Hollywood has been the capital of film glamour for decades. Most of the studio work, music recordings and offices remain in Hollywood, while many of the stars have moved to Beverly Hills. Hollywood is known to be part of the historic places in the Western United States, and a hot spot among tourists. The term “Hollywood films” was given to films made in America, because much of the film industry remains in the area called Hollywood.
Someone in Bombay got very smart and termed the Hindi film industry “Bollywood”, for obvious reasons. Because most of the film fraternity was based in Bombay, they thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea if they picked up the term from Hollywood.
The others were not to be left behind, and everyone in the country followed suit. To grate on everyone’s nerves, in Tamil Nadu, since the film buzz happened around Kodambakkam in Chennai, they termed the film industry “Kollywood”. But actually they would have had to name it Mollywood or Tollywood (Madras/Tamil), and for various reasons this did not happen.
This is because the Malayalam film industry lapped up “Mollywood” and the Telugu industry lapped up “Tollywood”.
The whole thing gets more confusing as we go by. Kollywood is being unfair, as they need to lend K to the Kannada industry. As the film circle in Chennai has moved to Vadapalani, they will have to rename themselves “Vollywood”, and be kind enough to pass on K to Kannada films.
But if all the alphabets have been taken, then what about the Marathi film industry-as they may need M. Bengali films will need B, and so on and so forth. This has already been grabbed for Malayalam films and Hindi films respectively.
A film made in France is called a French film, a film made in Italy is called an Italian film, and a film made in China is called a Chinese film. Why cannot we just call the films by language such as a Hindi film, or a Tamil, Telugu film etc?
Little do we realize that everyone from filmmakers to film students across America have a hearty laugh at not only our song and dance routine, but the term “Bollywood” as well. The Americans are only aware of this term, as the Hindi film industry is the largest from India. If only they heard the rest of the terms, the reputation of the Indian film industry will be trashed to say the least.
There is only one Indian filmmaker, Ashok Amritraj who is sensible enough to say “We are the Indian film industry. Period. There is no Bollywood”. Hope everyone takes a cue from him!