A Public Indictment of Media. Review on Rann Movie

Rann is the most powerful and unambiguous public indictment of media. What makes it even more surprising is that it was done in a mainstream commercial movie. Now I have been reading about media’s role in a democratic society is to ensure that the democratic and political institutions are working properly and to report to public about what they do. Books like ‘Manufacturing Consent’ and ‘Necessary Illusions’ (both by Noam Chomsky) made it abundantly clear that the media is not so pure and real as it seems to be. Though in these two books Chomsky accuses the media of serving the interest of powerful elites and provides massive documentation and evidence to support his conclusions and what in ‘Necessary Illusions’ he calls the ‘Propaganda Model’.

Documentaries like ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ by Michel Moore, ‘Manufacturing Consent’ by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick and ‘The Corporation’ by Joel Bakan make the same argument albeit the difference between reading about the same in book and watching the same being made in a film are different and I must admit that these films do leave a deep impact. Note that two recently released Hollywood movies make essentially the same argument though that is not directly the theme of these movies. State of Play(2009) starring Russell Crowe as a senior journalist makes this argument in an episode saying that while investigative reporting done by Crowe is great it cannot be printed because it is against the political inclinations of corporate interests handling the newspaper. Exactly the same argument in made close to climax in Lions for Lambs (2007) starring Tom Cruise as a Senator on his way to Presidency and Meryl Streep as a senior journalist.

Rann, however, came as a complete surprise to me. Even though the movie had been in

controversies way before it was released I never imagined that such an extreme diversion from the ‘thoughts that are permitted to be expressed’ as Chomsky puts it, would be shown. Rann, basically makes an argument that in current times in India, the media is more interested in sensationalizing the news to get higher Television Rating Points (in short TRP) as higher TRP translates into more advertisements which means more revenue. In the race for higher TRP most of the times, the media, especially the news channels, are more interested in ‘spicing up’ the news either by manipulating the content or the fill or by presenting the same in a manner that would be more attractive to the audience.The symbolic value of Rann is also great. Every party in the great dirty game to tame The Great Beast in symbolically depicted We have, in Purab Shastri (Ritesh Deshmukh), the public who starts with the presumption that the media is fair but upon finding out it is not resigns as there is not much it can do.

We have, in Vijay Harshwardhan Malik (Amitabh Bachchan), the principled and wise old man who has been fighting for his principles and by his principles, an incorruptible sole who is the only hope of the public. We have, in Amrish Kakkar (Mohnish Bahl), the corrupt and greedy media baron, whose only job is to somehow figure out news ways to get more TRP, reporting and news be dammed. We have, in Naveen Shankalya (Rajat Kapoor), the businessman-industrialist who supports the corrupt politician Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal) in furthering his political interests not because he believes in Pandey rather he intends to use Pandey further his own corporate interests. Pandey uses Naveen to finance his political objectives, this both these corrupt powers representing two different elites are in bed together, as always.The actors have perfectly executed their roles and the scriptwriters have written a script to perfection.

The background music with some great screenplay and superb direction along with superb dialogues has created a great thriller that would bind you to your seats. Technically, everything is fine. But the most important part of the movie is the expose made in last 30 minutes and the climax monologue of Vijay Harshwardhan Malik whereby he publicly indicts the media of chasing profits; being solely and singularly inspired by the corporate objectives of making more money while forgetting the real purpose of media as an institution in a democratic system; and being in bed with politicians thereby adversely affecting its ability to fairly report is the one that contains the juice of the entire movie.

Rann brings to light of the day complex issues that lay behind functioning and working of a democratic society and government. Media is the single most popular non-constitutional social institution in any democratic society. Cicero said that freedom is participation in power. In any democratic form on society and government, real power is in the hands of the electorate. It is also in the hands of the person who can directly influence the electorate. Thus, the power flows in the hands of persons and institutions

who can manipulate the electorate and the single most powerful, in fact the only societal institution that can manipulate the electorate in media, thus making it one of the most powerful yet non-constitutional institutions in India.

Find a more detailed and footnoted review on Rann on the following links - khagesh-gautam.blogspot.com/2010/02/rann-public-indictment-of-media-part-i.html and khagesh-gautam.blogspot.com/2010/02/rann-public-indictment-of-media-part-ii.html

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On these two links you can find reference to more books and movies on similar themes. The above review is a shorter version of the above two cited sources.