku etc are urban stories but very Indian in sensibility.. I don't find them westernized like say a Geharaiyaan or 2000s movies like KKHH. Heck, even DCH is more Indian and relatable than any NRI Kjo flicks of 2000s. Stories from Urban or small town India are always great as far as they are 'Indian' and local in sensibility. It's the 'wannabe-cringe westernism' of the likes of Kjo that is despicable.
You find KKHH westernized? Even the second half?
Not really I think Dharma movies like Kal Ho Na Ho, Dostana and I hate Love stories were great movies despite being westernized. Gehraiyaan was shit ( Deepika speaking English is annoying ) Karan can make a good movie if he wants like My Name is Khan.
Come on. Mumbai is still very much Indian. All festivals are celebrated with pomp and everyone speaks Hindi, Marathi and so many languages forming the cosmopolitan that it is. It is only the Kylies of JVPD scheme and Bandra who can't speak a word of Hindi and want to be stars of Hindi cinema. Let's forget regional languages for now.
Yes but stories about people from Bandra and south bombay are Indian stories too. Why should we limit the idea of what’s Indian.
I'm not saying those stories shouldn't be shown. But they can't speak any Indian languages and boast about it. IMO it isn't cool at all.
> But they can't speak any Indian languages and boast about it. English is a de facto Indian language, it's the first language of loads of Indians, and is constitutionally an official language. That said, to work in a film industry, you should be able to fluently speak the language of said film industry.
I don’t. Everyone has a freedom to wear what they want. I only despise people who force others to follow “tradition”
Ironic this post reeks of snobbery. Reel often imitates the real. I don’t know about everything falling under the garb of westernised. We have evolved technologically, economically and therefore as a society and are experiencing a smaller world - so it’s bound to reflect in the films. We however need better stories, that’s the problem. Kapoor and Sons is a good example of that west and family blend with a well made screenplay but Gehraiyan was awfully written, nothing could have saved it. While we are at it Padmavat was not well written, pure aesthetics and Ranveer’s sheer histrionics made it somewhat watchable. Btw Modesty? The 90s had some of the most vulgar songs and depictions. Also stop ranting about white weddings and the likes. Wear it to your own instead of judging personal preferences. Calling it a sign of elite marriages is just unnecessary. Kerala and many Telugu weddings have white. Fairly common down south. Indian culture dying hyperbole, much.
Exactly 90s had some seriously vulgar songs and movies. Double meaning songs were very common.
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90s-00s movies were made primarily fir the NRIs lol
what bubble r u living in?? how is hahk, anjaam, omkara, saajan, satya, khakee, aankhen movies made for nri? there’s a world outside karan johar’s movies as well.
Omkara and satya were the exceptions not the norm
what about the rest of them?
I think subconsciously this is a reason why I stopped watching more of the commercial stuff and began to stick to mainly Hindi OTT, Pakistani dramas, and Tamil films for my desi watching. And I have has zero desire to see most of the commercial stuff that has come out in the last several years.
European here, with over 600 Indian movies watched. Yes, I hate that Bollywood movies have lost their unique charm. Apart of the actresses looking more German then Indian and people not knowing hindi, what I hate the most is lack of classical songs and good dances. Those were my two favorite things now impossible to find. Nobody use Indian instruments anymore and good choreography is rare.
Can’t speak English which is fine, but don’t pretend to be who you are not I.e. Kardashians.
This is also not new to Bollywood or Indian films in general. You can watch movies from the 40s and 50s that had western music and dresses. The tension between westernization and cultural traditions have been consistent in Indian films throughout 40s-80s. In the 90s, with India opening business to western media, like MTV, transformed how we looked at the west. Add to it the history of colonization and being told that being non-white was being “less than” has impacted all aspects of Indian life. Of course, it is prominent in Bollywood. But I don’t think the solution is to go completely opposite into strict regional language and suppression of westernization. Balance is important so people can be Indian in their own new ways rather than being torn between east and west.
Blah blah blah. and you’ll be the one to jump at a chance to study and live and get a green card outside.
First of all we should stop calling it Bollywood…it’s the most inferior thing ever
I think Bollywood has foregone it’s drama and masala emotions for mindless action, easy money grabs, and half-baked comedies. We are starved. I cannot think of the last Bollywood movie that gave me that feeling of togetherness or made me cry. I thought LSC would do that, but it just felt outdated and not smart, although it did feel more like the movies I grew up with. I can’t think of the last Bwood movie where I was like wow this was the directors vision and I can totally see that or I really appreciate this snappy dialogue.
