Producing Bollywood: Inside the Contemporary Hindi Film Industry (50 page)

In discussing his reasons for why he did not think it possible for a film to be successful among the various class segments and the urban-rural divide implied by the A-B-C classification, Bhatt deployed the trope of the two Indias:
²¹

In Bhatt’s statements, we encounter continuities with ideas expressed in the previous chapter and earlier in this chapter: the location of audience taste within socio-economic conditions; and the necessity of appealing to regions and audiences that accrue greater revenues for filmmakers
²²
. Unlike the filmmakers presented in chapter eight, who discussed how successful filmmaking either lay in locating the essence that was common to audiences or judiciously balancing elements in order to appeal broadly, Bhatt, like Subhash Ghai, argues that such differences of taste, class, and social location cannot be transcended.

This idea of a vast insurmountable taste divide between audiences was echoed by producer/director Karan Johar, during the post-screening discussion of his film
Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna
(Never Say Good-Bye) at New York University, in February 2007. Replying in the affirmative to my question about the possibility of achieving a universal hit, Johar quickly asserted that it was not something that could be planned beforehand. Johar then went on to explain how the changing demographics of filmmakers and audiences mitigated any certainty of this category of success, since the audience was getting “more and more sectioned in a certain sense.” Johar, like Bhatt, deployed the A-B-C center taxonomy to elaborate on these social and taste divides:

The way Johar positions the three films above that had achieved wideranging commercial success is a stark contrast from the last chapter, where such types of success were sought after and valorized within industry discourses. His comments reflect that such successes are fortuitous— almost accidental—in nature. Johar’s dismissive tone—“three films in the entire year”—reflecting a somewhat underwhelmed reaction, presents an interesting contrast to the
Film Information
editorial of January 2000: this had contrasted the poor showing of 1999 with that of 1977, which witnessed “three mega hits in a single year!” The films that Johar mentions were all tremendous box-office successes in 2006—either garnering AA or AAA classifications by the trade press, which meant that distributors had at least tripled their investments. Regardless of filmmakers’ pronouncements, universal hits have always been difficult to achieve, and there are never more than a few every year. Rather than asserting that it has become more difficult for filmmakers to make universal hits, I am arguing that the relationship of filmmakers toward this category has changed.

Despite the fact that some films still enjoyed wide pan-Indian commercial success, the fact that both Bhatt and Johar did not think it was a consistently attainable goal reveals how much attitudes are changing regarding universal hits. I argue that the change is less about the widening social chasm between different categories of audiences than about the changing conditions of production, distribution, and exhibition in the film industry. A universal hit simply does not hold the same economic and symbolic significance it once it did in the Hindi film industry. This is due to the structural transformations of filmmaking with the entry of corporate production companies and multiplexes, which have altered ideas of commercial success in the industry. As already mentioned above, multiplexes, with their high ticket rates, revenue-sharing arrangements, and financial transparency, have managed to transform even low to mod
erate audience attendance or ticket sales into a sign of success. Additionally, major urban and overseas markets are more prized by filmmakers than the smaller, provincial ones, so if a film appears to be doing reasonably well in multiplexes simply in Bombay or Delhi, it gets represented as a hit by filmmakers and the media.

The large infusions of capital and the rationalization of film financing initiated by the entry of the corporate sector into film production have reduced or removed the reliance on the traditional territorial distributor as a source of finance capital for filmmaking, at least for the influential producers of the industry. Historically, raising capital was one of the main difficulties for the Hindi film industry, and distributors were an important source of funds through the mg
system
. When distributors throughout India provided the main source of finance capital for filmmaking, they bore a significant share of financial risk; therefore, it was imperative for the overall functioning of the industry that films were positioned to succeed commercially all over India in order to project their ability to earn healthy profits for their territorial distributors. The idea of the universal hit was critical for the general financial health of the film industry.

The entry of the Indian organized industrial sector into film production, and the ability of established producers to raise money from the Indian stock market by transforming their production companies into public limited companies, have diminished the role of the traditional territorial distributor from a source of finance and power to being a middleman between producer and exhibitor. Anjum Rajabali’s description of filmmakers’ relief at not being “held ransom” by the Bihar distributor represents the dominant perception of distributors as a tremendous constraint on the creative process. Screenwriter Sutanu Gupta characterized distributors as extremely risk-averse, especially when it came to backing films with newcomers: “Distributors are people who are a scared lot; they are shit scared; they’re afraid. . . if they had their way, besides Ashok Kumar,
²³
nobody would have come in, because they go by whoever is running, whoever is on the screen. They are afraid of new faces because they don’t know how the audience will react” (Gupta, interview, 18 November 1996).

