In the good old days, going to the cinema was fun. And nothing else mattered. But that was then. Today, let me ask you a question; Are movies important enough to invite our scrutiny of the events displayed? Especially those films with some underlying political religious, or a social message. If your answer is “no,” think about it again. If your answer is “yes,” you are with me. In order to learn the art on how to scrutinize the movies, one has no choice but to turn to Richard Grenier, He is a columnist for the Washington Times and a film critic for the Commentary and the National Interest.
Capturing the Culture: Film, Art and Politics is a priceless book, It is essentially a compilation of Grenier’s 12 articles on feature films and 34 other small, equally impressive essays, My favorite on feature films is the Gandhi Nobody Knows, This article was originally written in the Commentary March 1983, in response to the release of the movie-Gandhi. Later on, with some additions to the original article, The Gandhi Nobody Knows a book surfaced on the market, published by the Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Perhaps, unknown to many Sikhs, the American (or even the western Hollywood leans heavily to the Left. In United States, the writers, actors, and the film producers overwhelmingly show the left ideologies, in sharp contrast to the general public, On one side, this group of people show hostility to their own society, while being also damn rich at the same time. Ironically, this is a strange fate, a similar likeness of which I am unaware of. How can anyone explain this strange phenomenon? Grenier has an answer, using Max Weber’s insight: “As societies lose their belief in ‘ultimate and sublime values’-which means, first and foremost, the loss of religious belief—certain groups will seek salvation in other ways, ways that will endow their lives with pervasive meaning.” With God dead, politics become the most accessible transcendent principle for the Most prestigious universities, MOSL of the best newspapers, television networks, the writers and producers of the movies. Thus, it is no wonder, the Left commands the intellectual and cultural heights of American society and therefore, it exerts undue influence over the agenda for public discourse.
Again, why are the movies particularly so important? For the most part, the convincing answer comes from the far Left. And that, from Vladimir Lenin who believed, as Grenier reminds us, “of all the arts, for us cinema is the most important and proceeded to devote to the new art the full resources of the Soviet state and declared that the motion picture was the most powerful means of political propaganda in world history.”
It is indeed fortunate, the American Hollywood’s leftish ideologies can hardly get away from Richard Grenier’s inquiry, Such is not the case with the Hindu Hollywood whose rightist ideology often go unscathed, unruffled, unnoticeable, and even unquestioned. Recently, a highly-educated Hindu acquaintance of mine emphatically suggested, rather than wasting time on being a student of Hinduism, I should experience Hinduism. Experience Hinduism! How? I should see the Indian movies, especially the series on Mahabharata, he replied. Yes,1 would, only if Mahabharata the movie did show the conclusion of Mahabharata the epic scripture. Which was wife end-up in the pit of the Hell after their death; while the whereabouts of Krishna, who had died few years earlier, is unknown. This bewildering conclusion of Mahabharata, is of course, missing entirely in the movie, Enough experience that] have accumulated by participating in the Ramlila and watching almost every Hindu movie; only to realize, however much later, that the Indian films are actually a propaganda of the Hindu Hollywood; manufacturing gross lies, glorifying Hinduism at every step, and above all, routinely
getting away with those lies. The Hindu Hollywood produces more movies in a year than any other movie industry in the world.
Lately, it has come to my attention, there area number of Punjabi movies on the market trying to portray the Punjab sad saga as because of someone’s “nazar.” That is. all the gruesome details of killings etc., in Punjab, are as a direct result of someone who ‘glanced’ and evil eye! Thus, the movie viewers are led to believe in the faith of Hindu superstitions. This often guarantees to metamorphose the innocent movie watchers into a some what retarded, dumb, docile human creatures mindlessly nearing similarity to that of cow’s expressions. Another change for the worst I have encountered, perhaps as a result of Hindu motion pictures, is the Hindu sentimentality, where there is an immense outpouring of false emotions.
The Sikhs have a moral sibility to take a closer Indian movies, and I for myself can spare no time to see the Indian movies, But the need is urgent to develop talents possibly among the young Sikhs on how to investigate the Hindu Hollywood. For any Sikh with interest to become a credible film critic should contact me through the editor of the World Sikh News. I will be more than happy to help develop the much needed talents. Once the talents are in motion, even if unsuccessful in altering the rightist ideology of Hindu Hollywood, at least, our Sikh movie-watchers ought to be given enough information, and hopefully spared from looking like a cow in the future,
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 14, 1992
