This is a guest column by author ID: ‘ispec’.

There is one thing called marketing and the other thing called Khan!!!!!!!!!

When it comes to marketing movies, no one in Bollywood can shift their eyes from the Khan’s…….if not the acting at least they have the marketing skills. ok maybe i generalised, but i will leave Amir out of the ambit of not knowing how to act, but that does not entail that he gets off the marketing mantra….Fanaa anyone, or Tare zameen pe….(rumors go that the movie was virtually stolen by Amir from its director to be included in his bouquet so that Brand Amir cud get a thrust……) but one has got to learn from the master himself…and here the name really is apt he is the Shahrukh of marketing itself………there have been a few movies where the director has been able to get him to act, but barring a few and they didnt require marketing (only Swadesh and Chak De is where he actually acted and was true to his persona than anywhere else) Billu Barber becoming Barber, cheap one…….if u ask me……i don’t think it really did improve the earning capacity of the movie but that’s a whole different story……and there were many, other than me who agreed that the movie wud have done better if Shahrukh wasn’t there at all.

Coming back to the latest marketing gimmick

‘ My Name is Khan’

i am not accusing anyone here but just highlighting some key facts, which struck me more and more as the I-day came and went , like it does every year.

and the breaking stories this year weren’t : 7 killed in J&K blasts, Moaists stop flag from unfirling and bla bla to god only knows what end…..what caught me by surprise was the ticker which kept running about shahrukh’s supposed questioning in America.

Those who have been following such stories, may recall our very own nuclear cowboy: Kalam having gotten a ‘continental’ treatment not so long ago………..that fizzled out………but then Khan has done much more for India than probably Mr Kalam…..

so , let me come to the point:

it annoys me the way news is treated in India by our so called liberated enlightened shcmucks…in case u didnt know.they are the content.and everything that these 100 people do is what our media runs on , obviously other than the breaking news of acts of ‘unnatural ‘ proportions.

to set the background: and ask any hard core marketeer how much scheming( read strategy) goes into marketing ideas, products, even President Obama is a case …(search obama and Marketing and u will get testimonials to the prowess of marketing.) (Chomsky awarded him the best marketeer of the year) Some critics go so deep as to unearth conspiracy theories through the prism of marketing, for e.g.  the twin tower blasts were seen by several as a marketing effort by the US to sell the idea of invading Afghanistan & Iraq….,and get rich on Oil…. but enough has been said and will be said on this, so i shall leave this for them to delve more on these.

but it goes to show how critical is marketing in the functioning of Capital generation.

Ask any movie marketer that a little controversy in the content always gets the eye balls rolling. please ask Ramgopal Verma what were the other reasons behind him distorting the national anthem for Rann…..sure it wasn’t all artistic freedom.(and he is better kept chained…or his creativity shouldn’t be unleashed)

So to get back to Mr Khan, who seems to be baffled by the racial treatment he and other deemed muslims have to suffer at the hands of America.

Is it just co-incidence or is it staged? in a world where everything is play, the lines between marketing ( illusve reality) and reality per se are being blurred every day. On independence day, while most of the people sat in their homes, the television was but obviously going to come on. And yes, TV still reamins the best place for marketing ideas and products, for any non-believer of that fact, look at top companies spends in non-print medium such as TV. why go as far as the company , one has to look at how much and where all were India’s national parties spending in the run up to General elections.

So my point is this, with maximum eye balls on TV , the star of the nation got to highlight a point about discrimination and man handling that Mr Khan had to undergo by American hands. and why? because he shared a sir name? Khan?

i would have loved to go on about the racial prejudice that Americans may harbor. But i don’t think that this has much to do with it, there have been more blatant areas where they still profess their racism.

Incidentally, it turns out that Mr Khan’s new movie which Fox bought for a whooooping Rs 100 crore recently and was supposedly made on the budget of Rs 50 crores is titled, ” My name is Khan”. and that’s not where the co-incidence ends. The story or the plot or the basic premise (chose whatever u like) is about how a common Muslim (a.k.a a Khan….. common name!!!!) undergoes racial discrimination in America post 9/11.

and btw….didn’t Kabir Khan.also of Khan fame just make a movie on racial/ religious prejudice in America…..” New York” it will be interesting to know if he also underwent through such torturous questioning. and if he did, then why didn’t he rake the issue in the Media, even he is Khan….only if New York had been bought over by Fox

Marketing is at its new-height. i wish this were not true, but the only way that this to me may appear to me to be a figment of my own imagination will be if the govt really does something about this. and Ms Soni actually and Mr Patel actually give the American dignitaries and stars a thorough check ….but then again we are too star driven a country to let stars anywhere get touched and can’t take things with a garnish of doubt because Actors don’t act in real life.

You might also like:

1. Aamir Khan has no freedom of speech – Do you or I?
2. Bollywood in Germany – How a German sees Hindi movies
3. Hindi Impostion is against freedom of speech
4. Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (KANK) or Alvida Keh Do Na
5. Arundhati Roy lambasts USA for waging war while miming peace