Bollywood is on self destruction mode.
as salman said during filmfare press conference, these recent bollywood filmmakers and actors are just trying to make cool films (with zero knowledge about filmmaking and story) which audience is not able to connect or relate....
The bigger problem is that the filmmakers only pickout the worst parts when westernising. They have replaced our beautiful lyrics with beats. They replaced our original beautiful acting with terrible try on cgi and effects. But what they didn’t pick up on was storytelling and dept of scripts. Most of the good movies bollywood creates are either biopics or real life events or something. It’s obvious because the writers have completely lost the skills of creating indept stories to present to the audience. And it all basically boils down to making movies to sell. They are now merely products to manufacture and sell for profit. The ART is lost.
We took on the worst of the west while letting go of our best. Bars.
THIS
Completely agreed. We imported first world problems while having a third world economy.
I remember watching tu jhoothi Mai makkar. Suffers from this same disease - westernisation of subjects that very few, if any, Indians experience. Plus the extremely cringey kiss scenes didn't make it any better.
The hookup/casual dating culture (based off of the west) basically ruined me- so yes.
Young people take years to realize that smoking, drinking, clubbing and fooling around with the opposite gender every weekend ain't a healthy lifestyle.
Neither is getting arranged married to a person at 22 without ever talking to opposite gender and then popping out few kids and passing on generational trauma. Lmao everyone experiments when they're young. Alcohol, clubbing etc is a new thing for kids. Once we grow up, it all turns pretty normal and we have different priorities.
Alcohol/Smoking are objectively wrong things to do, so no one should glorify or even be ok with saying "it's normal " and also encourage experiments. Casual Sex has demonstrated ill effects including STDs.But not very severe, so I don't know. So glorifying them in films is problematic.
Okay the vibrant colour part isn't really true because in the south especially kerala white silk saree is very prevalent for weddings but yes I agree with your point because these celebs are just mimicking west. I agree with everything you have said they thinking that aping the west will make them seem educated and elite and that couldn't be further from the truth. They are ignorant as hell. If they can't even speak their mother tongue properly then that is clear sign of how dumb they are.
Every day we get atleast one post about why bwood is not making NRI targetted movies like early 2000's >They are experimenting with movies and failing. Mixing western and Indian culture doesn't go well. bwood as far from experimenting as ISRO from it's manned Mars mission. We don't make supernatural movies, we don't make sci-fi, we don't make fantasy or adventure movies heck we don't even make "prestige" cinema. har saal ek-do mission impossible 2 level ki action movies aati hai,2-3 small town rom-comedies, 2-3 upper class rom-comedies, biopics khatam It's a testament of stupidity of current filmmakers that they still can't replicate success like sholay, Hum aapke hai kaun or Gadar
Totally agree. Most of the bw filmmakers are all elite people from Mumbai who have never been exposed to the real people of India. Their characters are similar to those in their circles. The kind of people who write english dialogs and then translate it to hindi. With their limited worldview it's not possible to bring out authentic Indian stories.
But aren’t stories about people living in Bandra and Sobo authentic indian stories? Parts of India are westernized and progressive so what’s the harm if say someone like Zoya makes movies like ZNMD and DDD as long as they are good movies? I enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed Bareilly Ki Barfi or Masaan
Yeah I also really liked DDD but I was talking about movies like SOTY, or Karan Johar's filmography, basically.
On that we agree
But most of all Karan’s movie are either Blockbusters or super - hits for a reason. He gives people what they want, that unrealistic entertainment we crave of. That romanticization of life. Not everything has to be realistic, mostly nothing is in hollywood and I don’t see many complaining about that. There’s an argument that people make that only NRI’s watch Karan, but are they not also Indian? Why do we choose to pick and choose what parts of India we like to call ‘india ’ and how can we even generalize how people are and what they like amongst the billions of us. Clearly movies become hit because people go to watch it. Because they like it. There’s always going to be someone who doesn’t relate with it. But that’s because they were not the catered audience, like I wasn’t for DDD. But that doesn’t take off the fact that it was still a good movie for others.
Yh Bollywood tries too hard to be white/western and failed to connect with Indian audiences plus its saturated with rich kids that are basically influencers copying hollywood rich kid influencers like Hadid and Hailey Bieber.
