Are Indian audience prejudiced against adult

comedies?
Introduction:

Adult comedies in India are becoming highly popular owing to some

bulk releases recently that were well received by the audience but
whenever such a movie hits the theatre, there are always some
protests and downgrading of the actors and directors. The adult
comedy cinemas is liked by many but the hate graph also shows no
decline.

There is a taboo associated with adult comedies, considering the big

names of Bollywood would never do these kind of movies, but are
now actually coming out to render support to them. The audience, on
the other hand, is showing displeasure and concern about the future
of cinemas if such movies are allowed to bourgeon.

“Kya kool hain hum” and “Masti” series have been the ones to receive
good box-office treat from the audience but at the same time, the
actors of these movies have been confined to this genre of movies
only. Are Indian audience prejudiced against adult comedies?

Yes, let’s accept it:

1. The posters made them cringe: The posters of most of these

adult comedies are gradually becoming sleazier, basically shouting
what the audience could actually expect inside. Our recent adult
comedies like “Kya kool hain hum 3” broke all terms of decorousness
when their trailers and posters went out. Just looking at the posters,
Indian mothers made up their minds not to allow their teenagers or
not-so-teenager kids to ever watch those movies.

2. The “sanskar” police: Our moral police or the ‘sanskar’ police as

we would like to call them went dread faced when they saw the movie
(or the posters for that matter). They started crying shame and
protesting against these movies, accusing them of corrupting our
virtuous nature. Some went along to taint the posters black and
others took to Twitter to show hatred. Recently, we saw how a senior
journalist would want to embarrass Sunny Leone in the interview by
hitting at her past unceasingly.

3. The censor board drama: Whenever one such adult comedies

would face the wrath of censor board, half of the film would be cut
and beeped to leave it only with lame and cheap jokes. There are list
of banned words these movies can’t use and there are bunch of
people who would never be pleased no matter what.

4. We aren’t ready for it: The Indian audiences aren’t ready to

handle adult comedies not because they cannot enjoy a good
laughter but because they would like to stick to the vanilla of two
flowers touching to depict a sex scene and voila – you get the world’s
second largest population just like that. Even a comedy show that has
good adult jokes in it will be booked under some section for violating
the rules of Indian Television.

5. We don’t talk things ‘adult’ openly: Intimacy is a private affair for

us and so are adult jokes. We could only secretly giggle at them, but
not openly in theatres. You’ll be called a spoilt brat if you do so and
might even get charges against you just like Sonakshi Sinha got
when she laughed out loud at the AIB Roast.

6. No real comedy in adult comedy: Our adult comedies do lack

good humor anyways. The so called adult comedy movies that we get
to watch are nothing but a series of raunchy stares, cheap double
meaning jokes, a bunch of leggy girls only for the glam factor and of
course, full of voyeurism. There is no cleverness in the jokes, just
some bimbos and perverts trying to woo each other. ‘Grand Masti’
could have been a good experiment if it did not underwent the famous
218 cuts to pass the censor board test.

No, we like good humor:

1. These movies have been a hit: The moral police might scream as

much as they want, the censor board might lay down thousands of
rules but still these recent series of adult movies have been a big hit.
They are liked by the audience which is clear from the box-office
results. Yes, we shy from appreciating our likes but the result says it
all. Indian audiences are evolving to appreciate good adult humor.

2. But we don’t like copied versions: Bollywood copies the West a

lot. In order to ape the West, we get to see completely lost plots with
no intelligence but dirty jokes and too much chaos. ‘American Pie’
and the likes of those movies cannot be expected when Bollywood
starts to experiment with adult comedies of its own kind. What we see
are crooked men demeaning women and treating them as sex
objects. The Indian audience knows better than to appreciate without
understanding hence the dislike.

3. We love Sunny Leone: The entire film fraternity came out to

support Sunny Leone when she was deliberately made to feel
embarrassed in an interview about her past and we absolutely loved
her grace and valor with which she answered them all. India is no
longer hiding behind masks of hypocrisy. Being the top consumer of
pornography in the year 2015, India has definitely come out to accept
their like for adult themes.

4. And we don’t like comedies demeaning women: Indian adult

comedies are mostly about skin show and sleazy to the extent that
they become demeaning towards women. Indians is all up to
appreciate good humor but it has to be sans objectification of women,
racists comments, and has to have real characters in real plot rather
than imaginary ones with no intelligence at all.

Conclusion:

Suggestive lines, cheap jokes and sleazy scenes prevail in the so

called adult comedies of India. If 2016 has to see a change in the
ongoing trend of adult comedies, it has to stop copying in the name of
“inspired from West” and start being creative about their stories.
 Delhi Belly was one good adult comedy though it went gross at times
but at least it had a real plot with real characters that were believable.
The movie was liked by many. Pleasing everyone is not important
and practically impossible but a good humor that could generate good
laughter will always be welcome.

Yes, we might be a bit prejudiced against adult comedies because of

the sleazy cheap trend and if that has to change, they movie makers
will have to go through an entire evolution of the stuff they create. An
Indian version of ‘American Pie’ is not what we are asking for. We are
asking for an Indian style adult comedy.
 ← Previous
 Next