Media Analysis of Sholay (old text) and Aag (New text)

Focusing on both of the Bollywood clips, it can easily be said that they both have been changed dramatically over the past few years. Not only has the genre changed but also the historical context has changed.

Focusing on the old text ‘Sholay’ the mise en scene is very classical and traditional. We can say this because of the outfit we see the heroine wearing, she is seen to be a belly dancer and is wearing very revealing clothes such as her skirt with a cut in to it and her belly chain across it. The connotations of this show us that during the old days women were seen to be seen as sex objects that were looked upon. The colour of her clothing’s are green with orange, again this shows us the audience that she is there to be looked at as her clothing are very eye catching. Furthermore, the camera shots that are seen focus heavily on the heroin’s figure and we see her surrounded by numerous of men’s. Again the ideology of this Cleary shows us that she is perceived to be a sex symbol and is seen to be looked at through her figure and beauty. As the camera focuses a lot on close zooms of her figure again the message that it is putting across shows us that she is there to be looked on. The setting that this takes place is in some sort of forest/jungle with loads of males surrounded. The clothes that both males and females were wearing were seen to be very traditional, with the instruments in the hand held. We see the male wearing a waistcoat all glittering and appealing. This shows that not only females were seen to be looked on but also men were too. The editing in this was continuous shots no cuts were seen, maybe this was seen to make the audience into the scene and floe well with it.

Look at today’s version of ‘sholay’ it is now called ‘Aag’ and is tremendously changed. The main comparison is that we do not see only one female hence we see a number of them, all wearing revealing clothes. This again is showing that women are seen to be looked at and are seen to be sex symbols. With this clip we see fast edit shots of the female, the hero shooting and a lot of action is seen. This shows us how males are seen to be active and superior, rather then sitting back and relaxing. We see the main heroine wearing red and also revealing clothes, with the females at the back wearing similar clothes. This shows how the society has changed, as there is no longer one women to be looked at like the previous clip shows but there is a range of them, which shows that they all are seen to be sex symbols.
The clothing in this clip is that the heroine is wearing red. The connotations of red show seductive, sultry and sex. The dance moves in this clip are different to what we see in the previous clip. More sex moves are heavily focused by the camera which clearly link to the whole idea of ‘sex’ and that women are seen to be looked at that, and that we as the audience see them to be inferior as the society makes this up. Furthermore, looking at the previous clip the male is singing and the heroine is dancing, which clearly shows that the women is dancing on their tunes and is enjoying it, however looking at the new clip, the heroine is singing herself as well as dancing which shows us that how things have developed over the years and that the female does not need a male to sing for her.
Looking at the economical side of this, Sholay (the old clip) had the highest grossing film of all time in India, it had earned about Rs 2.36,45,00,000 which is equivalent to US$ 60 million. Focusing on the latest clip which is Aag, is has not really been a hit in the Bollywood industry and they believe that old is gold.

Overall, it can be said that not only has the genre changed and developed but also the society has developed. We now see women’s as being sex symbols and to be looked up on. Back in the day this was the same case; women wore revealing clothes and received the attention from men. In today’s generation we see women wearing appealing clothes with appealing colours such as red, where the connotation of that are sex.

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