In the last few years, the highest grossing comedy films in Hindi at the box office were the Golmaal and Houseful series of movies. A combination of slapstick and verbal gags – the kind that now are freely circulating on social media – were the mainstay of these movies. To some, this was “timepass” entertainment, the sort where you’re advised to leave your brain at home before coming to the movie hall. To others, it was just another indication of the low standard of humour in our movies. But the fact remains that the audience who loved such stuff far outnumbered those who looked down upon such comedies.
Comedy is serious business!
Like someone said, comedy is serious business. It’s hard to make a comedy and even harder to anticipate if the audience will find the gags funny. But it seems that someone is always bound to laugh at a guy slipping on a banana peel – as opposed to an intelligent wisecrack that might go over the heads of many like a Brett Lee bouncer. The audience for a Hindi film is so vast that it’s a challenge to have the same gag evoke laughter in a movie hall in Kerala, Gujarat, Bihar, Dubai and London. This probably explains why slapstick always works better than wit. It’s only rarely that the marriage of slapstick and wit results in a box office sensation – like in the case of 3 Idiots or Lage Raho Munnabhai.
Hindi films may not seem to have come a long way if one were to look at the most popular comedy films down the decades. Whether it’s Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi, Padosan, the old Golmaal, Andaz Apna Apna, Hera Pheri, No Entry or Munnabhai MBBS – the one common element in all of them is visual humour in the form of slapstick, expressions, reactions and jokes that are more a play on words, people’s appearances or gender stereotypes. It’s the kind of comedy that is relatable to everyone across the cities and villages of the country. Visual humour more than literate gags work in a darkened movie hall, where laughter is contagious. The laugh track of sitcoms on television is replaced by the collective cheer of a 150-odd people around you. “We just want to laugh and have fun,” says a driver in Delhi, who would rather watch a Golmaal or a Housefull than a subtle Cheeni Kum. Never mind if the gags are repetitive or unoriginal – as long as they make him laugh, it’s paisa vasool. He’s not interested in subtlety or humour that needs him to apply his mind.
But there has been a subtle growth – thanks to the likes of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Raju Hirani. Mukherjee’s films relied less on slapstick and more on the reactions of a common urban guy in awkward or absurd circumstances. Hirani, on the other hand, did the unthinkable – he made a comedy where Mahatma Gandhi was the star attraction. The fact that he could pull off a film whose subject was the Father of the Nation, without a single murmur of protest in a country where even the most harmless joke can be accused of being offensive or hurting sentiments, is no mean feat. Hirani once again treaded the fine line with PK, though Oh My God was arguably a better film on the same subject – man’s faith in God. While Mukherjee’s films were small in scale, budget and actors (many of them had Amol Palekar) – mostly aimed at the urban audience – Hirani makes them with big stars, bigger budgets and a style that is “massy”.
One might wonder where then are those literate comedies with humour relying more on wit than banana peel. Interestingly, these you find in regional cinema. Like a Ventilator in Marathi or Maheshinte Prathikaram in Malayalam last year. The reason why the standard of humour is higher in regional cinema is because of two reasons – firstly, the fact that your humour is meant for an audience of a particular state, language or community helps to make sharper and focused humour without having to make it palatable or relatable for the rest of the country. If you are a Malayali, you’ll get all the jokes and funny observations about everything from eating habits to political views to body language in a Malayalam film. There’s a classic scene in a Malayalam film called Sandesham, where two brothers representing rival political parties start arguing at the dinner table and end up fighting about the political situation in Poland. While the humour of the scene might be lost on anyone outside of Kerala, it cracks up every Malayali.
In Hindi cinema, the humour has to be played out broadly, so that everyone understands it. However, the times are changing. People have been able to appreciate the humour in Queen, which relies heavily on Kangana Ranaut’s portrayal of a Delhi girl. Similarly, Kangana’s Haryanvi accent didn’t come in the way of the huge success of Tanu Weds Manu Returns. But most often, filmmakers are guilty of not walking that extra mile to understand and portray a community or culture beyond stereotypes. So Chennai Express ends up with caricatures of South Indians, just the way Shah Rukh Khan’s “Madrasi” character in RaOne seems to relish noodles with curd. Just shows that from Mehmood to Shah Rukh Khan, the effort to milk a community for humour has sadly not shown any growth. Unfortunately, after the era of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee, there’s been nobody following in their footsteps – we don’t have a Woody Allen. On the other hand, sometimes overkill destroys a genre at the box office – as it happened with sex comedies. From Kya Kool Hain Hum to Kya Kool Hain Hum 3, the death of sex comedies from overdose is a subject for a hilarious movie in itself.
The role television plays
Television plays a huge role in raising the bar of humour across the world. The humour of The Big Bang Theory or Seinfeld is of a standard that is yet to be seen on our channels. Once again, the excuse hurled at you by creative heads of channels is that their audience is largely comprised of housewives and senior citizens. So the most popular sitcom is still Tarak Mehta Ka Oolta Chashma. There have been very few attempts for a political satire like Yes Minister or an innovative family affair like Modern Family. Television is the benchmark that raises the bar for most genres in the West. Unfortunately, that’s not the case in India, where we’re still stuck in a time warp of bad saas, helpless bahu and a vamp who unleashes havoc in a joint family. Once again, the sensitivity to humour is an issue in India. For example, one of the longest running Malayalam sitcoms called Cinemala would regularly lampoon politicians and even religion on occasions – one episode had Kerala’s rival politicians setting out on a pilgrimage to Sabarimala. In any other part of India, this would lead to protests and call for a ban. In Kerala, irreverence and satire are acceptable, and hence the standard of humour is far higher than any other state in India – just the simple fact that nothing or nobody is a sacred cow for the Malayali audience.
However, when it comes to comedy, Hollywood follows the same tried and tested route as Hindi films. There’s no comedy on the big screen that’s the equivalent of The Big Bang Theory or The Office. The emphasis is still largely on slapstick and gags on stereotypes. Not surprisingly, some of the biggest hits are comedies like The Hangover, There’s Something About Mary or the Austin Powers movies. Some of Woody Allen’s best comic gems were in the late 70s. Today he’s as prolific but less successful than Adam Sandler, who seems to unleash one mindless comedy after another every six months. Even British cinema’s most popular export has been Mr Bean, who is arguably a modern-day avatar of Chaplin’s The Tramp. But then Chaplin is still a far bigger star on TV even today.
Interestingly, the standard of humour seems to be undergoing experimentation on the digital platform. All India Bakchod and Viral Fever, among many others, have been trying to push the envelope by staying within the confines of accessible comedy – whether it’s mocking weddings, reality shows or current affairs like demonetisation.
So, the bottomline is that slapstick, visual gags, stereotypes and innuendoes will always find more takers than intelligent humour. But with various platforms emerging for entertainment, apart from movie audiences being bifurcated as those at single screens and multiplexes, comedy in movies will continue to tickle – even those who complain about the falling standards of humour.