Honouring the worst

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The best in cinema win and take home that golden trophy or the black lady with pride. But the worst are now squirming under the spotlight and cringing at being awarded that kela or ghanta.

Being crowned the best of the worst is an award anybody’d love to lose. But there’s no escaping for B-town folks now as such awards are not just increasing in number but also getting popular.
Five years ago, the Golden Kela Awards were initiated to “discourage people from making bad movies.” With a similar intention, three years ago, came the Ghanta Awards by film critic Karan Anshuman and Prashant Rajkhowa. This year there are two more additions — stand-up artist Karan Talwar, along with four fellow comedians, is set to start the Filmfail Awards; and The Royal Turds is another one started by a team of five stand-up artists that include Gursimran Khamba and Tanmay Bhat.
While appreciating creative excellence with awards is encouraging, is it essential to cock a snook and have a laugh at the disasters?
“A lot,” says Karan, and adds that many a time after watching a movie the audience feels cheated. “These awards are necessary to keep people grounded and aware of their shortcomings,” says the critic who with his team has written the script for the Ghanta Awards for the last two seasons and through Filmfail wants to take their understanding about films one step forward.
The people behind these awards are of the opinion that filmmakers need to understand that movie-making is not just for financial gain, it should make some sense as well.
“Out of the 900 or 1,000 movies that release every year, only six or seven are really good,” says Tanmay, who along with his team has written the scripts for award shows — Filmfare and Zee Cine Awards — in the past.
“We were left with pent-up feelings because we couldn’t really say everything on that stage that we wanted to,” says Tanmay, who appreciates that some actors are trying to be a sport and are making an effort to accept their failure, like Sonam Kapoor landed up at the first Ghanta Awards to personally accept it.
“We have done a video with Alia Bhatt, where we have made a spoof of her song Ishq Wala Love and she has been really sporting,” he adds.
Jatin Varma, director, 20 Onwards Media that has been organising the Golden Kela Awards since the last four years, thinks that the number of such awards has been rising because people are becoming irritated with the pointless stuff in the industry. “I guess everybody likes an award ceremony,” he quips and adds, “These awards just go to say that there is too much bad stuff out there and there should be a quality control.”
They also feel that it’s because of the audience’s ignorance that even worthless films earn a superhit title. “Many films earn a lot of money, but frankly they are bad. At the end of the day, it’s the fault of the audience as they go out and spend so much money,” says Jatin, who has introduced a new category this time called “Bawara Ho Gaya Hai Ke” award that goes to the Indian audience for giving out 700 crore to the industry for films like Housefull 2 and Murder 2.
These organisers think that the popularity of such awards makes it clear that there’s a huge scope for improvement in the industry and that not everyone is going to lap up whatever is dished out in the name of entertainment.