Do you know what a kid does?
After learning a new word, he/she would use it in every possible situation until they are made aware of another new word.
This has been the situation of Indians on social media. They watch a Hollywood film/series and they would label every Indian film/series as a copy of any particular film or series. The funniest thing is, they do it even before the release.
The latest victim of this trend is Hansal Mehta and Kareena Kapoor’s The Buckingham Murders.
People are calling it a rip-off of Kate Winslet’s highly appreciated Mare of Easttown. But we need to understand that having a middle aged woman detective in the middle of an unforgiving situation is not a rip-off of “Mare of Easttown” all the time.
More importantly, we should wait for the release of the film before labelling it with something like plagiarism. More than anything, it reflects the inferiority complex of Indians who think that only the West can come up with and execute an original idea.
Milestone great films like Baahubali and Sholay have also been the subject of such labels. Hansal Mehta himself replied to a user who alleged that The Buckingham Murders is a copy of Mare of Easttown.
Thus, as consumers of cinema, we also need to change our attitude to make ourselves more acceptable.