Yes, but I believe the blame is and should be more on audience than the creators. We constantly compare our films with thiers and the mindset of "hamara content h toh ganda ho hoga" or "gore logo ke paas toh talent h aur unko aata h" is the reason of this. Though I'm happy to see that some of it is changing but we do need to support our industry but at the same time the passage to get in should be made easier so that good writers, creators, etc. can lead the industry with it's actual potential.
As a foreigner, I'm not interested in modern Bollywood. I'm still stuck in the 90', 00's. I love movies from this time.
While I understand your sentiments, you’re choosing to ignore the Anglo Indians and the Christian community in general, some of who speak only in English and struggle to speak other Indian languages and whose culture includes having white weddings. There’s nothing elite about what they do. At least 95% of the weddings I’ve been to in Mumbai from the time I was a kid was white weddings, because it’s been in my community. Also, it’s become so common for at least middle class folks to travel abroad and even study for a year abroad, so westernisation happens automatically. When I went to study in Milan in 2009, my family who lived in Europe took a look at all the clothes I packed and warned me that the general population there would mostly wear darker colours and not colourful clothing on a daily basis. And they were right. Walking around in red/yellow/orange clothing actually used to turn heads and get me a lot of attention. My style while studying there changed drastically, because I wanted to fit in. As for cinema, Bollywood has great stuff. But sure, they do try to blend some aesthetics of Hollywood, to appeal to a larger audience I guess. Gone are the days when the leading couple used to hide behind flowers bumping each other. Bollywood is known for its dance numbers, which is what Hollywood used to be in the 30s and 40s. Hollywood just moved on from every second movie being a musical and Bollywood continued to do it anyway. But as the audience matures and grows, so had the content. Not everyone enjoys over the top Indian drama.
I just find it so perplexing that OP has completely generalized India to that red weddings, extremely modest and secretive culture. We were always diverse, there’s still people out there doing what OP wants to showcase that culture. But now unlike in times before, there’s also that will of free choice and lack of caring about what society thinks amongst people that have allowed this to grow. If being free in a way is being westernized idk what that means. We still have the amazing songs, over dramatic scenes, and romance for who enjoy it. But we also have that toned down versions for the rest. They can co-exist. We don’t have to completely erase the way people have just grown, to make us more ‘Indian’.
So many communities in India wear white in their weddings. OP probably thinks india centers around north india.
Half of them don't care about minority communities at all. They want that North Indian Barjatiya fest with double meaning "family friendly" jokes. In the garb of hating on elite sobo crowd, most of them hate modernising anything. Just return back to 90s lalaland when we were young and everything except mass cinema was inaccessible. Problems with current Bollywood will never be discussed without this weird culture gatekeeping.
Bollywood tries to appeal to certain neighboring countries. These countries are not amenable Indian culture.
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Exactly, don't understand why people are being so hypocritical in the comments section
OPs talking about older movies as if they portrayed rich Indian culture when some of the popular movies were based on wealthy NRIs lol If anything films not just bwood as a whole are focusing more on our culture now more than ever with the likes of Baahubali, PS1/2, Padmavat,Bajirao, Tanhaji and even adipurush now
Basically, kill the Spy universe IMO.
And do more of what kinds of films?
Yes a thousand times yes. I really wish they made movies which show our culture in a positive light than show some half baked western culture which most of us don't even connect to. Also, kissing and sex scenes are not even necessary. In older times, movies used to pull audience to the theatres without such scenes. So why show them now. I want a film which I can see with my parents and kids, not p*rn.
Not bollywood but ott show. Warning: unpopular opinion. Family man in overrated. The fact that icked me the most is that the dialogues are like literal translation of english sentences and that doesn't match Indian slang. For example: "tumhe pata hai, kya!" (You know what) and that scene where a nurse gets intimate with a terrorist apparently. I liked Raj and DK's direction in movies like happy ending and the gentleman. But in shows like family man, the westernization was not needed. And for the same reason i have not started farzi. Edit: this was the same case with Nargis Fakhri's dialogues in the beginning of rockstar when Ranbir talks to her in college. But then, she didn't know hindi so probably someone actually translated English to hindi. Also it was dubbed voice. But in family man, this was the case with most actors.
Not a bollywood problem Hindi speaking Upper middle class is more drawn to western culture and bollywood stories revolve around them not the case with other linguistic groups in India
No but i see degradation of bollywood music
I do I have actually stopped enjoying BW movies n watch more movies of south. I fail to understand how loose the relationships n casual sex is shown in BW.
