Move to abolish drinking from cinema

One too manyOur attitudes towards the intake of alcohol are so faithfully mirrored by the cinema that one wonders what has sparked off the recent move to abolish it from the screen. The commercial film - that repository of petit-bourgeois values - condemns drinking in no uncertain terms.Not only is this habit depicted as a way of life with all the villains of movieland but it is, with few exceptions, their exclusive preserve. The hero is rarely a drinker. When occasionally he does hit the bottle, it is attributed to unhappiness in love, Devdas style. But if the man is worth a moral (and as a hero he has to be!) he reveals his innate "goodness" by ceasing to be an alcoholic overnight.The result is that drink, in the case of a man, becomes an attribute of villainy. In the case of a woman it is predictably worse. With the exception of the husband-worshipping Chhoti Bahu in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, it is difficult to recall a single "virtuous" female having taken to drink. Such an activity is restricted to the prostitute, the cabaret dancer, the gangster's moll and denotes sexual depravity.There is no formula film in which drinking is portrayed as a social art. The concept of a glass of wine with one's food or an aperitif before and a liqueur after a meal is unknown to the general run of Indians. Boozing is the norm instead and, with the exaggeration to which our films are prone, this generally means emptying an entire bottle down one's throat.In a sense this reflects the customs prevalent in the country. Which perhaps is why the query "do you drink" (mind, not "would you care for a drink") stems from a melange of fairly objectionable attitudes. On the one hand it sounds like "are you an alcoholic", on the other like "are you westernized enough to indulge in this vice".And, if one has the misfortune of declining because one does not "feel like a drink", there is a long spiel about being "formal" and "worried" with the injunction to put aside such qualms and "relax".If instead of confirming the attitudes towards drink our films were either to show them up or to depict them as a consequence of the circumstances from which they emanate, there would actually be a case for encouraging the portrayal of drinking scenes. Take the case of Choma in Chomuna Dudi, for instance, or of the deaf and dumb husband in Ankur or, again, the diwali drinkers in the latter film. Surely none of these can be considered objectionable.On the other hand, the deletion of an alcoholic scene from the formula film is unlikely to make the entire product any better. Cliche-ridden observations on life and an equally cliched form of escape from it are surely what should irk the censor's eye. Drinking may be banned because the government feels it is likely to deprave the morals of society. But is it not equally depraving to permit the masses to get drunk on the formula?The basic question that confronts us today is the kind of value system we desire to build up. This will have to be defined-a task that is difficult for any organization to undertake. However, if it has to be projected by the cinema, the guidelines to the industry must perforce include certain positive suggestions instead of being restricted to negations of alcoholism, sex and violence.Deewange is the story of a poor man who gets tempted by a box full of diamonds and a rich girl, his wife, who insists that it will ruin their happiness. She is naturally right and, considering that she looks and dresses like a wealthy star, it is easy for her to scoff at riches the way she does. Less understandable is the greed of her husband, who goes on like a business executive, despite the fact that he is meant to be an impoverished mechanic.Two gangs go after the couple and, after the one and then the other hold the child of the young couple to ransom, it dawns on everyone that money, being the root of all evil, must be shunned at all costs. Zeenat Aman in the lead role is unconvincing as a religious-minded housewife. Shashi Kapoor hams his way through the laboured script and unimaginative direction of the film.Jeewan Jyoti is yet another improvisation on the Ramayana with Hanuman appearing in the form of a trained and highly resourceful monkey. This perhaps is why the film is advertised as having been "liked by ladies and children" especially. There is a bit of blackmail, gangsterism, robbery and so on thrown in.Finally, the banished heroine produces twin boys who go on like a mixture of LavKush and James Bond and with the help of the monkey they avenge their mother and put their errant father in his place. The film is reasonably well shot but what it says is so hackneyed that it is hardly worth a visit.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Jun 12, 2014 14:06 IST--- ENDS ---

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Move to abolish drinking from cinema

Our attitudes towards the intake of alcohol are so faithfully mirrored by the cinema that one wonders what has sparked off the recent move to abolish it from the screen.

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