Religion In Bollywood Movies

The rise and fall of different civilizations and empires is caused by various social, political, and cultural factors that affect its societies. One of the most important concepts seen in empires are the creation of its culture and its relation to the beliefs of its society. Religion plays an enormous role in understanding the purpose behind the actions of the people in a civilization. Religion and culture are dependent of each other as it reflects the ideas and values that society has agreed upon. As a new urban civilization during 2500 B.C, The Indus Valley Civilization created a sociopolitical system that

“Christianity is defined as the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic and Protestant bodies” (Maiamwebster). Christianity is widely represented through many different aspects of today’s culture. Walt Disney’s animation Big Hero 6 is a great representation of how we portray religious messages through films. The film starts off by introducing the two main characters Tadashi, the tech older brother who creates Baymax, a robot who was built to help heal people. Hiro Hamada is a young robotic prodigy who doesn’t fully understand how to appreciate his intelligence and talents until his older brother Tadashi opens his eyes to a new world of technology at his college. When an incident at the college goes wrong Tadashi is tragically killed trying to save the life of someone else, Hiro is devastated and wants vengeance. However, Baymax is now there to lead him in the right direction. In the film Big Hero 6, Hiro discovers that Tadashi’s spirit lives on through Baymax.

Hinduism is the third largest and the oldest religion in the world. Because it is so popular, there are many stereotypes of this religion that have come about over the years. Some of these might include things like all Hindu women have red dots on their foreheads or that all Indians are Hindu. These are both untrue, of course. However, Hinduism is the leading religion in India, dominating around 80 percent of the country’s population (“Hinduism”. Britannica Online Encyclopedia.). Within each religion are a number of beliefs, sacred texts, laws, and guidelines to live by. Hinduism is definitely an extremely complex religion compared to other religions, with several beliefs, multiple gods, goddesses and deities, and many laws and rules to be

“Religious belief evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness, but their essential strength” these words spoken by Edward Osborne Wilson an American Biologist speaks volume not just in our daily lives, but it can be seen in science fiction films like Star Wars Episode 1V: A New Hope released in 1977 written and directed by George Lucas. Religion means to have faith in something. It explains the thinks we are unable to see. To find true religion one must have The Force and believe.

During the early years of Hollywood, films had very few regulations on how they can be made. From 1922 till 1930, people were outraged at Hollywood that they have no rules on how they should make films. In response, religious groups were editing movies for their local communities to make them save for their standards. Eventually the government started to talk about enforcing rules that would censor Hollywood movies for the public. To stop that from happening, Hollywood enforced their own rules called the Motion Picture Production Code or the Hays Code.

Hinduism is considered by many to be the oldest religion in the world that is still in practice today. Followers of the Hindu religion, called Hindus, make up the third largest religion in existence. Hinduism is mostly a polytheistic religion, meaning that most Hindus believe in many gods and goddesses, although some sects of Hinduism do believe that there is one supreme deity. Hindus traditionally have four life goals: moksa, dharma, artha, and karma. Like most religions, Hinduism has spread to the West. With this expansion of religion comes the use of sacred religious gods and symbols in Western pop culture. Many times, the use of Hindu religious symbols by non-Hindu Westerners is culturally appropriating and unnecessary. However, other times what some consider to be culturally appropriating is not so at all to others.

It is important to focus on the definitions of religion and quasi-religion to understand how they can influence film, specifically fantasy films. Religion has no one definition as it differs from one person to another. Quasi- religion resembles something that is religious, so quasi-religious mythology is mythology that is influenced by religious ideology. Such as Spanish mythology which is influenced by Catholicism or Greek mythology. Religion has been a part of society’s upbringing, a large amount of people identifies with a certain religion, though there are those who left certain religions or do not identify with any religion. The stories and ideology represented in any religion remain familiar to them because they grow up with them. Even

There are many religions in India that share common similarities and differences. However, there are two religions in Northern India that stand out from them all. There are many ways to compare the similarities and differences between the Hindu and Buddhist religions of the Indus River Valley civilization.

Hinduism is a religion that is difficult to define. No one can say who the founder is, or connect it to a certain place or time. So in order to understand Hinduism, we follow a coherent set of assumptions upon which people base their lives; otherwise defined as the Indian Worldview.

After reading the article, I think rituals have some basic structures of meaning, and there are number of ways to show that rituals are meaningful. In the following thesis I choose Hinduism as an example to show how rituals are meaningful, how it relates to the living context of the Indian people, how the Indians enact the Hindu rituals, and so on.

In Indian society Hinduism plays a vital role in shaping Indian society. Hinduism plays a vital role in Indian society whether it be through Dharma, the caste system or Hindu rituals. To further explain how Hinduism plays a role in Indian society we need to explain what is Hinduism.

God and the Indian by Drew Hayden Taylor was a truly meaningful reconciliation play. His major theme in this play was to acknowledge the audience of what had happened before in the residential school and further expand on the idea of how it affects many lives, and how we should face the truth within this chapter of our history.

Hinduism is a combination of religion, culture, and philosophy that saw its beginnings in India (Molloy, 2009). Followers of Hinduism have a strong belief in a cycle of reincarnations, virtue, and karma. Unlike other belief systems, followers of Hinduism are not held to a particular set of beliefs. They live a particular way of life that governs all that they do and is governed by their own traditions, ethics, philosophy and theology. Within the Hindu faith there are several themes that govern their way of life and are all related in one way to each other. The prominent themes in the Hindu faith are karma, moksha, samsara, Brahman and yoga. Of these themes, samsara stands out the most to me as the most essential of the Hinduism themes and is also one of the most prominent themes for all religions that originate from

Monsoon Wedding, a Bollywood film directed by Mira Nair and released in 2001, earned just above $30 million at the box office [1]. The film brilliantly depicts romantic entanglements during a traditional Punjabi wedding in Delhi, while delicately handling sensitive issues such as child-abuse, pre-arranged marital infidelity, growing old and striving to be different as an upper middle class Indian boy, or being a flirtatious, bored but basically settled NRI (non-resident Indian) housewife. The film won the Golden Lion award and received a Golden Globe Award nomination, achieving a total of six wins and ten nominations [2].

Family traditions and religion greatly impact the lives of many people in India. These elements of culture are reasons that form the way that Indians lead their lives. Both factors make up what type of person that individual will become. That is the reason why religion and family traditions are so valued in Indian society.