The Star System of Indian Cinema

By Fuad Omar.

This week I am going to discuss and introduce a side of the Indian film industry that exists, although we take it for granted and often forget its existence. What is it that attracts us to a film, what's one of the first things you ask when recommended a film? What ultimately decides whether or not we see a film (or has a major effect on at least) is who is in the film. It's natural. You wouldn't want to go and watch a Govinda film on the big screen if you've never found him funny or can't stand him, the same way those who don't particularly like Salman Khan stay away from his offerings. What this is evidence of is a star system. A star system basically ranks stars and turns actors into people beyond normality, hence the term 'star', and through labelling them stars, they enter the star system. Some magazines even shout claims such as "Madhuri is the No.1 actress!" or "Kajol is the new No.1" or "who'll be number one - Aamir, Hrithik or  Salman?".

What I'm getting at is a system that creates stars and role models through a media made description and set of ideals, and accordingly heralds them or destructs them. Everyone associates the terms "Overnight success" and "Superstar" with Hrithik Roshan, but the reality is that it was not overnight. He had to work for what he's earned and as for superstar, it's a label given to him, not earned. He even distances himself from this by saying how to him "acting is just a job" and what people identify with is the character on screen rather than with him. And how they love this character or the image of him, and not the real him because they don't know the real him.

The star system began early and had subtle overtones throughout India's cinematic history, but since most of you will want to know about is -  the here and now, I won't go too far back.

In the 50s and 60s the emphasis shifted so much to glamour which stars like Dilip Kumar and Shammi Kapoor brought to the screen, that everything else suffered. The quality of acting deteriorated, as did the quality of music and story, and what became known as "formula" or "masala" films became the norm. Any yarn with sloppy acting and hybrid music would be a commercial success if it had "stars" for actors in it. People say we see a repeat of this today as some cite Salman's recent films and others talk about Yaadein or even some of Shahrukh's movies.

In the 50s and 60s, every Indian film became a 'musical' (in one film, "Inder Sabha" there were as many as 71 songs) and usually ended with the triumph of good over evil and a happy ending.

More often than not these films would be no more than fantasies badly directed and badly acted. Still an ordinary Indian on the bread line liked them for they were easily accessible and offered an escape from the harsh realities of life. No wonder, India, which produces films at a rate of two per day (some 700 every year) is termed a "movie-mad" country by its own media, dubbing its industry 'Bollywood'.

This is reflected in the Indian film magazines which number some 600. As we all know, they are mainly glossy publications full of gossip about the stars and scandals of the film world. No serious matters are discussed concerning the medium, but are avidly read finding international publishing houses in the UK, US and Canada, as well as South Africa.

For all their ludicrousness, Indian "formula films" have found a ready market overseas thanks to the star system. The Gulf and some countries of the Middle East have avid fans waiting with baited breath for every new release, and Raj Kapoor's Aawara was even dubbed in several native languages in the Soviet Union and was screened to packed cinema houses. One popular ingredient were songs with catchy tunes and "playback" singers who became as much "stars" as the actors. One such singer, Lata Mangeshkar has made huge fortunes being dubbed as India's nightingale. She is undoubtedly an excellent singer and her voice has lost none of its beauty for having been used almost incessantly for over 50 years. Her name has also found its way to the Guinness Book of Records for the number of songs she has sung. If she had a male counterpart it was the late Mohammed Rafi who dominated much of the 50s and 60s.

The very stars who made Indian cinema soon became slaves to the people's desires as the chief preoccupation of Indian filmmakers has been to make a lot of money by playing to the credulity of Indian masses, through pandering to their instincts of sex and violence. The myth begins to shatter when a star begins a downward journey which no longer conceals his or her mortality. Even good and reputable actors have had to accept roles in run of the mill productions.

On the other hand Amitabh Bachchan, who replaced Dilip Kumar as the heartthrob of millions and is at the moment the most worshipped matinee-idol, made his fortune through films which could at best be rated as mediocre. Nevertheless his popularity as "the angry young man" of Indian cinema is phenomenal. During his illness in 1982, after an accident while shooting for a film, millions flocked to their places of worship to pray for his recovery and thousands kept a constant vigil outside his hospital. Even India's Prime Minister Mrs Gandhi (whose son Rajiv went to the same school as Amitabh) paid him a visit. Tall and handsome, Amitabh, the son of a renowned poet, is a very talented actor. Yet he is so much identified as an angry, violent character forever fighting and trouncing "the baddies", that no new-wave director has found it possible to use him (except for when Satyajit Ray used his voice in The Chess Players).

The star system is such that there is a saying in India: Every Friday determines the fate of a star. This can be interpreted as every Friday a film is released in cinemas and its fate at the box office could at any point make or break a star. The stars may be media made but only as a response to the hysteria they generate. This in turn leads to their popularity and anything associated with them becoming popular, which brings in the allure of advertising. A star's attraction can be increased ten-fold by media hype, but also be brought down by the poison pen. A star has such influential power that in India, many stars who folly into politics hit it big, winning seats for the party they represent and often they are the biggest newsmakers. Filmgoers would rather heed the hidden message of their favourite star's film than of a politician, and these people who are forced to live up to their larger than life image, lead far from a normal life. I remember visiting India earlier this year and staying near Amitabh Bachchan's house, which at any time of day would have a swarm of fans gathering round it, hoping they could get a glimpse of him if he entered or left home.  More recently a member of the Amitabh Bachchan Fan Club opened a temple in his name which embarrassed the star to great heights and Amitabh even remarked: "Ye sab paagalpan aap kyoon kartey hain?" Is all this attention and security allowing him to lead a normal life?

