Netflix Makes a Statement in India with “Sacred Games”

https://www.economist.com/prospero/2018/07/19/netflix-makes-a-statement-in-india-with-sacred-games

by ss2003 • 8 years ago

98 95 8 years ago

hannofcart• 8 years ago

It's not just 'Sacred Games'. Other Netflix originals like 'Lust Stories' are breaking the Bollywood mould and telling stories that are too taboo for Bollywood. Great job, Netflix!

iKSv23• 8 years ago

To be honest, its less about being a Taboo (see films like Chameli, Chandni Bar, Fashion) have tried telling taboo stories. Its the censor board which is so inconsistent that it doesn't even make sense. This platform helps them bypass it and its working, and its also being accepted by the viewers . Win-Win-Win

taherchhabra• 8 years ago

Censor board can censor Netflix as well if it gains critical mass in India. So the platform cannot help bypass the censor board

dmix3• 8 years ago

Maybe I'm biased coming from (North) American culture but I'm always amazed at the level of government intervention Indians tolerate. Every time I read about the regulatory landscape there it blows my mind (ie, hearing how a truck delivering something across the country needs to stop 8 times in every county they pass to make sure they have proper paperwork). It's always terribly excessive and almost illogical by design (arbitrary laws to give abitrary power to the individuals impementing it).

bcosynot• 8 years ago

I wasn't expecting much from lust stories, but it was surprisingly (for me) good and compelling. Sacred games was everything I expected and more! Hopefully moves like this will raise the bar for TV programming across the country. Or atleast for the target audience I'm part of.

SuperNinKenDo• 8 years ago

I have to say, this article's writing did a good job of getting me interested in the material.

r_singh13• 8 years ago

I'm from Btown. With its latest Indian content, Netflix has really made a statement about what it can do with original content made for this market. Consciously working with the best in Bollywood and giving them creative freedom that the internet provides (traditionally censor board in India is conservative and absurd).

Amazon Prime too has made strides in acquiring and producing content for the Indian market. But both have clearly taken a different stance in doing so. Amazon is quick to acquire bollywood movies for Prime and from Netflix's latest content, it appears that they have potential to replace bollywood bangers.

achow2• 8 years ago

I think if Netflix is smart and continues on this path then they can really cause a disruption in movie production houses in India.

The current Indian movie production houses are family or driven by an individual's vision (whether Karan Johar's, Salman Khan's, Yash Chopra's..). The new age creatives don't have sponsors who can relate to the way they want to a tell story or the theme of the stories that they want to tell.

It is not very unlike tech funding situation.

The Indian movie industry is perhaps where tech industry and funding was half century ago. The VCs of that era probably had very specific non-risky areas that they wanted to invest in and there was no way to get funding if you had an idea which was way beyond their comprehension or comfort zone.

Netflix with their war-chest, openness and brand equity has a true opportunity to steamroll the existing archaic business practices which probably hasn't evolved over last 100 years.

r_singh13• 8 years ago

You're right about the possibility of causing disruption (most likely will).

However, the reason isn't because old production houses don't want to or cannot make content like Netflix (because it's going to be the same people working on Netflix's content). It's because traditional cinema and Netflix have a different audience and Netflix gives the same film makers access to an audience whose critical appreciation for content is different from that of the masses.

richforrester• 8 years ago

Total tangent. Amazon Prime's video library here in Australia disapointed me to such an extend that I unsubscribed within minutes of subscribing.

The dashboard has recommendations. In those recommendations, on this single page, Twilight appeared 26 (TWENTY SIX) times.

Any other page I'd go to would also have several instances of it recommending me a Twilight movie. I literally couldn't find enough decent movies because almost every other movie was from that series.

It was the shortest lived account I've ever owned.

Apologies for the rant. Am disappointed.

r_singh13• 8 years ago

You may be surprised to know that early prime adopters in India paid as less as $4 yearly (I renew at that amount, this includes prime shipping and music as well).

So interestingly, India is a place where acquiring content is relatively easy because the money made from licensing movies for TV (after it is out of cinemas) in India is a lot lesser than the rest of the world. So it's a new income source for production houses with tons of old content and Amazon has jumped at that, making their content appeal to masses in India.

Along with that they've also invested money in creating content specifically for India which isn't comparable to Netflix but good quality sincere efforts nonetheless.

