Media -- What "Integrity"

At one point of time, I always thought that the media was a good field. You are informing the people about the truth about what was going on in the world, the country, their own city even. Yes, I know that it was an utopian way of looking at it but I never really understood politics back then.

But since last year, the whole media field is one that I find utterly repulsive. You must be wondering what happened to make my view change so drastically. It all began with the election time in Tamil Nadu when I first got a glimpse at the ugly side of the media, the side that makes it a very powerful political tool. There were two TV channels, each controlled by the two main competing parties going at each other with full gusto. One was going full steam about offering people free TVs and land if they voted for one party while the other was making equally outrageous promises.

Then there was literally mass buying of people from one side to the other, and when i say buying I literally mean that people were paid huge amounts just to change their stance. I don't know how many millions of rupees exchanged hands during that period, but people sure did change their stance, everyone from respected faces to movie stars. And how they changed, everything from falling prostrate at the feet of their "new" party leader to vilifying their former leaders using the foulest language possible. And all this was highlighted by the media more and more in a bid to woo the votes of the people for themselves.

But the best joke of all was when the final counting of votes was taking place. Both channels were displaying the count of the number of seats won by themselves and the other party together. And shockingly, both channels showed that their party was leading by over 40 seats. Only the supposedly neutral channels showed anything close to reality. Until the very last moment, until the final result was announced, the losing party's channel still showed them as leading by 50 something votes after which they abruptly ended this program and began showing a movie or something and resumed its everyday schedule like the election process never happened. The other channel showed celebrations of a grand magnitude and then it released the fine print in its promises of offering TVs and land to everyone.

While this was last year, more recently, even the neutral news channels seem to exhibit a habit of strongly taking one side or of ignoring a matter completely. Throughout the cricket world cup, news channels were hell bent on analyzing every aspect of the lives and the performances of the Indian team players rather than focusing on important news. News channels also have a tendency to try and outdo each other with each one making "sensational" sting operations and other such claims. This happened to such an extent that the government had to bring about a law to put a stop on such sting operations.

While you would hope that the media would be better outside the country, it isn't. The VT incident was capitalized upon by the various news channels which kept showing the killers face and even the videos over and over again to secure their TV ratings and in the process getting a maniac's last wish fulfilled. Media is also being used as a way to placate the people by making them believe in something that isn't quite true at times.

According to me, the clearest proof of a lack of integrity is when people jump the bandwagon and show their support of it as though they have supported it all their life. This is widely the case with fans of Chelsea FC in the English Premier League. These fans were nowhere to be seen until the Abramovich era. It is a similar situation with the media world. They made several mentions of the fact that Indians are making their country proud when a person of Indian origin became the president of one of the West Indian islands. Everyone now knows about Sunita Williams, the NASA astronaut of Indian origin. The key word here is "Indian origin", because she was born and brought up in the United States to an orphaned Indian father. She is also half Slovenian because of her mother and the only link she has to India is through supposed distant relations of her father in Gujarat.

Despite all these facts that show that she is barely Indian except for her origin, all the media in the country proclaimed that she was doing India proud. There were people supposedly praying for her safe return because of all the glitches on the International Space Station. While this sounds like a very concerned and considerate act, it was actually more an act of garnering media attention. There was not a single mention of the other astronauts scheduled to return with Sunita on Atlantis. There was just the constant repetition of stock video from her time in space and the constant proclamation that she is doing India proud. Upon her safe landing, her distant relations and a bunch of utterly random people in Gujarat even went to the extent of organizing a party and celebrating with fireworks just for their one moment in the media spotlight.

All this left me utterly disgusted with people. If you want to be proud of someone, be proud of the Indians who are risking it all to protect our country's borders, be proud of the people who are helping the country progress. Stop looking for some distant person who barely has any connection to the country just to proclaim that they are doing the country proud. Try to have the integrity to stand for something honest, stop kidding yourself that someone of Indian origin somewhere does something just to make India proud. If everyone was doing this, then England should be proud of America because it is of British origin and somewhere up in heaven there is a humanoid ape that is proud because its descendants are doing well for themselves.

