06-19-2011, 10:23 PM
Our overcrowded cinema houses, long queues of people before the ticket-windows, and the film songs one hears everywhere make it clear that films have become the most popular from of entertainment. They appeal to all-the child as well as the man, the educated as well as the illiterate. This universal acceptance gives them the great power of influencing people. Films can be used as a medium of education. Every film-goer will remember a couple of films that certainly had healthy and clean themes. But, unfortunately, we have only a small number of such films. On the other hand, the number of films full of false and dangerous ideas, provoking dances and sensual songs, is overwhelming. One who has seen some of these films will not hesitate to say that the influence of films has been negative and destructive-not education. Our films do not portray life as it is, nor as it should be in a decent, honest society. They take up those aspects of life which are specially suitable for sentimental and romantic treatment, and present them in such a way that they lose all relation with the actual conditions of life. Such films give false ideas and wrong expectations to the people who see them. The young men, mostly students, addicted to such silly films live in a dream-world full of expensive cars and beautiful clothes, where pretty girls elope with handsome boys. They do not see the life as it is. It is not the boy-meets-girl formula alone that makes films a bad influence. They glamorize wickedness. Almost all the foreign films shown in our country are stories of crime and sex. The rogue hero is portrayed in such a way that the spectators sympathize with him. Such films have bad influence on those who see them. The most dangerous thing about these films is that the students have become their devotees. Their eager and growing minds are attracted by what appears to be new, beautiful and glamorous. Film-makers know this, and give every mean thing a beautiful face. The result is that students sing film songs and copy the film stars in dress, speech and manner. They know more about actors and actresses than they know about their national heroes. It is no exaggeration to say that films are the most powerful medium of mass entertainment and have proved to be the most corrupting influence in the modern world.