According to Indian media reports Bollywood director Ram Gopal Varma has questioned the logic behind showing the anti-tobacco and anti-smoking campaigns before Bollywood film screenings in cinemas.
“People want to forget problems for two hours when they come to see a movie and they are pounced upon with grotesque close ups of diseased lungs and mouths. I have been seeing a million anti-smoking campaigns since I was a kid, but yet to see a single smoker who gave up smoking because of them,” Varma tweeted.
“Why should non-smokers who pay good money to see the likes of Hrithik’s and Katrina’s suffer grotesque visuals of diseased lungs and mouths?”
Indian Law states a disclaimer about the health hazards of tobacco has to be shown before smoking scenes in TV dramas and films. The awareness campaigns are even showcased in cinemas at the beginning of a film and during intervals.
For the same reason Hollywood director Woody Allen reportedly refused to release his film “Blue Jasmine” in the country, as he didn’t want audience to get disturbed by the disclaimers.
The ‘Satya 2’ director fails to understand the government’s intentions behind targeting only smoking while ignoring other evils.
“If the government’s only intention is to educate us moronic idiots on the dangers of smoking, why stop only with smoking and ignore other worse evils?” Varma questioned.
“When in a film some people play cards there should be a mandatory super – ‘Gambling is bad’; when someone in the film drinks, they should put a super – ‘Drinking is unhealthy’ and should show grotesque visuals of the liver in half screen.”
“When someone kills someone on screen, they should order the producer to freeze the frame and put a super – ‘Murder is a crime and it carries death penalty’; When someone is having an affair on screen, the censors should put a rule of a super saying ‘Adultery will make you burn in hell’…”
The 51-year-old director reportedly feels “What they (government) fail to teach us at educational institutions, they force us to learn at the movies”.
Comments
Comments are closed.