The Super Star Phenomenon

There are actors and there are Heroes, and today’s Multiplex era has shifted the Bollywood equilibrium towards the former one. When a moviegoer enters the multiplex, he is looking for value for his money as he pays 200 bucks for his ticket, another 200 for snacks and 30 for parking. He wants full return on the investment and he punishes hard, movies which are haphazard packages of formulaic recipes. That’s why we see movies like Kites, which was portrayed having International appeal failed miserably at box office, you can’t sell shitty material in glorified packaging, the inside matter should be as good or better than the packaging.

The above phenomenon has altered the scenario of the film industry. There was an era when tickets were sold just by the name of Heroes, Dilip Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bacchan – these names were guarantee enough for House Full boards outside theatres. Storyline, Plot, believability were not terms with which people were accustomed to. But as the Industry grew bigger and Bollywood started churning 700 odd movies a year, the audience had to become selective and choosy; accompanied by emerging influence of media and internet which started having a say in audience’s mindset about a movie or star.

All the factors led to the fall of the phenomenon called STAR, actors started doing movies which would not let a whistle out of you or standing in the chair and clapping and shouting furiously (anyways if in a multiplex you do that, people stare at you as if you are wearing animal skin with a stone club in your hand). The point is the stratum between the grading of movies has widened comprehensively, at one end there is so called meaningful cinema like Peepli Live, Udaan and other end are movies like “Emran Hashmi smooch fest” flicks. There are some movies which lie in middle like 3 idiots, Ghajini etc which are not entirely multiplexy , but still tilt towards that end of balance.

At this juncture, I would like to mention a rare phenomenon called as Salman Khan, the guy who is the only left Star among the bunch of actors ( we all know his acting skills ;-)) with two movies Wanted and Dabanng, he has proved once and for all, he is a Star, due to the following reasons:

• You don’t need story or plot for a star to make a movie work
• You don’t need acting skills, just out and out style is enough
• You can put the neighborhood auntyji as the heroine and it won’t change anything; the heroine doesn’t matter.
• Ham the action and comedy scenes as much as possible, it suits the Star. He is the superhero.

I was so thrilled and amazed to see and enjoy immensely; Dabanng, more so because we have a star that can make us leave our brains behind and still give us paisa vasool shameless entertainment. Rather than expecting the twists in the plot, we are thinking at which point in the movie, he will remove his shirt. In the end, whatever people say about the guy’s personal life, He is a true Superstar of Bollywood. He can carry a movie singlehandedly on his shoulders to a hit, with a limited set of things to offer. That’s the definition of a Superstar. (I still want to know how he has the hottest chick in the industry as his GF all the time, for straight 20 something years:-O )