The Telegraph promotes questionable reviews

BY MANJIRA MAJUMDAR| IN Media Practice | 30/05/2013

In May this year, a Bengali chick flick called Aami Ar Aamar Girlfriends, (AAAG) (Me and my Girlfriends) released in Kolkata which, according to the director, Mainak Bhaumik is about the empowerment of women. The young women in the film curse like sailors, drink like fishes and have affairs (yes, even a counselor with her student, etc). A review of the film, if it can be called a review at all, appeared in T2 (the entertainment and leisure supplement of The Telegraph) on May 13, written by another filmmaker Anjan Dutt, who has close association with the director.

The film industry in Kolkata is extremely incestuous, with directors who are also actors or even music composers, or all three in their own films or in each other’s films in these varying capacities. Though there is nothing wrong in this versatility, there is cause to worry when they write reviews of each others’ films. It not only makes a mockery of a review but cheats the readers as well. In this case, Neel Dutt, Anjan’s son has scored the music in this film so consider this line that the reviewer pens: “Since this movie (AAAG) is all about being unabashed. I would like to give a big hug to Neel Dutt for all the songs in the movie.”

It is just not this review. Most reviews of late, written by fellow directors with vested interest, do not complain of a single jarring note in the films. According to them what they churn out is the best and comparable to world cinema. Conflict of interest notwithstanding, what was alarming in this particular review was the ‘unabashed’ use of language that was meant to titillate and shock. It not only threw gender sensitivity out of the window, the common reader was left to wonder if basic journalism values are also being rapidly discarded.  

The review content

The headline in bold says “AAAG to me is a very intellectually and sexually stimulating movie.”

Reading this I was reminded of what a famous editor of a well-known paper in the United Kingdom had once said: “I don’t care what they do with the supplements as long as they don’t touch the main paper!” But even in a supplement, this comes across as being in extreme poor taste. More so as it happens to be part of a mainstream paper that had set standards in quality journalism when it was launched about 30 years back.  

Such language raises the most uncomfortable question: is this veiled paid news? If not, why is there no editorial control over content (read language)? Considering that it is the city’s largest circulated newspaper, was it necessary to pander to such crass commercialisation of language? The faulty and uneven use of  language/ grammar in parts can perhaps be forgiven, but the alarming trend is in passages like this: “I can see you are still prudish when it comes to sex in cinema but Swastika, Parno and Raima prove that they not only have great b---bs and b---s as well! Exactly in that order, I want to celebrate their skills.”

One can only speculate on the reason for these excesses, but the ABP group, which publishes The Telegraph, had a very comfortable presence before the advent of Times of India. Competition has since escalated between the two papers. This is good for it gives the readers greater choice but even in imitating the so-called leader, The Telegraph does not seem to be reflecting any editorial norms. And to be fair to the so-called leader, Times of India, at least in Kolkata, has never resorted to such schoolboy slang in trying to adopt an ‘am-so-cool-and-hip attitude’ in its writing on cinema/entertainment.  

In a questionnaire that I was once asked to prepare for an upcoming media school in the city, I had included a question: Why did the student wish to pursue journalism? Most answered ‘to work for a better and fair society’ but when asked to pinpoint what they read first thing in the morning, the majority answered T2 and Calcutta Times. Gone are the days when The Statesmantaught us English and shaped our taste, entertainment news seems to have become the only news. If the supplements are carrying so much of weight, wouldn’t it be a bit judicious on the management’s part to exercise some editorial control over their written content, especially since these do not yet answer to the description of soft porn magazines? Dutt who wears several hats as actor, director, singer, etc., started his career as a Statesman journalist but lately, it seems, he suffers from a deep identity crisis.

For a gender-sensitive film, another review line like:  “All I’m saying is time we all open our pantsand arms to ‘having sheer fun’ and not nag about bhalo Bangla cinema” (good Bengali films) makes you sit up. Nudity and bedroom scenes were never an issue with Bengali cinema, causing a bit of uproar now and then only to die down. I am all for women having fun and exercising choices but unlike what the director of AAAGF says – “Sorry boys, it’s a women’s world” I am compelled to add, “Wrong! It’s still a man’s world” if this review is to be taken seriously.

In the backdrop of a society that is going through a terrible churn and not all of it is towards an ‘intellectualisation’ of sex, this is totally unacceptable, especially when aesthetics in either cinema or language is not yet dead anywhere in the world.  

Obsession with breasts  

It seems crude language is getting more and more legitimized in the press here. The Bengali dailyAnanda Bazaar Patrika’s (again published by ABP group) obsession with breasts does not seem to abate. It carried another sensational headline recently in its Sunday pull-out (May 19, 2013)commenting on the recent mastectomy of Angelina Jolie: “Jolie ke piche kya hai?” by Chandril Bhattacharya taking the famous line out of Madhuri Dixit’s song-dance routine Choli ke piche kya hai? (what’s behind the blouse) combining the worst of Bollywood with cheap sensationalism in a subject that needs a bit more sensitization. Even if we concede that Jolie herself is a publicity hound, her sensitive write-up in New York Times educates as it informs. In a paper far away in Bengal, it makes headlines through a stupid pun in a language that is not even the paper’s own.

If senior writers indulge in this kind of writing, can we blame the young in the country for being so rudderless?  

Manjira Majumdar is an independent journalist based in Kolkata.