The tragic fate of comedy in Tollywood

We can boost of having a host of comedians, thanks to some directors like Jandhyala and the like but the tragic tag to the crowded department is the lack of humour in the present day movies, at least in the majority of them.

In the big mob, each artiste has his or her own inimitable style but it is overdone to the extent where people just can’t bear it anymore and pity lies in the fact that film makers fail to recognize it.

Main reason for this is the lack of good writers and enough time for a comedy track. Script writers and directors are concentrating only on the hero and promoting him throughout the picture. Comedians are used only as fillers without any proper link to the main picture. Comedians too are there to promote the hero in any which way.     If by some strange reason, the comedian has to have an upper hand in the company of a hero, subsequently scenes will be created where the hero lampoons the comedian some five to six times more humiliating than what he had undergone earlier.

What is today passing out as humour, nay comedy, is nothing but lampooning an institution, profession, relation, personality, and habit or demeaning others with reckless comments in the name of evoking response, sometimes they are vulgar and nauseating as well.

Demeaning the characters of lecturers and teachers has been the most disgraceful development in the industry. Fun to a certain extent is ok but not to the extent of ridiculing the profession. Police, doctors, farmers, priests and all professions which have respect in society have been demeaned in one film or the other. Comedians are used only for such things.

You can have comedy police but not buffoon police and you find them in abundance in the films. Kota Srinivasa Rao played police inspector in a film who hails from Bandar and his humour was limited only that regional feeling which proved to be a healthy one unlike other films that make a mockery of policing in the name comedy.    

Some of the dialogues between principal-teacher-student, police-offender, father-son, mother-daughter, trader-consumer have been ridiculous and the writer-actor-director-producer never must have been narrating it from personal experience nor do they want to be part of it in real life.

This is basically because, while discussing the story the comedy track was not thought of; it is neither part of the script not does it run parallel to it. Simply because a known face has to be shown and there should be a situation, dialogue and humour, the comedy scenes are there, so it seems.

Even in a super hit film like Pokiri, the beggars’ scene has nothing to do with the main story nor is it convincing. This is just one example, there are ridiculous characters, scenes and dialogues which are totally unconvincing and absurd.

It is time to breathe real humour into the comedy scenes in the industry before things turn awful.