Girish Kasaravalli, winner of four national film awards—third only to Satyajit Ray (6) and Buddhadeb Dasgupta (5)—and director of Gulabi Talkies which won Umashree a national award for best actress this year, in the latest issue of India Today:
“This year the south has swept the awards which is why the National Awards have been largely ignored by the national media. There is an ‘our cinema’ and ‘their cinema’ as far as Bollywood is concerned.”
Also read: ‘Bollywood: India’s most moronic cultural export’
‘Bollywood’s a scam. Farah Khan is a big, fat con’
Adoor: Do only Bollywood beauties possess glamour?
Mammootty: Is Hindi cinema Indian cinema?
Tags: Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Bollywood, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Churumuri, Girish Kasaravalli, Gulabi Talkies, India Today, Mammootty, Sans Serif, Satyajit Ray, Umashree
26 September 2009 at 4:26 pm
I am not at all surprised. Its not only the cinema they ignore everything. If the Durga Puja is shown and its coverage starts one week in advance, there is hardly any mention of Mysore Dasara in any national coverage.
26 September 2009 at 8:04 pm
Strength in numbers will win when it comes to something like movies, where number of viewers is the deciding factor. The biggest hordes i.e. from the north will win everytime.
No amount of whining and complaining will change that.
26 September 2009 at 8:24 pm
I feel it is because of the half educated journalists who do not know or think there is anything beyond Gurgaon and Faridabad
26 September 2009 at 11:41 pm
who cares? well i consider bollywood as their cinema. when was the last time they even took the pains to represent a majority of indians. has there ever been a minching manja kicking some real badass called cycle shinde in the bylanes of bangalore? if not i am not interested.
27 September 2009 at 10:08 am
Consider This: This post is on the blog for the past 48 hours and has managed just one single comment. When we don’t seem to care or protest the bias against South Indian movies why accuse Cow belt media to take notice ?
27 September 2009 at 10:51 am
National Media always neglects south indian movies. they always give hype to the hindi movies which pay them! king khan’s om shanti om grosses ____ million in first week.
27 September 2009 at 12:11 pm
THis is a case of whining taken too far.
Any media focuses on anything which has ‘mass appeal’.
National Awards usually go to non-mass films.
Non-mass films don’t attract TRPs. therefore media ignores it.
English channels have excessively focused on Rajnikant films and the rajnikant phenomena.
Simply because Rajnikant has massive mass appeal and this translates into TRPs
29 September 2009 at 9:47 pm
Bollywood does not ignore SI movies as long as it rakes in money for them by way of remakes…look at the latest block buster “Wanted” which is a remake of a south indian block buster Pokri.
Other than that don’t expect any attention from national media for SI movies. BTW it takes a different kind of mindset to hype something like a Karan Johar’s movie which by South Indian standards are very ordinary and any new comer director in south can direct. But bollywood is bollywood, you cannot fault it for what it is. They steal the ideas either from hollywood or SI movies, but do not have the decency to admit it
30 September 2009 at 4:45 pm
Never mind nortth indian or national media.. how much coverage did south indian media give for these movies? Not one was released theatrically till now. Only Prakash Raj recieved some mention , that too cause of his heavy involvement with commercial cinema in all Southie languages.
We can’t expect the same turnout for a rock concert and an Opera. The coverage and craze will be different. But class remains. i’m happy that these movies make up the class part.
30 September 2009 at 4:53 pm
For ages, we the southies have been cribbing about the North ignoring us. Have we done anything about it? Why hasn’t anybody from the South started an English TV channel, for instance? Or a newspaper that can match the reach and influence of a TOI? And in the English newspapers that come out from Bangalore, how many journalists are Kannadigas? How can we expect coverage for the South in such a situation?
And “national” media??? What is “national” about an NDTV or a CNN-IBN?