Comparison of Bollywood with Hollywood

Many viewers have always seem to ask them selves what is the difference between Bollywood films and Hollywood. Bollywood films in the past they all had very similar themes and expressions, but Bollywood films today are somewhat resembling to Hollywood, as one can argue Hollywood films are still more technologically advanced compared to Bollywood movies, since Hollywood movies have a much bigger budget than Bollywood films. Over the past ten to fifteen years Bollywood films have will reached over to many viewers across the world, due to the great innovations and amount of technology which has been put into new Bollywood films. Bollywood movies today have much higher budgets which outcome to better producers, superior actors and actress, and better technology. By using improved methods of technology attracts new and younger viewers, since the new and younger viewers look for similarities between Hollywood movies in Bollywood, If younger Indian’s watch Bollywood movies one may suggest its better because its in Hindi.

To many N.R.I’ parents showing their children Hindi movies is more valuable, children watch films in Hindi improves their language skills and keep the children from losing their mother tongue, to many parents this is very important. To the South Asian community newer and improved Bollywood has many benefits. The Hollywood film industry is still much larger then the Bollywood film industry because Hollywood is much older which equals to more popularity. In the beginning when Bollywood industry had started many films were based on Hollywood films, the main structure of Bollywood films in the beginning were based on Hollywood. Hollywood still has a smaller audience then Bollywood, when it comes to revenue Hollywood movies generate much more money then Bollywood. “Hollywood produces 500 films per year on average and has a worldwide audience of 2.6 billion whereas Bollywood produces more than 1000 (not consistently) films every year and has a worldwide audience of 3 Billion. In terms of viewership, Bollywood overtook Hollywood in 2004 and has been leading ever since. Hollywood produces 500 films per year on average and has a worldwide audience of 2.6 billion whereas Bollywood produces more than 1000 (not consistently) films every year and has a worldwide audience of 3 Billion. In terms of viewership, Bollywood overtook Hollywood in 2004 and has been leading ever since.”

The passage above which has been retrieved from http://www.mutiny.wordpress.com/, which basically mentions that there are many more movies made in the Bollywood film industry that are coming put of India, but at the end of the day Hollywood still makes more money them Bollywood. Bollywood makes less money then Hollywood because the techniques used by Bollywood are not as efficient which results in Bollywood producing quantity not quality compared to Hollywood. The reason behind this theory is the film industry experiments with many new idea to the viewers, and even at times copies movie themes and ideas to Hollywood, which ends up giving Bollywood a bad reputation. The movie Bollywood movie that relates a lot to Hollywood would be “Mother India”, and the Hollywood motion picture “The Pursuit of Happyness”. These two films are very similar to one another because in Mother India the mother is the saver of her family and village, Radha puts her village first and family after because Radha shows how important land is to a farmer. In Mother India, we see how hard Radha raises her children alone without her husband.

The similar themes occurs in the film The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris is a single parent trying to raise a young boy, unfortunately Chris loses his, which puts the son and father on the street. These two films are decades apart; the similar idea these two films share is the fight for survival and not giving up on your hopes and dreams. Eventually in both movies Chris in Pursuit of Happyness and Mother India leave a peaceful life with memories of the past were they had been not so fortunate to be living the life they be living at the end of the films. The Bollywood film audience like movies that have family values and some level of emotional connection within the characters. Most of the films that we have seen in class they all have something in common which are strong family values. In many Hollywood films there’s not a lot of family values, instead its good friendship, family doesn’t play a key role. This is one of the themes, which is not related in Bollywood and Hollywood, but there are some exceptions in Hollywood for some movies. Unlike Bollywood movies most of the films family plays a key role, since the targeted audiences for these films is family viewers. In Hollywood aren’t exactly always targeted towards a certain audience, which is why Hollywood has a bigger viewing audience comparable to Bollywood.

Technologically speaking Bollywood isn’t very far behind Hollywood, as one may notice Bollywood movies today compare to ten years ago are in much better and also viewers can notice the producers now use better equipment during the production of the movie. Hollywood has been producing 3D movies for the past two to three years, and Bollywood had only released its first 3D movie in the summer of 2011. Bollywood has been trying to make more sci-fi and high tech movies but their result until now hasn’t been as good as Hollywood. Bollywood still doesn’t have an audience as big as Hollywood, the Indian audience doesn’t always like change in the theme of the films. A good example of this would be the movie Sholay, at the audience dint like that film at all, after modifying certain scenes Sholay has became a major hit, and this movie had broken the record in India for the longest time playing in theatre. The record the film Sholay has in Bollywood, has never been broken by Hollywood, which is a major deal for Bollywood, it shows audience there’s more to Bollywood then just typical family issues within the mother and daughter-in-law.

After spending countless hours of watching movies, after attending this cinema class, my perspective of watching movies has changed dramatically. For instance, the film Sholay I have seen the movie multiple times before watching it in class. The things I had notice before and after are as follow, when I watched movies before I only really focused on the main characters, but in this class I learned that the background characters the creators of the main characters. Bollywood movies today have changed a lot from the past, the characters don’t dress as much in typical Indian clothing, the characters now dress in more westernized style, this personally I think is a start for Bollywood evolving more to be like Hollywood. The Bollywood movies in the past showed what were the lives of typical Indians and how life in India actually is, now days all Bollywood films move around a small group of friends, rather then a family which is working together in resolving the issue depending on the movie. Some may say westernization in Bollywood is good, but I believe its taking Indians culture away from them and westernizing them, which is taking them away from their culture.

Works Cited

Gokhale, Shruti . “COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE PRACTICE OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN
BOLLYWOOD AND HOLLYWOOD MOVIES.” Master’s Theses and Graduate Research. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. <http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4857&context=etd_theses>. British Journal of Ethnomusicology 10.1 (2001): 63-84. Print. Variety International Film Guide. “Bollywood vs Hollywood “ The Complete Breakdown, The Great Indian Mutiny.” The Great Indian Mutiny. N.p., 1 Feb. 2007. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://mutiny.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/bollywood-vs-hollywood-the-complete-breakdown/>.