Sivaji -- AVOID AT ALL COST

I guess it was my own fault that I went to watch Sivaji, expecting another Rajnikanth movie that was as good as his last one, Chandramukhi. To those who have no clue what I'm referring to, I am talking about possibly the biggest movie star in South India (read Tamil Nadu) and his last 2 movies. Lets just say that according to me, the difference in the two movies is as clear as the difference between a rock and a flower.

Chandramukhi was, after a long time, a really gripping and enjoyable Tamil movie. It had an excellent storyline, great songs, an excellent comedy track and for possibly the first time, it did not overhype Rajnikanth to be some kind of movie God. The only downside to it was that it was a remake of a story from the Malayalam film industry.

Sivaji on the other hand, is almost the other extreme. The movie is highly fragmented and seemed to be a stage for Rajnikanth to posterize himself and "subtly" declare his political aspirations. The songs were unbearable and seriously what does A.R.Rahman have against Rajnikanth is beyond me because the two movies that the duo have worked together on, the music has been horrendous to say the least. The songs were unbearable and I would certainly like to know how the audio for this movie became a smash hit with songs even being blasted over the radio across the country.

The comedy track is mostly stale and at times highly irritating with Vivek's performance being the only saving grace for this aspect of the movie. There are several scenes suggesting that colour is the biggest factor in determining the character of the person, the fairer you are, the better you are as a person and you can guess other extreme. I feel this is not something that should be encouraged, especially in a country which idolizes its movie stars and follows their style statements, this gives an almost racist message. The worst part of this entire movie has to be the series of scenes featuring our "dark" hero trying to become fair to woo his love. My best bet is that the fairness cream companies paid the producer a huge amount of money in order for them to be featured for almost 10 minutes of the movie.

And lastly, the action scenes, I think enough of the world has seen the Matrix, Desperado and the likes to be able to identify where each move came from. Also, I have seen some unbelievable scenarios in action scenes but this film takes the cake, it shows one man pushing and fighting off about a hundred at once. The argument that I got from most people was that movies are not supposed to be logical, but considering that this is a Shankar movie, I expected at least a tinge of reality. But it was not to be, with the best joke being the almost obvious transition and differences between the stuntman and the actor himself.

If you are wondering why I haven't mentioned anything about the story, it is because I haven't found it yet. There is a vague mention of the removal of black money (basically income for which tax is not paid) and some kind of statement that it can be eradicated by 2010 (only during the end credits). Other than that, it seemed to be some kind of tug of war between one power hungry mafia-type guy and the supposedly benevolent people's man, the hero. In the end, the hero seemed to be publishing a political manifesto through the movie, by comparing himself to an extremely popular former actor turned chief minister of the state, and by showing himself as a selfless benefactor who provides free schools, colleges and hospitals to everyone.

I also feel this movie shows something very scary, it shows the hero making decisions and carrying out his plans, with or without the support of the government. It shows him running his own almost private government, taking his own decisions without regard to what the government says. People might argue that he refused to listen to the corrupt officials of the governement who demanded bribes. But the fact is, in a smaller scale, this actually does happen around the country, people with wealth and power like to control the region to satisfy their own needs, whims and fancies. This movie gives a message that almost justifies this kind of highhandedness. Instead of saying that this is not the solution, the movie highlights this as the only and best solution for the people to get what they want.

I would like to conclude by mentioning the Director and Story Writer of this movie, Shankar. He has long been known to be someone who comes up with stories challenging the people and asking them to change to help make the country a better place. Well I guess this time, the whole Rajni marketing potential proved too much for him to handle and he succumbed to writing a story that was well below par and that seemed to be more about an actors glorification rather than the social message that he usually tries to convey. So overall, I am sorry that I went to watch Sivaji because quite frankly, it is the WORST movie I have ever seen and I am still wondering how much the TV and newspaper movie critics were paid to say "Sivaji Rocks!".