In a bold heroic move reminiscent of the time when Shabana Azmi protested against the killing of theatre activist Safdar Hashmi at the International Film Festival in Delhi where her film John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka was premiering ,our very own Cecil De Mille, Karan Johar did Indian cinema proud at the third annual Gold House Gala in Los Angeles on Saturday night where Karan received the posh Gold Legend Honour.
Sharing the platform with Asia’s biggest showbiz stars , Karan was honoured for his contribution to Hindi cinema.What made his thank you speech especially memorable was his rather sharp repudiation of the term ‘Bollywood’ for the Indian entertainment industry.
Said Karan, “I want to say something about this word ‘Bollywood’…. We love Hollywood . But we are not a rhyme we are a reason..we are much more than a copycat.”
Amitabh Bachchan was one of the pioneers in the endeavour to remove the term ‘Bollywood’ from the Indian cinema.
Says Mr Bachchan, “I’ve been voicing my disapproval of this obnoxious coinage for as long as I can remember. I recall your book had the word ‘Bollywood’ in the title .Since I wrote its forward I should have asked you to remove that offensive word. Calling our film industry ‘Bollywood’ is completely unacceptable.”
It was lyricist, filmmaker, cine-scholar producer Amit Khanna who coined the term Bollywood, for the Hindi film industry. He defended his coinage saying, “People still have a problem with the word Bollywood?But the whole notion of what’s pejorative has changed. We’ve to see the Indian film industry as a brand. To say Bollywood is demeaning is to question a brand name like Coke or McDonalds.”