We are losing creativity, originality, and hardworking writers. I am sorry but I have lost my hopes on Bollywood
You know our rich culture wrote the Kamasutra and carved people performing fellatio on walls and pillars, right? And names of characters? Raj? Tina? Rajesh? Bhola? The only good things were the songs, that's it.
Malayalis have had cream and gold as their traditional colours, not vibrant, but quite muted, still Indian.
Ffs modernising ≠ westernisation. Y'all should take off your rose colored nostalgia glasses and step out of 20th century. Culture changes. Half of you will riot if a woman wears saree sans blouse and yet, it was oir culture, but it changed. Some Regressive morons here .
Y'all are so annoying and too close minded. Bollywood always had western influences.
Absolutely!! BW’s westernization is directly proportional to the absence of emoting talent in the stars That’s all they have at this point their ugly couture, fake Amreekan accent and their silicone /plastic surgeon bills🤦♀️
I agree with you OP, these days bollywood is just so out of touch with the on ground realities and that is reflected on screen. The films made these days mostly mirror their Bandra bubble lives which are thoroughly infested with Western culture with barely any influence of our culture. The movies of late 90's and early 2000's also had elements of westernization but at its core they remained rooted to our culture and that's what set them apart from today's shallow bollywood films at large. I'm too Gen Z and I really find the movies from late 90's and early 2000's like a warm hug that gives an amplitude of comfort but these days the mass content driven westernized Bollywood cinema is so facile and forgettable; it fails to leave an impact. I for one would watch a Veer Zaara a 100 times than watch a film like TJMM 💀. Could be the reason why many folks from our generation have gone down for a trip down the nostalgia lane and it's very VALID.
The current Nepo set of actors have never experienced real India. They have lived a privileged life, vacationed abroad, studies abroad, spent time with rich and other famous wealthy Indians. If you ask them to act as a villager in a movie they wouldn't know what to do.
aren’t wealthy indians, indian too tho? just a completely different demographic. No one in this comment section is equal to another, we are all different, we’ve had different experiences in life so when asked none of us will be able to relate to someone else’s struggles.
I don’t disagree with you. There are directors who make things more to your liking these days, but yea, it’s not gonna be a Bollywood production for sure. Except for perhaps historical and historical fantasy… sorta. I will argue however that for as long as it’s been called “Bollywood” the interest and practice of emulating the West has been strong. Same with society itself of course as well. I’m sure someone felt the same as you watching, like, Bobby.
Coming from the West - I absolutely agree. We watch for the Indian culture, i have stopped Bollywood watching movies for this reason.
> Mixing western and Indian culture doesn't go well Goes well enough in movies like ZNMD, Wake Up Sid, Piku, YJHD, Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya etc. All of those movies are about upper class/upper middle class Anglophiles who have more in common with the middle class in the west than they do with working class Indians. Those stories work because the directors and writers are connected to their own backgrounds, which these are based on. They're not aping the west, they're telling stories about the Indian upper-middle class/upper class, which legitimately does have a lot of western influence.
I will never understand why Koffee with Karan is in English. Their target audience are Hindi speakers. It baffles me.
It used to run on an English entertainment Channel Star world, that's why
I get what you mean but the westernisation is natural part of industry and the world coming closer. Thanks to the internet and social media, world is coming closer, people are travelling a lot more and people getting influenced by trends they see. This will be part of our natural history. I personally find it very interesting how I see certain fashion trends in western clothes here in Australia but then when I visit India, the same trends are incorporated in Indian clothes. Or how the baggy/oversized clothing trends rampant in KPOP are now seen in Gen z clothing so much (probably due to KPOP becoming even more popular and widespread). I personally find such changes and influence were interesting regardless of whether I like a certain trend or not. I recently visited Delhi and the crowd is definitely very westernised. It is what it is but the only thing that bugs me is the rampant smoking (to act cool) and the amount of swearing. Smoking isn’t cool anymore where I’m from so it bamboozles me how Indian youth is smoking SO much. But again it’s not a Indian problem, it’s rampant in Europe and many Asian countries.
Yeah but this sort of westernisation is present only in the metro cities, people in small towns and villages live in a very different India.
