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DWI,
Thank you for bringing up the critical aspect of the issue, the audience, and for your observatory notes.
Regarding the issue of intellectual maturity, particularly it’s interpretation, I might have a slightly different view. I think often time, we confuse the richness of lexicon in communication as a higher intellectual level. Lexicon certainly helps the communication; it makes it short and crisp. However, I tend to believe that any intellectual concept, particularly those related to humor, can be communicated in any level of language. It is just a matter of skill rather than the limitation of language itself.
In fact, the failure of many imitation (of the west) that does not succeed in the east can be traced back to the failure of the proper translation (my own theory, re kya). And this applies to any genre of art.
To make it short, I think that Nepali audience is capable of absorbing much higher level of humor than that is available in Nepali market. It’s simply that there are not such product, in abundance and access, in the market and so the audience is forced to consume whatever is available.
And the tragedy is that the producers fall in the wrong impression that the consumers are not ready for the artistically higher products yet.
Take Nepali cinema, for example. From my communication with some of the workers and from what they share publicly, it seems that almost every single producer believes that Nepali viewers are not ready for quality art yet.
They give example of the failure of a few so-presumed good cinema. So they keep producing and reproducing the same old khattam cinema, interestingly, even when Nepali viewers reject them one after another.
The number of khattam cinema that flopped is much higher than the number of the “good” cinema that flopped. Yet, they keep producing the same old khattam cinema for the fear of failure. This is so ironical and tragic. But that’s the way it is.
Now about the failure of good cinema, or any art, for that matter. I have meditated on it quite a bit. I also have some experience to relate to it.
The experience is related to a time which many critic and players call it a golden age of Nepali theater. Sometime in early eighties, Nepali theater was vibrant with several dedicated groups and their quality production and a good following. A following that went to see the play for the joy of it and not out of any intellectual obligation- like with a small following that frequents Gurukul these days.
Over the time, the theater lost it’s following. And there were three reasons. One was the invasion of sub-quality plays from newly mushroomed groups. The second was what I call extreme art work (those dry and boring high art) from some groups. And the third was the introduction of TV. The former two confused the following and the later distracted them. And that was the beginning of the end.
Anyway, my point is that, there was a viewership, at least the evidence for it’s potential presence, that could absorb quality art, not the boring one, but the enjoyable one.
On a related note, the failure of the mega cinema industry of Bollywood to produce quality work has always intrigued me. Once again, I have thought about the audience. But the audience (the presumed intellectual level or such factors) alone does not explain it fully. First of all, even the dumbest one, if he/she is a frequent cinema goer, must be tired to see the same stuff again and again and again. It is a simple reasoning. But they watch it anyway. So the back explanation is that they do because there is no option.
If we take specific group, I think, India and the worldwide consumer of Indian cinema has sufficient critical mass, at least theoretically (educated middle class) and practically too (the mass that loves quality foreign language movies) for quality cinema. So the question is what is preventing the produces to identify and tap this market ?
There could be some inherent things (inertia, lower creativity ?), but one thought that keeps bugging me is what I call the missing link- a transitional art. This is basically what helps to make a smooth transition from low quality to high quality art. I think the critical criteria for such art is it’s smoothness and enjoybility (not those dry and rigid imitation of other people’s art).
There are societies which have successfully completed such transition. A friend of mine who had a chance to view some old comedy movies of
I think so. And I believe how fast it will happen will depend on how lucky we are to have some talents to give us the “transition art” for that.
Now, it looks that it’s me who is digressing.
Anyway, thank you DWI for creating a context for me to share these sometimes unsettling thoughts.
I now feel light. उकुसमुकुस थियो, कम भयो ।
Nepe