The Indian film industry is ready for online and has welcomed all players. A lot of Indian media houses and production houses are rolling out their own online platforms with subscriptions as well.

dhruvarora013• 8 years ago

I think Amazon has also been investing heavily in comedy and standup in India similar to what Netflix is doing in the U.S.

Overall I think with 2-day shipping, Amazon Music and Video for little under $20/yr, Amazon is doing a great job in acquiring users so far.

r_singh13• 8 years ago

True that.

I subscribed to Prime before Prime Video was a thing and it still costs me only Rs. 499 a year, which is a joke tbh.

asenna• 8 years ago

I hate consuming movies on Amazon Prime Video in India. Their self-censorship is worse than the Censor board.

Just one of my recent experiences - A well made movie "Shahid" - There's a scene where the two guys are in jail having a chat. An entire line just gets censored and Shahid's shocked reaction means the scene was important.

I then found the movie on Netflix. The line they censored was - "This country doesn't give a shit about it's minority". Wtf?! Are we that insecure that we need to Censor stuff like that.

That's just one example, it's almost impossible to watch Shahid and other similar movies on Amazon. Which is weird because they are on the Internet, they don't have a Censor body governing their content!

r_singh13• 8 years ago

Interesting, I think it could be because Amazon chose to be conservative and selected the version of the movie that's played on national TV.

_jgdh3• 8 years ago

Other examples of Amazon self-censoring despite the govt saying they are not considering censoring online content.

* Pixelated nudity in shows like Californication and The Man In The High Castle and films like Watchmen and The Godfather

* The Grand Tour had an episode which involved animal carcasses. All of it was removed.

My $0.02 on this difference between Amazon and Netflix. This is Netflix's primary business, while Video is an afterthought for Amazon compared to the retail business. A boycott of their retail business would be catastrophic, whereas a few people canceling their subscription over self-censorship is a non-issue.

Amazon can also potentially be shaken down for protection money. It would work like this. "Hi, we're from this political party and we're considering making these videos a major issue. Meanwhile, would you consider making a donation to our election campaign?"

xkcdefgh2• 8 years ago

That's frankly ridiculous, when shows like shameless are more or less intact, I don't know why they'd censor other shows, movies so much

balladeer• 8 years ago

I have noticed a fundamental difference in the way these businesses try to function here. Amazon has been trying to completely adapt to how things "get done" in India. For the sake of the loose analogy I'll equate it to the "Ola way". You got to get your cabs moving on the road? Don't fight with the system, don't challenge the Govt or court, get around it. Politicians banned your cab? Well, wait till the evening when things cool down and traffic cops stop pulling your cabs over while you are busy lobbying and then everything is back on track while Uber kept releasing statements and losing business. Amazon has shown this on pricing front and the way they introduce offers and deals that is very specific to how it will work in India.

On the other hand Netflix tries to follow the same system that it follows everywhere - kind of how Uber has been trying so far - and it seems Netflix is already backing down when it comes to again pricing. Couple of lawsuits and and bans and I have little doubt Netflix will fall in line and start with the self-censoring.

I do want Netflix to succeed too and not at all condone censorship. Just sharing my crude observations as a local.

zimbatm• 8 years ago

Unlike Netflix which is 100% online, Amazon also has a physical distribution network that it wants to keep running in India

otakucode• 8 years ago

Given the whole thing where Richard Gere kissing an actress resulted in an entire city shut down with riots for a couple days... how exactly is this going to work out?

shaan7• 8 years ago

Unfortunately I don't think it will last. Indian government + its agencies are very conservative and I'm sure they will be making attempts at censoring Netflix in India.

psergeant4• 8 years ago

I bet the spending power of non-India Indians in the rest of the world is huge.

r_singh13• 8 years ago

"non-India Indians" are called NRIs (non-resident Indians).

And you're right, in the list of ethnic groups in USA by household income, Indian Americans rank number 1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

forapurpose2• 8 years ago

I've watched a couple modern Indian films recently, and the characters switch effortlessly between English and Hindi, sometimes in mid-sentence. More than once I even saw one character ask a question in Hindi and the other quote them in English: for example, (in Hindi:) 'Aren't I the smartest guy in the world?'; (in English:) 'No, you aren't "the smartest guy in the world".'.

