ART IMITATING LIFE OR LIFE IMITATING ART?

Convention has always dictated that ‘art imitates life’, i.e. until the 18th century English literature maverick Oscar Wilde propagated his anti-mimesis theory. He was the first advocate of the ‘life imitating art theory’. He based his theory on the belief that the theory is “not merely from Life's imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy”. I am not going plot a differentiation between platonic realism vs. romanticism in this article, I merely quote Wilde to prove how right he is in the Indian context of ‘Bollywood’.

The argument of life imitating art or art imitating life is one of the common arguments baffling critics. One of the few instances one can convince a declaration on life imitating art is in our own Bollywood. Not just Bollywood but Indian cinema. The Indian cinema is so deeply embedded in the Indian psyche that people believe what happens on screen is the reality around them.

The way we treat our heroes and villains is testimony to that. They are not just actors as the emotion of the protagonists and the people are entwined in Indian cinema. There have been instances of people hating the character of the villain so much; Puneet Issar who injured Amitabh Bachan on the sets of 'Coolie' could not find work for a long period of time because of the accident. The instances are numerous; the government seemed convinced when they banned smoking on screen. They thought kids would be influenced by the heroes smoking on screen. By actually banning it, the bad boy image that goes with smoking was glorified even more. Just take a look at a typical Indian cinema, it is romanticism and senseless idealism, the attributes are plenty in this context. The stereotyping of social classes is plenty, and the dances, where do i even start? The censor board actually censors what is realism and keeps the fantasy part of it on the reel. The dances are laced with jhatkas and matkas of the heroes & heroines; subtle and not so subtle indications of what they want to do to each other (licking their lips, thrusting their pelvis all over the place, biting the tongue and lips to show how strongly they feel for each other) CENSOR THIS! From such movies stems the perfect anti hero on the Indian street. The guys think if they make catcalls the girls will find a compliment in it somewhere, like the regional movies. Indian cinema has shown time and time again that perseverance and aggression is the key to get a girl. How many cases have we heard of women/girls being raped because the boy liked the girl so much that only he should have her? What does he do? Rape her! A tainted girl will obviously want to marry soon enough and given the Indian male’s hypocrisy for virgins, he is the alpha male she has to choose ( Raja ki aayegi barath). The portrayal of Indian women has traditionally been weak too albeit a few films, that were critically acclaimed.

I am not generalising Indian cinema to just life imitating art, it is just excessively found to be so. There are wonderful cinemas that have portrayed art imitating life too, especially in the recent decade. The multiplex era has appreciated the Indian intelligence and grown in stature ever since. But they seem to have been looking westward for inspiration, inspiring a new argument. ART IMITATING ART?