Salam,
Whenever I'm with my fobby friends (you know who you are), I reminisce over the classic bollywood movies I used to watch with my family during my childhood. Of course I grew out of my bollywood-loving phase-when I used to think my name was juhi chawla and would run around my backyard with a dupatta hovering over me.(i'm going to regret posting this, but i'm sure most girls did this...right...)
But why do I not waste my precious time over the bollywood hungama, today? Because of the very reasons that Imam Suhaib Webb states in the following:
"You have to correct this culture..this Bollywood, Shahrukh Khan, Shaytaan..all this nonsense is destroying the Pakistani and Indian youth...wallahi. My wife is from Malaysia, I went to Malaysia and now they have Bollywood in Malay. I was riding on a bus in the mountains through Malaysia and the bus driver is watching a movie and driving a bus at 3 o clock in the morning. This is crazy, man..is this your illah?? Why don't you stand in the night and pray or somethin? You have to fight this culture."
"It(romance novels) creates a mentality in you, like Bollywood....I'm like going to start an anti-Bollywood Jamaat..because I'm telling you, I saw a Bollywood movie on that bus..because the screen was right there, and my wife was hitting me, "why are you watchin this?", "screen is right there man ", she can sleep on the bus, I can't, and I wanted to see it..actually you can't watch it very much..because they don't have much clothes on..these Hindu chicks. So I watch the movie, and I watched this movie and honestly, I have become convinced that this is an agent of Shaytaan. I'm telling you, because it builds this false sense of life in you, man...life is a love story. Life is ibaadah. Love will be with your family, when you get married you will find true love with your wife inshallah."
It is not only that. Bollywood has become a pathetic immitation of Western culture, yet youth in South Asia are embracing this distorted image of the American life as carefree, promiscuous, and God know's what other garbage. And to narrow down more its negative influence on young women, universally, let me tell you, Bollywood has done pretty good job in giving us unrealistic expectations of the male species.
I must admit, however, I've recently enjoyed listening to the songs of my childhood only because of it's nostalgic effect. And the scenes in which they randomly break out into bizarre dance moves on the highest peak of the himalayas gives everyone a good laugh and lightness in being (lightness from losing brain cells of course).
Nonetheless, there are SOME Bollywood movies that are decent/semi-decent; particularly those that are diasporic, containing political or socially critical content (ie, lagaan, dil se re, black). And I don't want to discredit the film industry in India entirely since there are a few films worthy of seeing out of the 200+ that come out every year. Other than those, I think I'll spare myself some time.
keep it halal yaars.
Whenever I'm with my fobby friends (you know who you are), I reminisce over the classic bollywood movies I used to watch with my family during my childhood. Of course I grew out of my bollywood-loving phase-when I used to think my name was juhi chawla and would run around my backyard with a dupatta hovering over me.(i'm going to regret posting this, but i'm sure most girls did this...right...)
But why do I not waste my precious time over the bollywood hungama, today? Because of the very reasons that Imam Suhaib Webb states in the following:
"You have to correct this culture..this Bollywood, Shahrukh Khan, Shaytaan..all this nonsense is destroying the Pakistani and Indian youth...wallahi. My wife is from Malaysia, I went to Malaysia and now they have Bollywood in Malay. I was riding on a bus in the mountains through Malaysia and the bus driver is watching a movie and driving a bus at 3 o clock in the morning. This is crazy, man..is this your illah?? Why don't you stand in the night and pray or somethin? You have to fight this culture."
"It(romance novels) creates a mentality in you, like Bollywood....I'm like going to start an anti-Bollywood Jamaat..because I'm telling you, I saw a Bollywood movie on that bus..because the screen was right there, and my wife was hitting me, "why are you watchin this?", "screen is right there man ", she can sleep on the bus, I can't, and I wanted to see it..actually you can't watch it very much..because they don't have much clothes on..these Hindu chicks. So I watch the movie, and I watched this movie and honestly, I have become convinced that this is an agent of Shaytaan. I'm telling you, because it builds this false sense of life in you, man...life is a love story. Life is ibaadah. Love will be with your family, when you get married you will find true love with your wife inshallah."
It is not only that. Bollywood has become a pathetic immitation of Western culture, yet youth in South Asia are embracing this distorted image of the American life as carefree, promiscuous, and God know's what other garbage. And to narrow down more its negative influence on young women, universally, let me tell you, Bollywood has done pretty good job in giving us unrealistic expectations of the male species.
I must admit, however, I've recently enjoyed listening to the songs of my childhood only because of it's nostalgic effect. And the scenes in which they randomly break out into bizarre dance moves on the highest peak of the himalayas gives everyone a good laugh and lightness in being (lightness from losing brain cells of course).
Nonetheless, there are SOME Bollywood movies that are decent/semi-decent; particularly those that are diasporic, containing political or socially critical content (ie, lagaan, dil se re, black). And I don't want to discredit the film industry in India entirely since there are a few films worthy of seeing out of the 200+ that come out every year. Other than those, I think I'll spare myself some time.
keep it halal yaars.
posted by The Patient Cactus @ 5/13/2007 03:09:00 AM
4 Comments:
At Mon May 14, 04:18:00 PM EDT ,
Anonymous said...
I think I read somewhere that bollywood puts out over 900 movies a year.
At Mon May 14, 11:51:00 PM EDT ,
Anonymous said...
As sugary cookie cutter as Bollywood is, their films come nowhere near the mechanic insidiousness of US commercialized television. I'm not talking about the usual mantra of "TV makes your kids wiolent/our children must to be bubbled, etc." The effects of TV have much deeper, farther reaching sociological implications. Imam Zaid Shakir:
"One of the most destructive effects of television is that it reinforces the false idea that between childhood and adulthood there is an increasingly longer adolescent phase, during which what are functionally adults are permitted to continue to act like children. When we travel to visit the Muslim world, we are amazed to see that in the villages and other areas not deeply affected by modernity, there is no adolescent phase. Older children are working the fields, selling in the marketplace, and taking care of younger siblings just like little adults. The silliness, giddiness, and irresponsibility we see even amongst many college students here in the West is totally absent.
That used to be the case here in America. Marriages between thirteen and fourteen year olds were once common. Thomas Edison was a self-made millionaire before he was fifteen years old. George Washington was an accomplished social and political thinker at the age of fifteen. Grammar schools equipped children with the tools to engage in the formation of mature thoughts before completing grade six. Now many university graduates have absolutely no exposure to logic, nor any of the other basics of a classical education."
In someways, It's almost refreshing to watch some Bollywood flicks every once and a while and know you're watching pure fiction, merely because the production value is so over the top and the story is so stupidly crappy, you can't even for a minute take them seriously (unless you're a hollow-head). Compare this to the utterly subversive, market-tested, well-oiled machine that is American television (not so much cinema). But you can definitely still do without the sweet trash.
Also, I'm simply amazed Br. Suhaib would ever use the word "chicks". How does that jibe with your radical feminist instincts?
At Tue May 15, 09:36:00 PM EDT ,
Unknown said...
fobs are the best.
At Sat May 19, 02:17:00 AM EDT ,
The Patient Cactus said...
You don't need to bring Hollywood or any other entertainment industry into this. The point of my post was to express the overwhelming inanity that which is Bollywood or at least what it has become for our generation. Also, I was not focusing its effect on American youth, but rather kids particuarly in South Asia who may not necessarily percieve Bollywood as "pure fiction".
And I don't see anything wrong with using the term chick as Imam Suhaib did. Besides, it used in a derogatory way, which is how it should be intended.
so booyah.
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