The changing concept of ‘Heroism’ in Indiam cinema is one of the most contemporary discussed topic in 2018. There was a time when the plot of the cinema moved more around the heroic character than the actual story line. The concept of heroism was only associated with the male characters. In 80’s or 90’s movie we had seen how the hero was proved as the moving force in a movie. The ultimate motive or purpose of that kind of concept was to establish the heroic grandeur throughout the movie. The whole concept of Heroism was based upon the fact that the hero was the ultimate figure in a plot.
Bollywood movies always prove itself as being one of the important leaders towards new concepts or ideas. There was a notion that the hero had all kinds of ridiculous power to solve any problem. The hero could literally do anything from fighting with twenty people at a time to rescuing the heroine with great ease. Also there was a concept of ‘damsel in distress’ in Indian cinema at that time, where the male hero could do anything he wanted with the heroine but at the end of the time he had to rescue the heroine from all her problems.
There is an excellent example of such mindset, we find in the movie called RAJA KI AAYEGI BARAT which was the debut movie of Rani Mukherjee Chopra, one of the renowned actress of Bollywood movie. In this movie we see how the male hero raped the heroine because she stood against him and later we found that the court had ordered the hero to marry the girl he raped. It is such a shocking plot that makes the audience shake from inside. A hero who raped the heroine to destroy her guts, later married that girl to save himself from the punishment and this was ordered by the court. The heroic character remained pure after such a shameful act and nobody even blamed him for that, it shows the mentality of directors towards the male hero in the movie of that time.
But this kind of concepts start to change in the late 2000’s when the directors try to explore more the plot than the male hero. They focus on the story of a movie than only on the hero even the concept of Heroism in transformed from gender priority to the actual protagonist of the plot. Again Bollywood movies take the front seat of leadership in this transformation. Priyanka Chopra starrer movie, sequel of GANGAJAL, JAI GANGAJAL where she is being treated in similar way like a male police officer and even called ‘sir’.
This is actually a good time when Indian cinema is experimenting with various types of story lines like we have edgy movies like MASAAN, KAI PO CHE where we see the plot as the main hero rather than some heroic personality. There is a set of mind that women can do only better in home and men at work even this stereotypical idea is transformed through movies like KI AND KA where we find the two main protagonists of the plot is doing their job as per their choice without fearing the set ideas of society.
Indian cinema is flourishing through the changing concept of Heroism in Bollywood movies. The audience are accepting more and more this kind of concepts, so Indian cinema is adding more depth and dimensions to its flow which makes it more acceptable for the larger international audience. Indian cinema has actually evaluated itself from a character centric concept of Heroism to a plot centric movie.
