A few months back there was outrage and disgust after an extremely distasteful interview was done of Sunny Leone by journalist Bhupendra Choubey. It was the perfect user manual on how not to conduct an interview, how not to talk to a lady and how humans should not behave.
Choubey did apologize. One would have assumed that this considerable backlash would have caused other interviewers to learn a few lessons. But surprisingly Bhupendra Choubey has rivals in the department of obnoxiousness. These rivals were on the weekly news program Press Conference whose theme music of the program sounds similar to the trailer music of Independence Day.
The most recent episode of Press Conference had Katrina Kaif and Tabu promoting their film Fitoor. Fitoor is an adaptation of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and is regarded as one of the greatest novels ever written. Clearly, there was plenty of opportunity for an in-depth interview about the film and the occurrences during the making.
So what did the host Dibang and his cohort of senior journalists do? The interview began with a quick question about the film, In a few minutes that was abandoned and the gang of ten swiftly entered personal realms, the proceedings got uncomfortable, intrusive, and downright cringe-inducing. The questions seemed like they emanated from a nosy neighbour than trained journalists. To Ms Kaif credit, she dealt with all the questions with the utmost restraint, dignity and humour.
The following are some of the questions specifically directed at Ms Kaif:
The Unnecessary
- · What do you look for in a man?
- · What is the effect of your personal life on your professional life?
- · What do you do for fitness?
The Intrusive
- · What will you be doing on Valentine’s Day? (The objective here was to find out the status of her relationship with Ranbir Kapoor)
- · What do you think of Neetu Singh? (alleged boyfriend Ranbir Kapoor’s Mother)
- · Why do you need yoga? Is there any sort of stress in your life? (Hinting at her rumoured relationship problems)
The Detestable
- · Do you think you would have been a star without your relationship with Salman Khan?
- · There is a lot of talk about your relationships, but you never seem to last too long in your relationships? Are you fearful of commitments?
- · You have achieved so much. But have you thought about your personal life? When will you get married, you are now 32 years old, although you don’t look at it?
- · Whose decision was it to break up with Ranbir, his or yours?
The excuse often by producers of these programs is that the viewing public is in it for the fun and hence it is fair game to bring up personal questions when film stars are on. In other words, the public to be blamed for the abominable standards of film journalism, that descends into yellow journalism.
We are a nation that that is ranks films among their most preferred forms of entertainment. Surprisingly, we have a very poor standard in film journalism. Our newspapers and magazines carry biased and badly written film reviews and then there is the appalling rating system. There are no magazines that focus solely on the creative aspect of films such as Sight and Sound or even Empire Magazine. Most Indian film magazines focus on the personal lives of film stars. The new paparazzi culture that has burst on to the scene hasn't helped either.
Perhaps the time is right for a film based portal or magazine that treats films as a serious form of art and examines every aspect of filmmaking. There need to be no box office reports and emphatically no gossip. The experiment may just work, still better, may educate the public such that they do seek films solely for escapist entertainment. An enlightened audience will surely lead to better cinema.
Are any of the big news houses listening?
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