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By Siddhi Pathak
Election 2014, saw an entertaining road show, with participation by both the politicians and the stars. While a few star politicians were busy campaigning in their respective constituencies, others were lending their support to the various political parties of their choice, in an attempt to change the tide in the favour of their favourite political party. Screen pans the various mediums through which politics has infiltrated into entertainment, and how politicians are riding on the star craze
At The Movies
Politics in the backdrop: A number of recent releases had a subtle or dominant political backdrop woven into their story. In Bhoothnath Returns, the film slowly evolves from comedy for children, to sending out a message for political change, urging viewers to go out and vote.
Poltics used as conflict: Youngistaan strikes a perfect balance between romantic comedy and political drama. Politics in the film is used as an effective catalyst in the love story, driving the film forward.
Socio-political satire: With a good measure of humour lacing it, Dekh Tamasha Dekh is a socio-political satire, trying to convey harsh political realities to make a box-office statement.
On Television
Fiction shows: A lot of TV shows promoted the cause of generating voter awareness. Amitabh Bachchan, along with promoting his film Bhoothnath Returns in three episodes of the popular fiction show Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashma, also devoted a part of the last episode to encourage viewers to go and vote in the general elections. He also promoted the same idea on Comedy Nights With Kapil.
Comedy Shows: Kapil Sharma, host of the popular show, Comedy Nights…, was recently declared brand ambassador of the Delhi Lok Sabha polls. Ironically though, Sharma doesn’t have a voter’s ID himself. He also invited the Aam Aadmi Party chief, Arvind Kejriwal on his show to discuss his ‘dharna’ and other activities in a jovial manner. However, since it is illegal to campaign 48 hours before the elections, Kejriwal had to back out at the last minute.
Comedy Central also had election special satires, mimicking popular journalists and politicians. As hilarious as they were, most of them had an underlying message towards voter awareness. MTV extended its international campaign, Rock the Vote, in India as well. It created some five minute episodes, along with a lot of TVCs. These episodes starred popular comedians like Gursimran Khamba, Neville Shah and Varun Thakur, in a very hilarious manner and made voting look like the coolest thing on the planet.
Non-fictional social awareness shows: Aamir Khan devoted the last episode of his show, Satyameva Jayate 2, entirely to generating voter awareness. He urged viewers not to sell their votes, but utilise the immense power of the right to vote to bring about a political change.
Star power: The advertising world has used this union of politics and entertainment in an effective manner.
TV Commercials
Most news channels have TVCs promoting voter awareness, starring A-list stars. Network 18 has a TVC with a lot of different stars ranging from Aamir Khan to Amitabh Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone, telling people how every vote counts. Aaj Tak has a commercial with Amitabh Bachchan urging voters to make the right choice. Aamir Khan starred in commercials of ADR (Association of Democratic Reforms), advising against selling of votes and going by the slogan, ‘Achche ko Chune, Sachche ko Chune’. He also did a commercial, pledging publicly to vote this year.
The common man: Apart from these, Power of 49 TVCs of Tata Tea urge women, who make 49 per cent of the voters, to go out and vote. MTV’s Rock the Vote also did a lot of innovative TVCs, targeted at the youth.
Web Effect
Internet/social media: Operation Black Dot, an interesting campaign, that had started off on social media, roped in a lot of people from the entertainment industry. The only motto of this campaign was to create as many new voters as possible for Elections 2014. They roped in youth icons such as VJ Jose, singer and model Anushka Manchanda, comedian Aditi Mittal, actor Purab Kohli and many more, to become cause ambassadors for each constituency of the city. These icons actively participated in events organised by OBD to generate voter awareness. It regularly shares posts and tweets about the cause to their followers.
YouTube channel: A lot of other videos went viral. Some of them were by Google India called #IPledgeToVote with Indian Celebrities. I Vote for a Better India (IVBI) is another Youtube channel, dedicated to the cause.
Even as movies and television shows played host to politics, politicians too were not far behind when it came to using film celebrities to their advantage. For instance, Narendra Modi launched his Urdu website with scriptwriter and Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan. An on-line initiative started by scriptwriter Anjum Rajabali saw several B-Town personalities including film-makers Mahesh Bhatt, Imtiaz Ali, Zoya Akhtar, Vishal Bharadwaj, Kabir Khan, singer Shubha Mudgal and others lending their support to vote for secular candidates. While public statements about political affiliations may not be made openly, the writing on the wall is loud and clear; politics and entertainment have intrinsically woven themselves into the tapestry of the nation.
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