Bollywood vs Hollywood
Whenever we think of Hollywood, we think of money and glamour unseen anywhere else. But in the future things may change.
While Hollywood has long been an expensive business, Bollywood, the nickname for the Indian film industry, is just emerging from its humble roots as a kind of a small industry. For many years Hollywood has benefitted tremendously from the film and entertainment industry, but in the past few years all this has changed as Bollywood started to attract more and more viewers around the world.
If you compare Hollywood to Bollywood you will see more differences than similarities. While Bollywood consists mainly of people of Indian descendant, Hollywood consists of people from different ethnicities and cultures. On one hand, there is Bollywood known for its rich Hindu language and culture, portraying a constant celebration of its traditions, and on the other hand, there is Hollywood, known for its integrated entity of various cultures and languages. “Hollywood’s movies are plot-oriented, while Bollywood’s are meandering melodramas stuffed with music, dance and colour.” One thing is clear, though, Bollywood has strict and clear ways in defining Indian relationships, beauty, and culture with its morals and values. Hollywood on the other hand, portrays all this based on what is in fashion. Bollywood produces more than 800 movies a year, with revenues increasing strongly worldwide, while the United States produces half as many.
One reason Bollywood is becoming more popular around the world is that Indian culture is more accessible than others. However, Bollywood cannot be considered a rival to the American movie industry unless, there is foreign input on the scriptwriting, to iron out details such as in-jokes that would be lost on foreign audiences.
If Bollywood will ever want to compete with Hollywood on an equal level, then it will have to learn the tricks of the trade. When this will happen, the name Bollywood will become synonymous to the word “exquisite”.
