Maria Giovanna about Non-Desi Audience at Rediff
Have you read it? No? Then -read it - its interesting.
What Do you think? Are there many Non-Desi people watching Bollywood & Co.? And, one more important point of view: Is there cultural mix between desi ones and others? Or do both parts stay alone without connecting to each other by the same passion? For me, living in rural germany there is no chance to get many contacts to a desi audience - there is none. No indian store, the next indian restaurant far away (but worth the way) and so on. So no discussions about movies with insiders by origin.
Should Bollywood try to get non-desi audiences? Should they try to make movies interesting for non-desi audiences? In a world the movie income overseas become more and more important that looks interesting. But - will we love such movies made for us?
March 28th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
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March 28th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Thanks for the link, Michael.
I live in a city with a large desi population, and so I have had the opportunity to discuss my interest with Indians who have a variety of different perspectives on it. For the most part they are delighted - if perplexed - by my taste for Indian movies.
I feel that I can’t say what Indian film should or should not do, as it’s not my culture and not my medium. I watch as an outsider and part of its appeal is the window it gives me into the lives of people in a different culture, with a different baseline.
My instinct says that Indian film is wonderful and it’s serving its own audience well, and so it should not go out of its way to seek the approval of Western audiences and Western “authorities” like Academy. Still, in the modern era of Indian film, the rise of the multiplex has given filmmakers a lot more freedom - a movie no longer needs to be all things to all people, and there is room for a lot more experimentation and range than there might have been in the past. So if there are filmmakers who are inspired to tell stories that resonate with an NRI audience or even a non-Indian audience, they should do that, and hopefully their efforts will not be dismissed as “pandering”.