Public opinion should never influence prestigious awards is the basic premise we have been hearing for long. However, recently Filmfare awards, India’s equivalent of Oscars, has drawn a lot of flak on social media. There has been severe criticism for many award categories where the selection of the winner has been put into question.
Tags like #BoycottFilmfare were trending on Twitter, and most of the complaints were from movie lovers who could not fathom that a film like ‘Gully Boy’ could win 13 awards, including some of the most important categories. The previous best record for a movie was for the critically acclaimed ‘Black’ released in 2006 with 11 awards.
Traditionally Filmfare awards have given due importance to the commercial success of the movie. Their main awards are given as a popular category. However, this time neither critics not commercial success deem to be the factor behind the winners.
Some of the Filmfare award-winning choices that were most criticized.
Gully Boy won Best Film, Best Director for Zoya Akhtar, Best Actor In A Leading Role (Male) for Ranveer Singh, Best Actor In A Leading Role (Female) for Alia Bhatt, Best Actor In A Supporting Role (Female) for Amruta Subhash, Best Actor In A Supporting Role (Male) for Siddhant Chaturvedi, Best Music Album, Best Lyrics, Best Screenplay and Best Dialogue.
To be fair Gully Boy is a decent film. However, to win as many as 13 awards the movie had to be far better. This is a subjective opinion but it is shared by a lot of people who also expressed their opinions on social media.
The most criticized awardee was Ananya Panday who received the Best Debut Actress award for Student Of The Year 2 and Pati Patni Aur Woh. Though she had managed to appear good on screen, her acting skills have been questioned by critics.
Moreover, fans were also not happy that most critically acclaimed films of the year 2019, like Akshay Kumar’s Kesari and Hrithik Roshan’s Super 30 did not win a single trophy.
Several others also said that Teri Mitti from Kesari deserved to win the Best Lyrics award as opposed to Apna Time Aayega from Gully Boy. Manoj Muntashir, who wrote the lyrics of Teri Mitti, was upset as his song did not win the Best Lyrics award and said that he will not attend award shows henceforth. He tweeted saying Good bye Awards.
An internet user put forth a very important observation regarding Filmfare Awards
For Filmfare being the Top Bollywood award for the last 65 years, I hardly see any movie trailers where the cast is introduced as a ‘Filmfare award winner’ of a ‘Filmfare award nominee’. It has itself to blame for slowly eroding its brand equity. Still has a “Best debut award”
The Filmfare ceremony is supposed to be one of the most prestigious film events in India. The awards were first introduced by The Times Group in 1954, the same year as the National Film Awards.
Though not bagging a Filmfare award is not a deal-breaker for any artist but the audience which these awards shows take for granted is betrayed badly
While National Film Awards is still coveted by many, Filmfare is losing its shine very quickly. As mentioned by one of the internet users, not even movie promotions mention how many Filmfare awards their coveted stars have won. Unlike the Hollywood movies where the introduction starts from how many academy awards the cast and crew have won.
