Waiting for Rann...

It is now proven that Rathore did commit the crime. Whether his conviction was severe enough is debatable, but it has caught media's imagination like never before, who have grasped this opportunity to project themselves as the only just and righteous institution in the country. They have promptly accused Rathore of torturing Ruchika's family, getting her expelled from school, and eventually forcing her to commit suicide. Should we have gone to war with Pak in the same decade, he would have been blamed for that as well.

That media overreacts is an acknowledged fact, but to so brazenly support one side and vilify the other is lunacy. Every development on the Ruchika case is accompanied by a grave photo of her to evoke maximum sympathy while Rathore is shown with a grin to convey his glee on getting away so easily on a crime for which he deserves to be hanged - if it were left to our media.

But then Rathore is at least a convict, but the media takes sides with the same gusto even against a victim. Sample these two ridiculously funny instances of media ethics in Mumbai Mirror (yeah, not the newspaper to search for ethics, but still...). I guess there is an unwritten rule to not disclose the names of rape victims or show their pics, and with good reason. First was the story of a woman in Kalyan who caught redhanded by her husband in their home, having a good time with a lover. To save her face, she cried rape, and the poor lover was arrested. The case came to trial, when she abruptly showed up to reveal the truth. Now, is there any confusion here as to identities of the criminal and the victim? The newspaper religiously blacked out lady's face and withheld her name, which was accompanied by the mug shot of her lover.

The second one is funnier. Two lovers go watch a movie and get cozy, I guess, in the theater. They even eat out at the restaurant after the movie, and then she remembers, oh he took advantage of me, and cries rape. The case goes on trial, and is thrown out. The story is reported, after faithfully changing the name of the woman, but the guy's name is as is.

The less said about their handling of serious matters the better. NDTV chose have a debate on US' decision to put nationals of 15 countries under additional checks. Some idiot at NDTV thought this was racial profiling and wasted no time in inviting a couple of experts to discuss the matter, one of which was Mani Shankar Aiyer. I dont care much for Mr. Aiyer, but I am totally with him when he started by saying that the move by the US is not racial profiling at all, and that NDTV should have done well to get a security expert who can comment on whether racial profiling is effective in averting terror strikes.

I cant wait for RGV's Rann. I hope he hits them really hard with this one. I lick my lips imaging scenes of media nincompoops protesting that the Rann shows them in bad light. Go RGV!

Knowing your Audience

Read RGV's interview w/ TOI today. Apparently, he has given up trying to figure out what the audience wants. It seems the Indian audience is too diverse to create something that will satisfy everyone. He claims that people love or hate his films for different reasons. That there is no consistent feedback on why a certain film worked and why another didnt. So he has stopped worrying about what people want or think and decided to do his own thing - hoping that it might appeal to just enough people to recover his investment.

I agree with his observation but not necessarily the conclusion. RGV clearly understands that presentation and treatment are as  important, if not more, than the story and actors. Fault him for his ridiculous choice of actors and stories, but you cant criticize the technical standards of his movies. His problem, now, is that he is focusing  too much on the form while ignoring the substance. In fact, he  seems bent on proving that the audience will lap up anything that has slick editing, sound effects, and unexpected camera angles. And there's the rub.

His criteria of analyzing audience is off. He is trying to find a common pool of people who'll appreciate his directorial touches like  Bhiku Mhatre's death in Satya, Abhishek's character in Naach, Urmila's experience in Bhoot and what not.  And then he feels there are too many variables.  Naturally. He is losing the forest for the trees. He cant expect ordinary moviegoers to get each of these nuances. It worked fine in his younger days coz he was not as sophisticated . Think of it as a pyramid. The higher up you go, the fewer there are. The trick is to target the base with the vast majority of our moviegoers. They understand simpe human emotions like love, hatred, pride, envy, greed etc.  And so long as a movie has these ingredients served in a coherent manner, it will  find takers. Not to say the ones purely relying on treatment wont succeed - just that it is a much riskier bet.

A confession is in order. I am a die-hard RGV fan and firmly believe that even his worst film is much better than the best films of several "succesful" directors.