There is a sense that the new corporate producers are less risk-averse than traditional distributors, although as the discussion in chapter seven indicated, the star-centric nature of the film industry has not diminished with these new production houses. Many corporate producers have also ventured into both all-India and overseas distribution, and possess a
much higher threshold for financial risk. These corporate distributors can either rely on profits from some territories to offset losses from others or profit from their investment by re-selling distribution rights to the individual territorial distributors. A universal hit is simply not as necessary within this new financing and distribution scenario; therefore, the diminished significance of the universal hit is correlated with the decreased importance of the independent territorial distributor within the contemporary Hindi film industry.

The reduced value of the universal hit within the industry has expanded the criteria of success to the benefit of filmmakers. While the previous structure of the industry only rewarded—in terms of both economic and
symbolic capital
—filmmakers who strived for universal hits, the contemporary structure, after the advent of corporate producer/distributors and multiplexes, enables those filmmakers who are unable to achieve, or are unconcerned with broad appeal, to raise finance and earn prestige and status within the industry.
²⁴

This chapter has delved into great detail about how these new regimes of production, distribution, and exhibition are enabling filmmakers to consciously restrict their market, at least in the short term. Aiming to please all audiences does not actually garner filmmakers any symbolic capital within the industry, and may in fact reduce it. Although Bhatt and Johar raise the issue of profit and commercial outcome to explain the turn toward certain themes and audiences within the current generation of Hindi filmmaking, a portion of Johar’s remarks regarding my question revealed a great concern with issues of symbolic capital as well. Discussing the neglect of certain categories of audiences, Johar asserted, “What is happening is that the hardcore rural-based audiences are being ignored. These audiences are just not helping the elevation of cinema at all, because films that appeal to them don’t make you feel proud of them in the wider context. So again, there is a divide. You want to make a mark and you want to take Indian cinema many steps ahead. You want to put it [onto] the global map, [onto] the world map. You want to do that because you feel proud of your country and proud of the work you do” (Johar 2007). Thus, the desire to appeal to urban elites and overseas audiences is not simply about profit, but also about garnering distinction (Bourdieu 1984).
²⁵
The causal link between the type of cinema and the social class of its audiences is asserted here once again, mixed in with a certain politics of national pride and prestige based on the vilification of the majority of the Indian population—“rural-based audiences”—whose tastes are represented as an obstacle to the development of Indian cinema as a globally
prestigious form. Johar’s remarks are not singular, but emerge from the framework of disdain that characterizes the Hindi film industry’s production culture. Multiplexes and corporate production companies have resolved the dilemma of disdain that arose from having to produce films for mass audiences by making profitable—what would appear to be a counterintuitive economic logic—the conscious narrowing and restricting of audiences.

This logic of restriction, usually described as making films for niche audiences, is frequently hailed by the Indian press
and
financial analysts as a sign of progress and quality, indicating the modernization of the Hindi film industry. These discussions are rife with developmentalist tropes of “mature markets” and “mature audiences.” For example, an article in the
Financial Times
newspaper about the marketing and distribution strategy of the 2003 Hindi film
Jhankaar Beats
, which had only 40 prints release across ten cities, hailed multiplexes and developed audiences for enabling a film of this nature to be a commercial success: “A more mature audience is now willing to sample new fare, even if it is devoid of big stars” (Chandran 2003). An article from the
Financial Express
, a few years later, was more measured in its praise for multiplexes, pointing out that mainstream Hindi films still commanded the lion’s share of screen time. It depicted the Indian cinematic landscape as childlike and not fully developed: “A mature distribution-exhibition system should be able to embrace all sorts of cinema, which, alas, still isn’t the case in India” (Chatterjee 2006). The 2009 ficci-kpmg Media & Entertainment Industry Report’s portions about filmmaking herald the emergence of multiplexes as giving “a new lease of life to the niche category of cinema in India.” Describing how smaller seating capacities allow exhibitors to screen non-mainstream movies, the Report paints an image of the “mature” distribution-exhibition system that the previous article desired. Multiplexes are represented as the key technology for improving cinema in India insofar as they reduce the reliance on large numbers of audiences: “The theater can manage reasonable capacity utilizations even with [a] lesser number of people. This helps them maximize the potential of any film, irrespective of its budget and star cast. Ticket prices in multiplexes are also much higher as compared to single-screens, with no under-declaration of revenues. This provides a platform for thematic exclusivity and creativity to the producers, since they can now make movies keeping only a particular class of audience in mind” (kpmg 2009: 56). The logic of narrowcasting and the idea of segmenting markets are not inherently imbued with ideologies of gentrification, but the fact that “niche
cinema” is completely associated with multiplexes and their higher ticket prices demonstrates how such cinematic practice is deeply embedded in structures of social inequality. Speaking of the growing divergence of taste between urban and rural audiences, because of the changing demographics of filmmakers themselves, Karan Johar predicted, “Eventually, in ten years, I think, every cinema will be a multiplex, and catering just to these will be the prime concern” (Johar 2007).

