“Movies As A Source Of PR, Propaganda And Soft Power For A Nation And Its Culture In Reference To Hollywood, Bollywood And South Indian Cinema”

Abstract

Cinema is not just a cinema now a days and never it was. It is a mean to communicate with millionsin just 2 or 3hours. But, movies, films, short films or whatsoever you name these artistic forms,came in late 19^th and earlier 20^th century. Before these, there were other ways to put your words toothers. And the most popular way was Drama, Theatre, Nukkad-Natak. Nukkad-Natak was done inopen while the other two were done in closed room. But the reach of these three were very few andartists have to perform again and again from place to place. After starting the age of Cinema, artistsgotrid of that iteration process.

As we know, there was a need to research over mass media means on the topic how mass media canchange the mentality of a society and can affect the entire section with just few words after theWorld War I. However, till that time only Print media was in advanced form while e-mediums werestill in their starting stages. There were no talking movies. But in late 20s, with the advancement intechnologies (a big thanks to Europeans and Americans), movies started talking. It gave the samefeelasaudienceused toget inthosethreeforms mentioned above.

This invention brought a huge change in mass communication form. Earlier people can only read(newspapers) or listen (radio). But now, with listening, they can watch what actually happening.This was successfully used by Nazis and Hitler in 30s and Americans while Second World War.Hitlerwasthefirsto[1]newhoactuallyunderstoodthepowerofthismedium.That’swhyheorderedto shoot films and present them in the entire Germany. There was a Department of Films in NaziPartyformonitoringfilmpropaganda.ThisprovokednationalismintheentireGermany.(Propagandain Nazi Germany,Wikipedia) [1]

In Indian context, this Cinema Culture was never considered as a good thing. This is the reason whyDada Saheb Phalke (father of Indian Cinema) could not get a proper heroine in his earlier movies.No woman (even the Prostitutes) was ready to work in films. With the time, situation got worst interms of stories and screenplay. In 80s and 90s, there was hardly any action movie, which did nothave rape scenes. At one hand, Hollywood got so much developed in time that it started makingfuturistic sci-fi movies like Back to Future, Star Wars, Star Trek, Jurassic Park and Terminator. Attheotherhand,Bollywoodstickedtoitscourse:masalamovies,romanticmovieandcomedymovie.

So, it is important to understand when the world was Globalizing and Hollywood movies werereaching to Indian Markets, still Bollywood lacked behind to tell a narrative where India is leadingthe worldfromthe front. And still there isno movie telling the worlda storyfromtheperspectiveofIndiaas a world Leader.