Indian tradition and the phase of yesteryears have prominently featured idol worship and guru worship, which has over time evolved into the same superhuman status being bestowed onto modern stars. This type of hero worship which exists, stems from the larger than life image seen on screen which affirms the screen idols as either gods or goddesses, becoming a role model worthy of admiration, respect and imitation. More often than not, this exalted position offered to the actor is one accepted as being the image of people's longings. The star no longer reflects who the people are, but what they aspire or wish to become.

The star inadvertently inherits the image they portray on screen and are seen as a symbol of that character depending on a film's success or failure. In India one cannot escape attaching the larger-than-life image to the stars of Indian cinema, as the hoardings of films themselves dictate a god-like entity, towering over bus stops, roads and outside cinemas. What is seen on screen, if accepted, becomes the star's current image until they manage to break out of the this temporary mould. As Ex-Miss Universe, Sushmita Sen wisely observed in a recent conversation:
"Cinema is larger than life, in that everybody is ten times bigger, in not just terms of their physical appearance, but also their basic personality is so much bigger, on a 70mm. When the fans see you on-screen, they're imagining you're the 'wife' or 'sister' or 'daughter' or whatever character it is, you can imagine it in your mind."

She elaborates on how she has found this a natural association over theyears and how the 'star-image' itself gestates from this very character,causing it to become a position of responsibility. Sushmita Sen's entry intothe industry was one announced with great fanfare, she was touted by trademagazines as "the pride of India" after winning her prestigious beauty queen title, and even played a Miss Universe character in her debut venture, Dastak, being hounded by an obsessed fan. Her first film had sky high expectations and the very star hailed as India's pride was just as quickly gunned down to Earth. Her major hit Biwi No.1, gained her much recognition and credibility as an actress, as well as many awards, and most of all public acceptance. Playing the mistress of a married man who leaves his family to live with her in a comedy about the fallibility of men, she successfully portrayed the character of Rupali as the other woman who bordered on the familiar Hindi film vamp. Her character was loved all over India as the woman who had good intentions but wasn't quite marriageable material and fans welcomed her everywhere. She found after giving two consecutive superhits her status as a star and public figure had been catapulted to a league where her character was what was identified with, not the real Sushmita Sen.

"When the same person comes in front of you as Sushmita, as Fuad, as whoever, suddenly that myth is broken and what you're seeing is a person, and you don't know what to expect from that person, so it can be a scary feeling. Some people, when they become stars develop attitude and want to distance people from themselves, but our basic business of being in this industry is to be close to people, and if being in cinema is going to push us away from people then that's the wrong profession," she analyses wisely, happy to please fans by answering any questions about her role in the films.

In the case of Madhuri Dixit whose superstardom increases with almost every release, (including Yeh Raaste Hain Pyar Ke and judging by the response to her next release too, Lajja).  Her main point of identification is her Indian-ness. In her 1994 film Hum Aapke Hain Kaun she played the role of Nisha, an Indian girl at heart who stole the heart of the entire nation being the sweet obedient Indian girl who falls in love and almost sacrifices her love for family values. Her spate of interviews which followed the film all had the same angle, and the journalists had a sole aim: to identify Madhuri herself with the character of Nisha. Madhuri was seen as a person close to the traditional girl portrayed in her movie, who would behave as such if she was put in that situation. Of all the roles she has played she admitted this one was closest to the real Madhuri, and her effective and effortless performance gained her numerous accolades as well as a place in history as the star of Indian cinema's biggest film. Madhuri's sweet and bubbly Nisha was indeed an extension of her own personality, but as stardom dictates, it was also a natural reaction to a role.

The same can be seen in Salman Khan, the media volatile loverboy whose initial films gained him a romantic image, and his role in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun was also of an obedient family boy-next-door in love with the bewitchingly simple Madhuri. The hero instantly gained a 'nice-guy' image and became once again the heartthrob of the nation, yet was excluded by all press awards, due to his bad relations with the media. A star inherits the nature or image of the character s/he portrays and for the period immediately following a film's release, they are seen as that character. When Salman Khan woos a girl on-screen, every girl in the audience cannot separate fact from fiction and conjure up this romantic image of him in their minds. The same goes for Madhuri, who once portraying the Indian woman personified becomes the ideal daughter, wife, lover, etc who everyone wants.

Hrithik too is a victim of the star system because immediately after Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai was declared a hit, he was labelled a superstar and the media constantly play games with his position, but have to date been unsuccessful in bringing him down. His intelligence and knowledge that he is a commodity in a cut-throat film world and the distance he maintains from the image portrayed of him is surely a reassurance that he won't fall prey to a downfall due to lack of realism.

As he said to me earlier this year:
"I know that if even one person from that crowd of 80,000 or however many people there may be in an audience, had to meet me alone like in a restaurant or somewhere, they'd just come up to me and shake my hand and say 'hey you did good work, well done. We love you. Keep up the good work.' That 's it, it's just a compliment and that's how I take it. There's no reason to start thinking that 'they're crazy about me' or 'I'm too good' because it's not about you it's about your work. It's about your product and your job. You do your job and as long as you do it well they love you. The moment you give a bad performance, it's over. So I never really get trapped by that, sometimes you do start thinking 'I must be that good' but it's not true it's just a job."


So dear reader, there you have it. A part of the film industry you accept and follow but may not know it exists because it has become a part and parcel of the industry and actor-fan relationship. The star system of Indian cinema: A galaxy of celebrities being moved around by the press like pawns in a chess game.

Who knows what the next move will be?