The pandemic has changed the cultural life of young people in India, with 90% of young people choosing streaming platforms to watch movies

Source: Global Times

[Global Times special correspondent in India Hu Bofeng] India's new confirmed cases of new crown in a single day have been more than 300,000 for 22 consecutive days, the country's medical system is under serious pressure, and medical oxygen, vaccines, drugs and even hospital beds are all in emergency. Under the severe epidemic, the reaction of Indian stars has become a "kaleidoscope" that refracts the social situation.

Sonu Sud, a well-known Bollywood actor who starred in the Chinese film "Tang Xuanzang" in 2016, is also the descendant of the leader of the Elephant Army who wanted to seize the national treasure of the "Magadha Kingdom" starring Jackie Chan in the movie "Kung Fu Yoga". In May last year, after India entered the national lockdown, he arranged cars, trains and other means of transportation for rural migrant workers stranded in the cities to return to their hometowns at his own expense. In July, he arranged charter flights for more than 1,500 Indian students studying in Kyrgyzstan to withdraw to India, and was called "India's true hero in the fight against the epidemic" by the local media. This year, after the development of the epidemic in India entered the second stage, he joined hands with two private medical organizations to launch a free COVID-19 medical assistance service to respond to people's demands through social platforms.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas, a well-known Indian actor who now lives in the United States, also launched a "With India" fundraiser with her husband on social media platforms. "India, my hometown, is suffering from the world's worst COVID-19 crisis" and "we need help," she said. Another well-known Indian filmmaker, Ajay Devon, has also partnered with the Mumbai Municipal Council to provide more medical resources to the local population.

Among the Bollywood stars who have donated money and materials for the epidemic, there are also many amiteba Baqiang, Akshe Kumar, Salman Khan, Imran Khan and others who are familiar to Chinese audiences. Among them, the 78-year-old Amitba Ba Qiang not only volunteered to shoot public service advertisements for the government and publicize epidemic prevention knowledge, but also donated a total of 150 million rupees (about 13 million yuan) to India's epidemic prevention work. In stark contrast, Disha Pattani, who starred in Kung Fu Yoga, and Bollywood stars such as Shrada Kapoor, Janvi Kapoor and Tiger Shrov chose another way to cope when the epidemic in India was at its worst – to vacation to the Maldives and take sun, sand and sexy photos. Some Indian media criticized that they were running overseas to escape the epidemic. Indian actor Navazuddin Siddigui, who has had wonderful performances in "Delicious Love Letters" and "Little Lori's Monkey God Uncle", recently criticized, "Please collect these photos and please have some empathy, especially when the epidemic is still severe and everyone is still in pain."

Affected by the epidemic, India's film industry in 2020 and 2021 is extremely depressed, many blockbusters have been postponed indefinitely, and even many of the scripts that are optimistic about the industry have just been finalized actors and received investment, and they have to be shelved. "India Express" said that the impact of well-known directors and actors is naturally the smallest, and the field workers at the bottom of the film and television industry who rely on daily salaries to support their families are now "unable to open the pot".

Lockdown measures to prevent and control the epidemic have forced Indians to stay at home, and even if the lockdown is briefly lifted between the two waves, cinemas are still rarely visited out of fear of the epidemic. In this context, streaming media platforms such as Netflix and Amazon have become more and more mainstream - some movies that have previously signed contracts with theaters have been put into the streaming media market, and Bollywood stars have also switched to online platforms. In 2020, India's streaming platforms reached 355 million views, up 35% from the previous year. The reporter watched on Netflix at the beginning of this year, "Life of Winning and Losing", is a very wonderful Hindi comedy masterpiece. Another Malayalam-language movie that is online on Amazon's platform, "See You Later", is also worth mentioning. The film was filmed during the epidemic in June last year, the actors only used simple recording equipment such as mobile phones, and then edited and sorted by post-production technicians, and the innovative shooting method and compact storyline made it well received by the mainstream Media and film critics in India. The aforementioned Indian filmmaker Ajay Devon, who produced two films in 2020, has achieved quite good results and is expected to launch 4 more this year. He admitted in an interview that "in the future, more energy may be put into how to occupy this new space."

According to the survey, up to 90% of India's young people under the age of 35 chose to watch movies on streaming platforms last year, with 80% of them male viewers. In addition to cinemas, there are also traditional TELEVISIONs that are "beaten down" by streaming platforms. Last year, the number of subscriptions to cable and satellite TV channels in India plummeted by 20 million. The Hindu newspaper said that the epidemic has changed people's way of life, and the future may also change the Indian film industry and the way filmmakers live, "from the theater to the online, may be the biggest change brought to them by the epidemic."