I've been wondering: What is the subtext, what are the implications, of using English or of switching languages? There must be some and I'm missing the subtleties.

EDIT: clarification

namanyayg• 8 years ago

Vernacular use has not many such "subtleties", except maybe that some sentences flow better when translated to English.

I have not seen much vernacular use of this "quoting" phenomenon you noticed in sacred games, I think that is mainly to offer a clearer understanding to a multilingual audience.

forapurpose2• 8 years ago

I have not seen much vernacular use of this "quoting" phenomenon you noticed in sacred games

To be clear, that phenomenon wasn't common, it was just a powerful example: The second character had just heard the words in Hindi and yet chose to repeat them in English.

happy-go-lucky• 8 years ago

It’s a blend of Hindi and English (Hinglish). Here’s a wiki you may find interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinglish

Hinglish, a portmanteau of Hindi and English,[1] is the macaronic hybrid use of English and South Asian languages from across the Indian subcontinent, involving code-switching between these languages whereby they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences.[2] While the name is based on the Hindi language, it does not refer exclusively to Hindi, but "is used in India, with English words blending with Punjabi, and Hindi, and also in British Asian families to enliven standard English".

pavanky• 8 years ago

I have friends who keep switching between three (not counting the made up language only those two understand).

This isn't uncommon among multi lingual people.

walrus014• 8 years ago

Modern Urdu on the Pakistan side of the border is quite similar. The amount of English that is worked into Urdu in a higher budget TV or movie production is increasing. Or watch any of the major Pakistani TV news channels (Geo, etc) for an example.

fellellor• 8 years ago

I saw a few scenes from Waar, which is supposedly a very successful Pakistani film. I however, felt the amount of English being used in that film to be unnaturally high. That is the ending of the film is fully in English. Indian writers are also guilty of this. It makes the entire thing seem artificial and even unprofessional.

puranjay2• 8 years ago

Very common among bilingual speakers.

It's called "code switching"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching

It's hilarious watching my wife's aunts talk. They grew up in Hyderabad in a Sindhi household but emigrated to UK. They effortlessly switch between Telugu, Hindi, Sindhi, and English in the same conversation.

mcny• 8 years ago

The characters in Anna Karenina speak French in some parts (at least in my English copy of the book). I don't know why but it clearly meant something for that conversation to be in French. It's there something the story is trying to say when they switch between Hindi and English on that show?

walrus014• 8 years ago

If you speak and understand Dari (the Afghan regional variant of Farsi), it's not just code switching... There's so many technical things that simply don't have words in Dari. There might be a word for radiator, such as in an automobile, but nobody uses it, they use the english word radiator. Almost anything that deals with technology invented and imported after the year 1900 is derived from either an English, French or Russian word (in the north/Uzbek speaking parts).

Listening to a conversation between two fluent native Dari speakers regarding any moderately complicated business, technical or engineering subject will be about 10% English words.

There are also a lot of words in Iranian Farsi that are derived from French. France was one of the first western european countries to form serious diplomatic and trade relationships with Iran, (a long, long time before Mossadeq and coups, oil companies, etc). One example, in french:

English: Potato. French: pomme de terre

pomme = apple

Farsi: seeb zameenee (literal translation ground apple).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_loanwords_in_Pe...

AYBABTME• 8 years ago

Happens to me all the time when speaking to another French/English bilingual person. I think it's just a result of multilingualism, people pick whichever language they're more comfortable using for specific topics. For instance I have a hard time talking about tech in French, despite it being my first language.

pmichaud• 8 years ago

Yeah, this happens whenever people speak more than one language. My experience of it with English and Spanish is that there are some things that are more fluidly expressed in one language or another, or there's a joke that's only possible in one, or there's a joke that's only possible by combining. It just expands your vocab a lot, basically, so you get access to a wider range of nuanced connotations.

calvinbhai4• 8 years ago

Urban population sometimes or often does speak that way, without any reason. Depends on the context sometimes.

gordon_freeman• 8 years ago

Scared Games is awesome. There's also another original documentary series Netflix recently launched which is 'Wild Wild Country' and its based on cult Indian figure Osho and the time he spent in Oregon. It's worth watching too.

