Bollywood

There’s a dangerous idea doing the rounds. Like many dangerous ideas, it comes from abroad. And what it amounts to, essentially, is this: “Bollywood is cool.”

To say that the contention has become widespread would be an understatement akin to Nick Clegg’s leadership of the Lib Dems. Bollywood films now regularly make the UK Top Ten. Bollywood gossip is carried in some British newspapers. The ever-extending influence of the genre is evident in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!, in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, and in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams.

I’ve just watched an online Bollywood-themed Michael Jackson Thriller tribute. The other week an episode of Hotel Babylon ended with the cast embarking on an elaborate and entirely unnecessary Bollywood dance routine. Typing “Bollywood-themed” into a newspaper database informs us that in recent months Bollywood has variously inspired: a circus show in LA, a charity ball in Coventry, a 40th birthday party in New Zealand, a Snoop Dogg track, a dance routine on Britney Spears’s tour, a team’s response to a task on The Apprentice, and an episode of The Wonder Pets! on Nickelodeon.

I realise that for some Indians this is a source of pride: an indicator that the sub-continent now has both economic and cultural clout on the global stage. But personally I find it depressing that a country that has produced so much important music, literature and philosophy has become synonymous with its most moronic cultural phenomenon.

In what ways are Bollywood movies moronic?...

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