While Hollywood is spending huge money on producing films that would impress the viewers out of their pants, more and more of them are choosing Bollywood with its exaggerations and 24-hour dancing as a preferred source of film products.
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The Reasons Why Bollywood’s Movies Are Getting More Popular
To illustrate, in a recent essay on Harry Potter in one of Texas schools, a 5-grade student said that he loved the franchise but not as much as he loved watching Bollywood movies with his parents. To many, such comparison is not even imaginable.
Why all the hype? We used to see Bollywood as a younger and weirder brother of Hollywood that plays with its own peculiar friends and will hardly ever grow up. That’s why it’s so hard to admit that Bollywood is making a name of its own.
No, it didn’t try to be like its older brother. There is still dancing, overacting, cartoon villains, and colorful costumes. But somehow, it’s getting more attractive to people around the world.
We decided to look into reasons why people start watching Indian movies and this is what we came up with.
A chance to give your mind some rest
Hollywood movies range from purely entertaining ones to those that make you reflect (think Inception). Even James Bond movies started adding some psychological aspects at some point. Bollywood movies? Not so much. They are still about funny villains and good guys and beautiful women being protected. They don’t want you to think about global warming or overpopulation.
Not even about the meaning of life. For Bollywood, it’s simpler. And with problems all around us (North Korea nuclear threat, ISIS, unemployment, etc.), viewers feel more inclined to watch something less meaningful and more entertaining.
A different culture and scenery
A common feature of all Bollywood movies is that they are filmed in beautiful exotic locations. A nice change from New York suburbs so loved by Hollywood. Bollywood movies satisfy the craving for something exotic, whether it is a culture, a location or a piece of clothing.
It’s as if you were transported to a completely different world for a few hours. Europe and the U.S. don’t differ that much, that’s why to feel really far from the everyday reality, one should look at Asian countries. And with Bollywood’s scope of film production, it’s only a natural choice.
A family entertainment
A solid part of Hollywood movies is not intended to be watched by children and thus is not a family time spending. Bollywood offers more opportunities for family entertainment and that’s another reason why people choose it over Hollywood.
All in all, the growing popularity of Bollywood seems to be an attribute of globalization. Viewers want to get immersed in other, distant cultures, and movies are just one of the ways to do it. In future, we might as well see crazy mixes of Hollywood’s special effects and Bollywood’s artificial overacting, which is only natural in the framework of cultural development. 🙂