AA Edit | Art & films: Showing the way

Adipurush, a mythological motion capture movie based on Ramayan made purportedly at a budget of Rs 500 crores and which has south Indian superstar Prabhas starring as Lord Ram, is reportedly so horrendous, its attempts to make characters like Ram, Sita and Hanuman, who are worshipped and revered nationwide, contemporary so pathetic, and its overall aesthetic so offending that it has been panned by most critics and cineastes.

Gimmicks like trying to pay media critics and social media influencers, asking theatre owners to keep one seat free for ‘Lord Hanuman’, and circulation of videos showing a monkey entering the theatre and occupying a said seat, have not only failed to enthuse people but actually backfired.

But there is one great positive in the saga — those “offended” by this so-called atrocity dubbed as art did not indulge in or threaten violence against the makers of the film. No one also called for the artistes or writers of the putatively cringeworthy dialogue to be hanged. In fact, the bhakts of Lord Ram and Hanuman have not even called for a ban on the film. No one even demanded that changes be made, and theatres weren’t stopped from showing the movie. Above all, no one was hurt.

A welcome contrast to the zeitgeist of intolerance possessed by which people have taken to streets to hold protests, chopped off hands of academics, bombed offices or killed people besides arm-twisting appeasing governments to ban works of knowledge or art.

Almost on cue, to show that Gandhian methods do work out sometimes, the producers have, of their own volition, said that they would make changes to the film to ensure “no one feels offended or hurt”.

Hopefully, this would be the adarsh or ideal for responses to bad, and supposedly offending, art.