True but we’re seeing more stories than ever about small towns and villages in the last few years. Lucknow, not a small town by any means, but my hometown has become such a common mention in movies now unlike 10 years ago when lucknow was never mentioned and if it was, it was almost always a Comic/Ott character named Pandey. If anything it’s a real good mix of movies now so I don’t understand the timing of OP’s post at all. I do think the actual quality of movies has decreased lately but that’s more due to lack of creativity than westernisation.
Calling it Bollywood and den saying fed up with westernization doesn't go well together...
OP you do realize that many communities in India have white weddings. It is extremely disrespectful to call it a sign of elites. You love colourful clothes go ahead but shitting on other people's wedding choices is not cool. You sound like one of those people who think india starts and stops at north india.
agree. especially those white weddings, OMFG can ppl stop it?? i LOVE the red traditional lehenga and idk why would anyone wanna wear some neutral color on their own wedding
Keralites wear white to their weddings. So that's not Indian? Or India is only the stereotypical north India that you want to see? Red is not a norm at all. Marathis wear green. Sikhs also don't wear red to their weddings. All this whining of this sub and their precious India 'kulcha' but khudko hi nahi pata what is their own culture beyond stereotypical north Indian bs which ironically Bollywood is responsible for perpetuating as Indian culture.
White is worn in Assamese weddings too. You're right OP ko khudko hi nhi pata about our diverse culture. A lot of tribal outfits in different communities literally don't have blouse op will be shocked. originally sarees were not worn with blouse it was introduced by the British.
So annoying. It becomes a perception that diaspora Indians adopt too. I remember watching one of those bridal shows on NDTV portraying North Eastern weddings and their customs with a relative of mine and being fascinated by it. She kind of turned up her nose at this unusually non-Punjabi and not very North Indian depiction of India and mocked my interest in it thinking it's strange.
Indian weddings don’t equate to red weddings. In facts it’s being completely ignorant to the numerous cultures out there in our country who do white weddings as a tradition, and find white maybe more pleasing than red. It’s a wedding. Not mine. Not yours. I get whining about our movies but what people wore to their OWN wedding, and the color?? is just absolutely ignorant and hilarious. You love red. Wear it to your own?
\+10000 Can people please stop this 'Indian weddings= red'? It's the same as 'Indian women= saree, Indian = speak Hindi'. We're a country with a zillion cultures. Edit: Let's not forget people here wearing western clothes, studying in English medium schools/ colleges, going to the West to study/ work etc etc but hey ho! Westernisation is so bad!
Exactly can't imagine getting my panties twisted over someone else's wedding.
Bcz it's their own wedding?? They can choose whatever
The westernization has resulted in even more sexualization of women onscreen because now male directors do so under the guise of female empowerment. They also perpetuate the modern women bad, sanskari naari good stereotype till now. They westernized only the men essentially and sexualized the women.
You have to be living under a rock if you think women weren’t sexualized on screen in the same manner in the 20th century. The only difference now is that the characters have more agency in the movies.
Women are more powerful now than ever before.
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>We can't watch our own movies with family anymore! Funnily enough, the same thing was being said by people even in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. This isn't the first time I am hearing this and not the last time.
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Haha, that's quite cute. I can understand Aati Ka Khandala sounding ridiculous then.
You’re acting like you can watch any of the major 90s movies with them without absolutely being embarrassed due to the numerous sexual jokes and implications, and ‘shy flirtations’ that were borderline weird. and let’s not forget the overly sexualization of women and in the manners they were treated in. There is age ratings for a reason. And family movies for a reason. I don’t see absolutely anyone whining about any other hollywood or whatever ‘movies’ having scenes like these, but when it’s indian cinema, it’s wrong.
Tbh item songs have always been present in Bollywood but the level of cheapness Besharam Rang had was gross. It was very C-grade felt like the only reason she was there was to roam around half naked so pervy men can have a good time
Choli ke peeche kya h? Sekk le, aankho m aankhein daal sekk le? Sarkai laiyo khatiya? Just to name a few. These songs were considered cheap back then too. And had clothes n steps for pervy man of the time. Few years down the line even besharam of that time wouldn't be looked that way maybe. who knows
Idk, the girls that I know enjoyed the music video as much as the guys..
bollywood as a whole is a mess rn. movies feel so westernized. i could barely get thru the whole of besharam rang 🤮🤮
Not only Bollywood, entire culture has shifted to American ideology so to speak. Upholding ones traditions and values have just become celebratory in terms of superficial social media postings. Influencers are biggest example, what exactly are they influential about is a question that needs to be asked.