Hype - An insult on the audience!!

Public memory is short, they say. An event is forgotten when another happens, and when sometimes, another is made to happen in order to make the impact of the earlier one diminish. 

More than often Politicians use this to their safeguard their own well being. 

Public perception has several stages. Stage one is already in the minds of the common man; based on his own observations and logical conclusions based on history. Stage two is created by Media who use their mighty pen and visuals to influence the opinion of the common man's perspective. Stage three is when a group of people sits around a table to create propaganda to support, elevate and enhance the commercial or social possibilities of whatever they are doing or intend to. 

While the first stage is natural, the second is a responsible one (At least we would like to believe so) while the third one is plainly selfish with selfish motives. Like many in the lay society, we seldom realize that most of Page three matter we read and gush about are either created or paid ones. While going gaga over a hero having a fling with a heroine, we forget that there is someone behind closed doors smiling - the group of people around the table! 

We have the right to judge, evaluate and opine about a work of art, dress, attitude or performance of a person or product, as long as we are spending our time, money or energy for it. When we use our own faculties to do so, it may become lopsided because we are basing our opinion on our own experiences which may also be a result of hearsays, our own life experiences. So our inquisitive mind searches for more information from friends, family and then comes the media. If the baron who owns it, most of the times, media comes out with the fair treatment of the subject which naturally gives us a fair bit of information that can aid our judging process. 

This is still fine. 

When the above-said group of people, smoking their lungs out and huddled together in well lit Board rooms decide what we want to believe, popularise and propagate and has an army to literally bounce off anything they want, then we are in for a surprise. These people can easily turn around a comedy into tragedy and transform a mockery into a myth. Such people are the paid henchmen of commercial designs, or corporate honchos who get paid in millions to make us believe what they want us to while ensuring their Quarterly numbers dilate the eyes of their stakeholders. We need to see through them. 

These days with trollers and social media warriors, we are fed with some of most misrepresented and misappropriate facts. These people, who behind fake ids and in dismal corners, create the so-called Breaking News! Alarmingly they use and misuse something that is entirely our own, our judgment. When we start using their words, thoughts, and patterns to judge a situation, a person or a product or a work of art, we obviously lose the opportunity to make our own independent evaluation. 

When a movie is made, that too by a Marketing man, I am hundred per cent sure that he would try to put in his best to ensure that he is making a product that reaches out to the people so that his client is happy. In this case, the client is the Producer. A part of this machination is something called Hype. The Marketing man would create a larger than life image of the hero's role, make a mountain out of the molehill about the story, carve situations during the making so that the intrigue is sustained, leak information in the form of hushed whispers which get broadcast as Exclusive News etc. 

Can we blame him?

We should not. He is primarily a product of our modern times. He is a man in a hurry to move on. This movie is just a campaign for him. He has already planned the whole journey forward. I would do that too if I were him. In this case, he is not to be blamed. If someone has expected more or less from what he has produced, they have to blame it on their own expectations. They have based their expectations on the Hype and the hullabaloo generated out of the whole movie, the creation of a marketing brain.

Look at what the hype has achieved for the film? If the figures that are released are not a product of another hype strategy, the hype has won even if the audience has lost. If the film is a good one, then everything that happened so far, including the negative publicity created, would hold good and would ensure the Producer goes to his bank laughing. 

Is the negative aura also created?

We live in tricky times when every sound, be it music or noise, at a certain decibel would create the buzz attracting the average man; the man fooled by the hype. That is precisely what earns people like Santhosh Pandit his bread. There are a lot of people even in our political scene who is desperate to be in the news because they know that any publicity is good publicity and the public memory is short. 

But, if there is anyone out there spending his pocket to make life worse for the film with violent tirades against it, I am sure they are not only losing but creating more publicity for the film. That would only help an average film become a hit even if the content is mediocre.  

A film itself is a make-believe product. Why can't we believe that everything around it could be the same too? 

By Sujil Chandra Bose