If the “Ancient Roman Mob” could see us “Upstanding Moral Indians” now, they would be jealous of the influence we have over our entertainment industry. Setting aside OTT releases for now, Indians have been protesting the release of any movie or television show that “hurt their sensibilities” since the beginning of time (an over exaggeration, but a necessary one in this case) and many have been banned due to the strikes. With OTTs now booming and multiple film makers working with them, censorship could become an actual crisis if any of the main governing bodies eventually agrees to creating an “impartial body” to monitor content.
The Indian Censor Boards have always been dubious about the type of content it allows to screen on the big screen. Women barely naked on screen, excess blood and gore, overtly sexual dialogue and behavior, etc. have all made it to the big screen, while swear WORDS, social issues, religious issues, gender equality, etc. have at one point all been considered too “immoral” for the Indian audience to view. This double standard has slowly improved over the years (thankfully), but now Indian film makers are fighting a much bigger threat – “the uneducated moral police”.
Moral policing has been a regular issue in India since Independence itself, and we have never truly been able to get rid of that useless evil. As more and more laws have been created to stop moral policing, more and more moral policers have become “heroic” and upped their pursuit of getting rid of “the immoral west ideals”. And their primary target during recent years have been movies and theaters.
With the ongoing pandemic and theaters being shut down, most of the filmmakers have been able to release their films online to less controversial fanfare. Of course now, there are trolls online who have been harrassing multiple cast and crew members as well as OTT platforms with the hashtag #boycott(something) for reasons as varied as nepotism to “hurting the Hindu nation”. If this continues, no doubt moral policers will turn their head toward OTTs and their releases (if they haven’t already) and create a new wave of protests, which with time, the government will not be able to ignore.
Expression of art is a right of any filmmaker and the right to not view something is everyone else’s. If someone does not want to watch something, they shouldn’t be attempting to make others not watch it (Usually that has the opposite effect). Before we get a censor board for our OTTs, people first need to be properly educated on rights with regards to the media.
Because Expression of Art is The Expression of Freedom.
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