Cinema and its Influence on Society
This is the age of Science and the Cinema is one of the best gifts of science to mankind. It has great possibilities as a means of entertainment. Educational Institutions can use it making class work clear and interesting to the students. A picture influences us much more than mere words. History, Geography and other subjects can be best taught through the cinema. Our Government can make much use of this miraculous invention. It is a great medium of propaganda. It is also serving as a means of social reform by showing the evils of untouchability and dowry system and other defects in the society.
Further, the fact that cinema films can be used as a very important means for the education of children has come to be recognised in every civilized country. This is because of the fact that a more lasting impression is left on the mind of a young student when he sees the things for himself than when he is taught the same in the class room.
In view of the growing importance of the films, our Ministry of Broadcasting has set up as a separate unit known as the films Division. This undertakes the preparation of such films as are of much cultural and educational value. Besides producers such films it gives financial assistance to independent producing who are engaged in such work. Not only that some good films are freed from entertainment tax in view of their educational value and human appeal. The films Division also imports good films from other countries and arranges for their free screening in village choupals, schools and colleges.
We thus find that the cinema exerts a great and lasting influence on the society today, as it covers a large and varied field of interest. It can be made a source of immense benefit to the public, provided the producers of films are not guided by mean and evil motives. It is an highly educative agency when it shows sights and scenes of distant countries, and also the living of the different peoples of the world in respect of their dress, manners or their customs, and the general outlook on life. The cinema, as an art, is a common meeting ground by the different nations. It is also educative in the sense that it brings to our minds the memory of the past and gives life-like reality to the dead pages of history. Stories that tell us of the struggles and aspirations of the poor, their fears and their tears, and remind us of the common tie of friendship that binds them to those who are more fortunate. It is a highly beneficial institution. It educates public opinion on the benefit of a well-organised civic life.
But the cinema is a power for evil to the society if it gives encouragement to the lower tastes of the public mind by dwelling on the acts of dacoits and on deeds of cruelty and horror, when it shows on the screen highly improbable and quite unnatural stories of sexual love. Generally speaking, the cinema, as it is today, is an extremely harmful affair. It is harmful for the younger generation whose tender and impressionable minds are likely to be deeply and permanently poisoned by harmful sexual ideas. The producers of films argue that the financial aspect of the cinema business can hardly be ignored. They say that they are helpless owing to the fact that it is only bad films that pay. Although there is some truth in this argument, we are strongly of the opinion that the fault lies more with the irresponsible producer of films than with the public.
Finally, it is perhaps the Government in every country that is really to blame for not exercising proper control over the cinema business. Every government should know about the great harm that the cinema is capable of doing. Authorities should, therefore, by fully, alive to the necessity of entrusting the management of the whole thing to respectful and decent persons. The gentlemen who are on the Board of Cinema Censors in every country have proved their unfitness by passing all sorts of objectionable films. The only effective steps to-wards reform consists in replacing the censors by a better class of cultured men. There should be strict control over crime pictures by the authorities. Film producers should also take care to produce pictures of a high standard and put this wonderful scientific invention to proper use. It would then be realized that cinema is one of the greatest blessings of modern times.