Jenya_• 8 years ago

I watched recently similar documentary on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwx9nqknu-c

wheresvic1• 8 years ago

Most bollywood fare needs to cater to the masses (a large chunk of whom are semi-literate) in order to make money. Netflix's audience is by nature literate and middle-class with a decent internet connection at home. They can happily switch between Hindi, English and don't mind reading subtitles for Marathi if they don't already speak it.

Kudos to them for recognizing this market at the very least and attempting a show like this. I binged watched the show in 3 days and while it was interesting and wildy different from normal bollywood fare, I did not find it ultra amazing or anything compared to, say AGOT for example.

nonamechicken2• 8 years ago

I had the same feeling. Nothing awesome about the show. One thing I have begun to dislike with Netflix in general is most of their shows are extreme. Either too violent and dark or way too silly. I cannot watch them just for the sake of time pass or enjoyment without having negative emotions that sometimes lasts for days. Nowadays, even with a Netflix account, 99% of my TV is YouTube. Still I decided to watch Sacred Games since its based on India. Violence and sex on it were not something we would see in an Indian TV show, but overall entertainment value was lacking. The RAW officers were too simple. I find it hard to believe that this is how they operate. Also, its strange that some Indians think showing sex scenes as progressive. I don't want to see sex in regular movie. If I want to watch sex, I will go and watch porn. If one wants to see violence and gore, there are plenty of other websites. Please don't bring it to the masses in the name of progressiveness. Before anybody labels me as Taliban, I fully support public nudity. But sex scenes in these shows and movies are not real. Nudity in movies is a cheap way to get the audience. Make a mediocre show, sprinkle some sex scenes and violence here and there, profit.

ss2003• 8 years ago

You hit the nail on the head about Netflix. There is so much low quality content on it that it makes me eye everything they offer skeptically. There are so many great movies out there, why are none of them available on Netflix or Prime?

actuator2• 8 years ago

Never thought I would see stuff like this on HN. https://imgur.com/a/BlfhrPv

r_singh13• 8 years ago

I agree with you, I was surprised to see this on the front page as well. I guess it's because this is Netflix's [being a California tech company] first real effort to enter the Indian market. Hence it implies the consequences this launch could have on its position [and Prime's too] in the Indian market as it establishes itself in a country with a [relatively] mature entertainment / cinema industry.

Now that it's here, it's good for you to have commented here expressing your concern.

However, the comments you've linked surprise me even more as they represent pure hate. I'm curious to know which forum they are from, anyone?

actuator2• 8 years ago

Btw I was referring to the vitriolic comments.

They are from HN only. Were visible till I logged in. I guess mods removed it and the logged out views are cached

r_singh13• 8 years ago

Just realised that I can see those comments on the bottom of the page after enabling 'show dead' in my HN settings.

naruvimama• 8 years ago

In a world where state backed religions and religion backed states exists. Where the funds and man power set aside for religious expansion in the organised religions is more than the defence budgets of many countries. Censorship and reflection of bias is important.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV5eE3SENo0

Takes a good look at bias and dishonesty in Bollywood. Netflix can also fall victim to "moles" just like the BBC.

TheArcane2• 8 years ago

Did you just try to make an argument for why censorship is important? Because don't see anything.

It's amazing how the conservative Hindu majority of India has been convinced that they're in danger of unseen forces.

pkphilip3• 8 years ago

Precisely. It is not just that. The Hindu right wing have been sold narrative - a version of history where they are told that they are denied their "right" place in history - at the very top of all world cultures, only because of the pesky minorities. So they should subjugate the minorities and cast them to the fringes so that the "great" Hindu nation can rise again.

codecrusade4• 8 years ago

Absolutely valid points. Bollywood bias and propaganda is proven by this IIMA study

more here https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Bollywood-glorify-Islam-and-m...

TheArcane2• 8 years ago

Are you referencing links from Quora in order to make a point? Because far from lending you credibility, it detracts and weakens your claim.

What's next? Are we gonna see links from Swarajyamag? For the uninitiated, that's a right of center tabloid, an Indian equivalent to The Sun or the Daily Mail.

codecrusade4• 8 years ago

The series is gross, vulgar and has unwanted scenes of violence. Depictions of India far from reality.Avoidable.

_blz2• 8 years ago

Most of the series has unforced graphic scenes and vulgarity. It's just gangs of wassrypur set in Mumbai with more vulgarity because it was produced for Netflix.

Netflix Makes a Statement in India with “Sacred Games”

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