CINEMA AND THE REAL WORLD: WHO IMITATES WHO?
“Getting history wrong determines how people see real history, which might have an effect on how they see the present.”
The idea of translating real life stories by manipulating into larger than life theme films or vice versa, does it really make sense for real world issues? Currently, this trend sound to have speed up its flow. Most of the films are relying upon real life stories, but they fail to go with the flow of reality. For an instance, the film “RUSTOM” follows the real case of Kawas Nanavati in which we see, Rustom (Akshay Kumar) kills not only for love, but also for the country. This is a movie that asks people to not only accept but actively support murder if it is pretendedly committed for the sake of country. Although, the truth is far different as shown in cinema. The role of media in this movie such as BLITZ, apparently influence the mindset of the public to see Nanavati as an “honorable” murderer who protected his house from the villain & pass moral judgements, as a result of which the jury acquitted the accused based its decision in the context of male honor instead principles of justice. But the real world is not fiction, justice system is relied upon evidence not morality so the case was transferred to the high court. Later, the Supreme Court reiterated the Rule of law and Constitutional morality over social morality and therefore upheld the conviction.
Similarly, the Telangana Policemen took out the encounter as showed in “SIMMBA” movie wherein the leading role – a policemen played by Ranveer Singh kills a rape accused in custody, ignoring the justice delivery system. Also, the country woke up to the news of gangster Vikas Dubey encounter. Many of the social media users guess that this dramatic real-life encounter story is not less than the fictional story from any Rohit Shetty film which is famous for the dramatic action scenes. Encounter killings by police allegedly furnish in self defense given rise to criticism. However, it was argued by many that the delay in justice delivery somehow validates such acts. Policemen become heroes when they gunned down the criminals in an encounter and their value increases in the eyes of their peers and the public in consonance of such actions. National Award-winning writer Vinod Anupam said – the cinema always targets the weakest link, whether it may be the legislature, executive or the judiciary. He added – if people believe that criminal should be punished instantly, the films try to show that exactly.
Cinema Crime and the Youth
Movies with the entertainment at one hand also have the potential to motivate youth to commit crimes on the other hand. They get easily influenced what they see and try to embrace the movie character in themselves. They try to become hero by imitating the acts of the actor. They take inspiration from fiction crimes of movies to turning them into reality and commit awful crimes. For example – a boy from Meerut during interrogation said he was inspired by the movie Shootout At Lokhandwala, kidnapped a 15 year old boy with the help of his classmates and demanded 50,000 ransom and later murdered the victim. This is not enough there are many more cases of committing crimes such as eve-teasing, stalking, kidnapping, etc. which are inspired by the movies. These movies have negative effect on the youth which is not in the interest of the society.
Conclusion
It is still ambiguous that whether cinema imitates the reality or the reality imitates cinema. The imitating act influences the massive section of people which results in the acceptance of violence in society as in case of mob lynching. Now people do not find any fault in taking law into their hands because cinema caters to encourage people. Movies do encourage youth to take revenge and create threat upon the society and legal administration. They try to act as heroes by doing such acts and forget their own value. There should be regulation on cinema not to promote violence and crimes in movies on the good side. Crimes can never fall into the category of something good.
#cinema #lifestory #imitation #crime #society #justicesystem #youth
Sources: News18, India today & Outlook India
Pictures: India today & News18