How can entertainment be a driving force towards creating social change?

Founder of Mumbai-based Civic Studios Anushka Shah shares how a powerful story and a good set of characters can bring attention to oft-ignored societal and systemic issues that plague India

In this age of round-the-clock bombardment of news and ever-evolving technology, we're constantly surrounded by information and images on the many problems of the world we inhabit. It's easy to be overwhelmed, and to feel a sense of helplessness. What can you do to address women’s safety in India? How can you support the Ukrainian victims of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict? What action can you take to stem climate change? Critically, what do these questions have to do with what you’re going to watch on Netflix tonight?

An attempt to create an impact

The relationship between the power and role of entertainment in creating change has been well established, with various studies proving that role-model characters, emotional engagement and showing the consequences of our actions (or inactions), can also be influential. Entertainment can bring awareness to an issue, it can reflect experiences of minority groups, it can tell you the story of a social movement on the big screen, it can illustrate types of civic action through desirable characters, and so much more.

Different emotions in entertainment lead to different reactions. For example, the ending of Shahid (2012), a movie about the Indian activist-lawyer Shahid Azmi, could either leave you angry and despondent about the state of affairs in the country, or it could inspire you to act. Padman (2018), on the other hand, a film about female hygiene and entrepreneurship, makes you aware about the problem and celebrates acting towards change. Understanding the kind of emotion that will lead to a desired outcome is important for creating an impact. Psychological and neuroscientific research show that empathy sparks neural processes that lead to both ‘experience sharing’ and ‘perspective taking’ that fuel action to rectify the problems that impact the people we are empathising with.

Blurring lines between news and entertainment

Why is it important to harness the power of entertainment and emotion? In democracies, while we conceive the media as the fourth pillar, we tend to put the onus of this burden primarily on news media rather than entertainment. Yet, today, entertainment is what we’re consuming at a rapidly increasing rate. The lines between forms of media, news and entertainment today are increasingly blurred, and it’s important to hold all accountable towards a sense of responsibility.

Iconic films like Rang De Basanti (2006) have proven that entertainment and social change can co-exist in scripts, complementing each other’s goals. The connection to the audience helps create engagement, and the engagement, in turn, helps motivate action around the story. The movie traces the lives of a group of college students, who, while dispassionate about politics, get involved in a corruption scandal. The film included dialogues that one would hear frequently in living rooms or college canteens, establishing a deep sense of relatability to the characters' angst and indifference. However, the film does not stop at the problem but goes on to motivate a sense of action by identifying the role and responsibility of the youth in nation-building: “Koi bhi desh perfect nahi hota. Usse perfect banana padta hai.” ( “No country is perfect, you have to work towards making it perfect.”)

On matters of justice

In recent times, we’ve seen a steady rise of the vigilante justice narrative in Bollywood. In a country where the judicial system is slow, halting and broken in parts, to access justice we are often torn between trusting the glass half-full with the parts of the system that do work, or doubting its half-empty nature with the parts that are broken. We’ve seen films like Mardaani (2014), Singham (2011), Dabangg (2010), Special 26 (2013) and Ungli (2014) focusing on the latter, advocating an insurrectionist route and playing off the on-screen catharsis of justice that resonates with our off-screen sense of injustice. We’ve also seen a rise in mob violence acrossIndia, creating an uncomfortable correlation between the real and reel.

At Civic Studios–where we create entertainment in the form of short films, feature films and TV shows for OTT platforms, as well as short-form social comedy for YouTube and social media via our brand Change–our goal is to create entertainment in an attempt to help strengthen democracy. We explore issues such as judicial reform, elections, education, unemployment and gender rights, working with activists, experts and communities to help inform the issues and narratives we’re creating.

We aim to create narratives based on present realities, but those which help us imagine and work towards a better future. A specific example is our recently completed fictional short film Vakeel Babu starring Abhishek Banerjee and directed by Sumit Purohit. Scheduled to release on an OTT platform later this year, it addresses domestic violence as a problem and advocates gender sensitisation of the judiciary as a way to make courts more accessible for those facing violence. It is additionally supported by an on-ground advocacy campaign involving lawyers, law colleges and members of the judiciary.

The motivation of the film was that globally, domestic violence cases against women increased sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, renewing a sense of urgency around access to justice. Through in-depth primary research with over 120 diverse stakeholders including domestic violence survivors, civil society organisations, lawyers, medical experts and the police across three Indian cities, it was discovered that the lack of gender sensitisation in the judiciary is a key reason for its inaccessibility.

To tackle this, Vakeel Babu was created. It’s the story of Shiraz Hassan, a young lawyer, distracted with chasing success through his digital channel. He is approached online by an anonymous female victim with a powerful abuser. Will he do justice to the challenge? The film is an appeal to lawyers to take an empathetic, sensitive approach in securing their clients’ rights, no matter how unwieldy the system.

Cinema is not just a projection of script to screen, but a projection of our collective identity. The characters and the stories become something of a validation of the way we see ourselves and would like to see ourselves. The role of entertainment in creating a collective sense of justice and motivation to take action towards it is immense.

Also Read: Taapsee Pannu on playing Mithali Raj, working with Shah Rukh Khan and pleasing her audience

Also Read: Chef Alex Sanchez: “I am fascinated that food can be infinitely complex within its simplicity"

Also Read: Why is James Ferreira still passionate about saving Mumbai’s Khotachiwadi?