A Fanfare in Transition

The first person through the wall is always bloody. This is an unbeatable universal. No matter which industry you choose you can see the proof to it. Starting from the Jewish bankers, to the intellectuals like Socrates and Galileo the world had unanimously casted a nasty look on the pioneers.

The highly looked upon industry of today, the dream factory is not an exception to this view. Starting from branding the actors as lowly creatures, the industry had cast a very dirty look upon the actors in the initial days. In fact the first of the actors came into acting because they do not have any other profession. Those were the 40's when cine industry was in the hands of producers. We still hear stories of actors were not being allowed to sit in chairs in front of producers. Since acting is not so different from drama many have successfully moved from drama industry into the cinema.

Then eventually the movie industry went into the hands of the directors. Many directors innovated various styles of movie making starting from Satyajit Ray to Bharathi Raja and took the control gear from producers into their hands.

Then came the reign of the actors. Compared to the initial days for actors in cinema the generation in 70s and 80s had usurped a great surge in fanfare. From Amitabh to Rajni this trend is all same. There may be variations in the time frame but the evolution sequence is same in all the industries across Indian Cinema. The success of the actors is the way they make you feel about them. In a movie they will make the audience feel like they are their neighbors. In real life however the audience will be left to feel like the foot dust. In fact this supremacy approach had worked for many actors and for few generations.

Imagine the fanfare of 80’s actors’. The season was marked by fans doing all crazy stuffs just to show that they love their actor more than fellow fans. Gigantic garlands, Milk baths for poster cutouts which could otherwise have been consumed and much other craziness. There are instances of mob fighting on the first day of movie releases, fights among school children too. Even instances of murders are also reported just because a person simply had not given the respect to an actor that he deserved(?).

Of course it is not to say that a fanfare following is bad. But too much of anything is definitely not good. So much so it went well the ‘awe’ factor that surrounds the actors is fading these days. Compare the same for the present generation artists with the previous generation? You can definitely see the difference.

But what is the reason for this trend change? There are many theories. Many say people are getting intelligent. Few say employment had improved taking the time out of fans that they otherwise use to show their following.

One major and perhaps a more sustainable reason to this is the advent of electronic media and internet. Both had made making quality videos with SLRs and broadcasting them world over a much easier task. The result is one can easily make a video of his own and watch it on screen. So the right to be seen on screen is getting diluted with the actors, no more exclusive to them.

Starting from being humble with not much of fanfare the actors enjoyed a gradual increase in fan following which went into the levels of worshipping during the late 80’s and the graph is reducing now a days back again to floor level. In the middle many actors had enjoyed a lot of fanfare not because they acted well but just because they got to appear on the screen. They are and will just remain an once overvalued stock that the market realized better to put money somewhere else.