VIDEO: Bollywood Stereotypes We Need To Get Over With!

From 'nerdy girl meets wanderlust struck boy' to misogynist storylines in the garb of comedies, Bollywood is reaching a boiling point when it comes to some of its films

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VIDEO: Bollywood Stereotypes We Need To Get Over With!

If all of Bollywood could be stretched out like a timeline and examined for some recurring variants, you would notice a striking trend in the genre of movies. Every time a path breaking and radical movie would come out, others would follow suit and anything that tried an archaic formula would crash and burn. The last time this occurred was during the release of Dil Chahta Hai and Lagaan in 2001. Any other movie that tried the ye old formula of doppelgangers, reincarnation, running away from a feudal household and getting hitched tanked awfully at the box office. These trends kept happening throughout the decade and yet Bollywood churned out some old brews in brand new bottles.

With the rising number of Box Office disasters, it’s time to recap some of the most infuriating and repetitive stereotypes that keep torturing us every single Friday -

No Commitment Only Enjoyment.
Yeah! We get that commitment is tough. It’s a risk that’s absolutely not worth taking if one is not serious about it. But give us a freaking break will ya? How many movies are going to have the same old scene featuring the hero and his ladylove taking an oath about not getting serious? And then fall for each other. And then cry about it. It’s stereotypes like these that make us feel we’re stuck in a karmic cycle.

Heartbreaks Are The Ultimate Exam 
One cannot compose, write, sing, paint, drive, brush their teeth and look at traffic in a different way unless they have a heartbreak in their lives. Heartbreaks are like the UPSC exams in films that revolve around romance, untapped talent and the coming-of-age genre. This becomes further exasperating when someone asserts in the film “Jab tak dil nahi tootta na tab tak andar se awaaz nahi niklegi.”

Marriage = Satan's Playground
As if the heartbreaks pigeonhole wasn’t enough, here comes another favourite of senile producers – the bane of holy matrimony. We are definitely aren’t claiming, that marriage is a must or that every marriage is heavenly, it’s just when Bollywood keeps repeating that a husband is nothing more than a manservant and that marriage is almost asphyxiating, it becomes mind-numbingly contrived.

First World Issues
No we’re not saying that rich folks don’t have problems, they probably have issues twice as harsh as ours. It’s the part where filmmakers think they have an easy way out. If scuba diving, world tours, photography, destination weddings and making ketchup by grinding your posterior were the solution, life would’ve been much easier.

All Women Are Evil.
If the world was left in the hands of filmmakers of Bollywood sex comedies, bachelor humour films and college buddy marathons, women would have a really miserable time. Scene after scene, monologue after monologue, these films make the same point – Women are nothing but soul sucking beasts from hell.

Confused Nerdy Girl & Rich AF Man Who Meet Again.
Twenty years back, this combination must have been the quintessential odd couple. A girl who is bound by her adherence to the rules of the Indian household and a guy who is pampered to the core and lives life like a cool host from any travel channel. But now this formula is as stale as a bag of cold French fries. Every film sounds more like a listicle that mentions the things to do before you die.a