Hollywood vs. Bollywood Media Culture

Hollywood vs. Bollywood Media Culture

Introduction

Media cultures have seen great penetrations into distant societies around the globe. Western culture with its media dominance has inspired and effected cultures and media around the world. Countries like India and its media industry is evident of this exposure. In recent years, the media and cultures have challenged boundaries and taboos long associated with the society. TV talk-shows present the change in the culture of open debate in the Indian society and have instilled a need in the Indian people for their right to know the facts from a different perspective as presented. Whilst the culture is strongly linked with the religion and norms, the film industry of India (Bollywood) has been strongly inspired by the Hollywood (American Film Industry) Many of the Bollywood movies take their base ideas from the American movies and they have seen excellent results at the Bollywood box office. The embrace of Western Fashion in India has been made possible by the exposure of media. Holding of fashion shows and runaways featuring western and eastern designers to the same target market, shows the extent of acceptability and awareness of western cultures on Indian public. Many of the successful Hollywood TV shows have been licensed and Indian counter versions have been aired which has met with tremendous success. We will exploring the differences which still remain in between the newly emerged media cultures from American Television and Hollywood Movies. We will highlight the unique social and local problems which these new media talk about. We will evaluate the way in which these new media cultures deal with issues of religion affiliation, personal identity, economic status, gender, ethnicity and personal identity. We will discuss the history of colonialism as exhibited in the Bollywood movies. We will asses if the media cultures of Bollywood really affect their fans or they are just focused on the money they can make. We will explore those values and show how they influence the media produced by these cultures.

Discussion

Differences between Hollywood and Bollywood

Hollywood and Bollywood have many similarities as many of the films and movies created in Bollywood have base stories originating from the stories of Hollywood movies. Like the Bollywood movie “Koi… Mil Gaya” (2003) featured an alien who comes to earth and make contact with a kid. This is very much similar to the Hollywood movie script of ET (1982). Although inspired, Indian movies and TV programs does have many differences. Many of the Hollywood movies are now influenced by Bollywood movies and cast actors and actresses from Bollywood industry (Matusitz & Payano, 2012).

Differences in Movies

Bollywood movies are targeted towards the Indian population who are not very educated, cultural dominated, but have the exposure of western media. Hollywood movies have been seen in the region before independence and hence the population is exposed to the western cultures. Besides the level of technology which is getting better in Bollywood films they are set in the cultural perspective of Indian region and show ...