Whereas for much of its history, the Hindi film industry regarded all of India as the primary market for Hindi films, what this chapter has demonstrated is that, since 2000, only certain
audiences
and certain regions in India have mattered to Hindi filmmakers. Just as it regarded all of India as its primary market, the film industry at one point considered everyone residing within the geopolitical boundaries of the Indian nation-state as a member of the cinema-going audience. While the previous chapter illustrated how the Indian audience was once a metonym for the nation and its diversity, this chapter has shown how the audience has become a metonym for a globalized India and its modernity. With the advent of industry status, corporatization, and multiplexes, the parameters of the imagined audience have constricted, counting only those who can actively take part in the consumerist dispensation that is valorized in a post-liberalization India. It is in these respects that audience imaginaries have been gentrified within the Hindi film industry.

I want to remind readers, however, that this and the previous chapter have discussed filmmakers’ audience imaginaries—the discursive production of audiences by the film industry—and not the actual people who go to see films. While the Hindi film industry’s valorization and celebration of the multiplex is troubling, as it is a palpable material expression of the disdain they feel for the majority of viewers, the gentrification of audience imaginaries has a more complex trajectory. As made apparent in this chapter as well as in chapters two and eight, the majority of Hindi filmmakers have an extremely condescending attitude toward the “masses” and the “interiors.” When filmmakers were consciously targeting the masses, or aiming for a universal hit, they deployed a theory of spectatorship that was based on a combination of literalist identification, developmentalist paternalism, and moral and culturalist allochronism. Filmmakers’ representations of poor and working-class audiences, or the inhabitants of non-metropolitan regions of India, did not accord these
viewers any sort of complex subjectivity; instead, such viewers were primarily represented as enormous constraints on the creative process. Another way to regard the gentrification of the audience imaginary is that filmmakers have liberated themselves conceptually from their own selfimposed audience fictions. The phenomena of reception are much more complex than filmmakers’ discourses and theories allow for. To lament too much that Hindi filmmakers are ignoring the masses or the diverse film-going public, based on the content of films, would be to replicate the essentialist and literalist theories of the Hindi film industry.

The shift in Hindi filmmakers’
audience imaginaries
parallels shifts in other spheres of cultural production in India, brought about by the neoliberal restructuring of the state, media, and society, in which citizens have been reconfigured as consumers.
²⁶
The ideology of the
universal hit
represents a particular Nehruvian nationalist vision located within an economic imperative: broad audiences were necessary for the continued existence of the Hindi film industry. However, the pursuit of mass audiences and broad public appeal were the very logics that brought opprobrium upon Hindi cinema by intellectuals, journalists, and other social and cultural elites. For years mainstream Hindi cinema was criticized as rootless, culturally inauthentic, and brazenly commercial because it aimed to please diverse audiences. In contrast to the filmmaker statements presented in this chapter, the quest for a shared cultural expression, represented by the universal hit, now appears curiously utopic.

The shift from targeting mass to niche audiences is celebrated by filmmakers, journalists, and economic analysts as a sign of the maturation and modernization of filmmaking within India. It is this logic of gentrification that is at the heart of the Hindi film industry’s transformation into Bollywood.