1. STOP bad remakes
In its remake game (which it now calls ‘adaptation’, even though the result is nothing but an average-to-poor copy-paste job), Bollywood has been doing badly, with a few exceptions, for many years now. Failure to contextualise and to add some sort of an original touch has seen most remakes tanking — not even Aamir Khan could sell us Forrest Gump in the form of Laal Singh Chaddha. Resorting to a remake/ adaption which does nothing for itself or even for the original, reeks of laziness and we would rather do without them.
2. STOP Ridiculous airport looks
There are many Bollywood faces that are seen more at airports than on the screen. Airport looks are now as old as, well, airports themselves but Bolly is now taking it to ridiculous levels. Specially curated looks for the airport are a thing, with some even sporting two or more looks in a single day. And yes, it is plain torture to see a star walk out of the airport in a fleece overcoat in Mumbai’s 35°C temperature.
3. STOP Acting surprised/ shy when papped
Paparazzi culture is here to stay and no matter what stars say, it is a two-way street. We would rather do with a 2024 — and beyond — where stars (most of which are not even stars) don’t act surprised, with some even putting up an elaborate performance when paps land up to click them, even though their teams have tipped off the click-happy brigade in the first place. Let’s leave the acting for the screen.
4. STOP Attendance call
Kids’ birthday party to cultural centre launch to Diwali bash, no do by a certain business mogul is complete without the entire Bollywood A-lister brigade showing up, mostly in assembly-line fashion. They all look the same, behave the same and many of them look like they are putting up an attendance under duress. We will not be surprised if we hear that a roll call is held for them each time at the gate of the posh address in Mumbai.
5. STOP killing the sari
When was the last time you saw the sari being worn in the way it ought to be by Bollywood’s bold and beautiful? Gen Z is the chief culprit, but the malaise is all pervasive — most of Bollywood thinks that a sari (and it almost always is a Manish Malhotra sequinned number) has to be worn as far down as possible, with the pallu reduced to a strip. And let’s not even get started on the snug, ill-fitting blouses.
6. STOP revealing the whole film in the trailer
Needing to revisit the definition of a trailer, Hindi cinema has, over the last few years, believed that more is best when it comes to cutting a trailer. So what we have is almost the whole film — beginning, middle and end — packed into about three-plus minutes. Not surprisingly, in most cases, the trailer ends up being better than the film.
7. STOP de-ageing 50-plus heroes
Fifty-plus superstars romancing female actors half their age has been an issue that will probably always remain. Bollywood — now having discovered new-age techniques of VFX — has hit upon the idea of de-ageing our 50-something heroes, but the results are far from the level of say, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Most of them end up looking whitewashed and unreal.
8. STOP glorifying and justifying toxic masculinity
Misogyny and objectifying women have been part and parcel of a section of Bollywood cinema for many decades. Toxic masculinity has now been added to that unholy mix. The serial offender in recent times is director Sandeep Reddy Vanga who started it with Kabir Singh (a remake of his Telugu film Arjun Reddy) and then took it several notches higher (or rather lower) with last year’s Animal. The Ranbir Kapoor film reeked of misogyny, extreme violence (quite a bit of it against women) and a kind of visceral vileness that, unfortunately, got the cash registers ringing. What added to it was the fact that Vanga, post-release, went on the offensive, justifying the film and all that it depicted, with cheeky abandon.
9. STOP limiting strong female roles to OTT
While streaming platforms have given many female actors layered roles of importance to sink their teeth into, Bollywood still needs to play catch-up. While women in most Bolly films may not be reduced to props anymore, few are headlining projects, especially ones of a big budget. Also, we are kind of allergic to the term ‘women-centric films’.
10. STOP giving us more than two Akshay Kumar films in a year
The running joke in Bollyland is that by the time other actors wake up, Akshay Kumar — who rises at the crack of dawn and gets to his shoots as early as 6am — finishes a film! That’s not entirely far-fetched, given that the 56-year-old Khiladi does unleash four to five films on us every year, which is now strictly leading to an overdose and impacting both quality and box office. Our advice: keep it light, keep it right.
Add to the list at t2@abp.in