

Abhijit Mhamunkar
No goss, no fluff, just pure business! Get to know what went behind Bollywood's biggest deals. Why some films worked and others failed. Cut the crap. This is the way showbiz works.
The dirty truth behind film awards
Few months ago during an interview Paresh Rawal revealed why he had stopped attending award functions. He said, "There are no real award functions anymore. Each award function is a mega marketing event and I do not wish to be a part of it." Aamir Khan's dislike for Bollywood awards is common knowledge. Ajay Devgan too avoids them. If some of India's finest acting talents have such views about award ceremonies there's definitely a big question mark about their credibility.
Aamir wasn't an awards boycotter earlier. In fact, he was a regular at the Filmfare awards, the only popular award function back then. But then the 1992 awards night changed it all for him. His Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander though nominated in almost all the categories ended up winning only one award. Also his much deserved best actor award went to Anil Kapoor for Beta. Industrywalas till date debate whether Kapoor had purchased the award. Aamir stopped attending Filmfare Awards from then on. But as fences were about to mended between the publication house behind Filmfare and Aamir, came the final blow in 1996. His wildly popular Rangeela act was overlooked and SRK was awarded the best actor for DDLJ. That did it for Aamir and he began his mission boycott which continues till date.
Aamir continues to torment award organisers by putting up a great performance every year in his films, leaving them in a fix whether or not to award. Also, sources close to him reveal, his nephew Imran too may follow his footsteps and avoid award functions.
The Bollywood awards carnival kicks off every year with the Star Screen Awards followed by Stardust Awards, Filmfare Awards, Zee Cine Awards, Sansui Awards and the IIFA Awards. Then again you have the Apsara Producers Guild Awards in September and for some strange reason nominates films released in two separate years. All these awards' results have ceased to excite us like they used to till many years back.
Not only because there has been an overkill but also because there's a predictability in it all. Their results are hardly taken seriously and the main category winners are mostly A-list stars who get an additional excuse to hike their prices and get written more about after winning their trophies. In order to appease the biggies, the organizers introduce new special categories and ensure most of their star attendees go home with something.
So we have the Power award (which either only Yash Chopra or SRK keep getting), the critic's award, the most outstanding performer award, fresh face award or the best on screen couple award. Stars bartering their on stage performance for awards too has become a regular feature at these functions.
While earlier award ceremonies were telecast live or just a day after, they are now shown a good 10-15 days later so that the channel which has purchased its telecast rights gets ample time to market the event and fill in all its ad spots for the telecast. But with the results already out, the viewer by then has lost all the excitement.
A veteran filmmaker points out, "These award functions benefit everybody, right from the organisers who mint money and also get ample media coverage, the TV channels by means of ad spots.The media too gets sufficient stories before and after the actual event about the nominees, the controversies and who came in and who didn't, owing alliance to their respective camps. Unfortunately the loser is the true fan who once used to stay awake till midnight to know which of his favourite star won!"
It is high time the biggest film industry in the world puts up that one credible award function which can bring every industry member under one roof. They owe it to their loyal fans.
Incidentally. The Star Screen Awards 2009 nominations are out and Paresh Rawal has not been nominated in any category for one of his career best performances in Mumbai Meri Jaan.

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comments
Dear chania :
points which i got for you comment is that you don't
know shit about acting, otherwise you won't say aamir
is not god of acting.
srk is a a grade star but he is a z grade actor, he
doesn't know even what is acting, he is a businessman,
hope you get it.
the only srk's best performance is chak de.
aamir, ajay, sanju baba, anil, naseer, irrfan khan and big
b, these are the real actors of bollywood, acting is their
nature.
Srk is a good actor. It must be that people have not seen
some of his versitile films. I have seen most of them. He
was very good in swades, paheli, baazigar, darr, and even
kal ho na ho, chak de. Everyone claims aamir khan is a good
actor but is okay not some god of acting. Lagaan was a
yawn!!! I wonder do people like it just because it was about
cricket??? I don't think it was good at all. Srk shouldn't
be penalized because he is a successful commerical actor
because he has the chops to act in independant films too.
1st n fore most, i would like to congratuate th author of
ths article, it was well written n presented.
its tue tht, hindi awards hv become crap, infact thy were
crap long time ago, however its our fate, tht we r realising
now.
look, i dnt wnt to comment on "who is th better
acto'r?" cz according to me, each of thm hv their own
way of presenting, n i guess we should respect tht,
however, th question goes to th jury members, who select
th nominees moreover thy decide th winner, this r th ppl who
r corrupt, thy tend to give awards on presonal basis rather
thn acting skills,
if anythng, change th jury members, n yes one more thng,
tooooo mny awards, make no sense, cut down on th awards, to
make it exciting 4 us (fans) to watch.
anywaz thts my view, i guess some ppl might disagree wid
it, which is ohk wid my cz i believe we hv different views,
seema
Starting from the 1950's,filmfare awards continue to remain
the big daddy of indian film awards - probably because no
other award has the might as big as that of times of india
behind it.Long before the filmfare nominations became the
subject of nationwide debate and controversy, it was more of
an exercise in bonhomie than any serious competition between
actors.
we have now iffa award each year(not staged in india) and
only bollywood films are in contest with the brand name of
indian film federation awards.No regional language films
other than pure commercial bollywood flick can enter the
competition.And they call it indian film awards.A real
tribute to diversity of india.Hail preetesh nandy!!!
today,bollywood is cursed by epidemic of award
ceremonies.These ceremonies are used as platform for tieing
superstars with production houses.But, now we have atleast
5-10 big award ceremonies and each award is given to
strengthen business connection or satisfy the ego of ruling
bollywood families
bottomline:in the end ,bollywood award ceremonies is all
about loving your sponsors.
Do the awards mean anything anymore to anyone? I even do not
think they worth a discussion!! People r intelligent enough
to differentiate between good and bad works. It's really
nice to see that people no longer craves to be a mere fan,
rather, analyze the works. So it's not a fight between srk
or aamir, it's just the work...People like lagaan, chak
de...But not ghajini or rnbdj...As simple as that...
Yes its true.
srk has never been a versatile actor but gets all
awards.Also wid the help of yash raj banner or dharma
productions.
its just that aamir, salman saif dont pay for awards they
don get it..........
ppl stop goin to such awards like iifa, screen etc.....
they r fake
every1 stop goin there n let them know the truth...
Its true, you are right , all award are fack.
Hi
hey come do you ever notice any performance oriented
movies from srk.. Then name to a few swades
,bazigar,darr,koyla,check de. But it sheer coincidence that
his romantic movies got awards....
Swati - i disagree with you, with due respect.
aamir has said this repeatedly that he takes the awards
that 'he' believes in. Its not that he has not accepted
indian awards - the one i remember was given by lata
mangeshkar and he did accept that award.
now please consider this and you will know why he still
tries to win an oscar but doesn't care for the popular
indian awards - lagaan lost the race but it lost to "no
man's land". He couldn't have felt bad because "no
man's land" was indeed a very good movie. But how can
anyone digest jo jeets wohi sikander losing to beta?? If you
have to watch one of these two movies again, which one will
you choose to watch?
please have this misconception cleared - aamir hasn't
boycotted indian awards, he has boycotted so-called
popular-indian awards.
i am no spokesperson for aamir - i am just a fan of
quality movies and quality actors (not only hindi but indian
movies and actors - and no, i am not from south india). My
comments above are basis the views expressed by aamir
during his various interviews.
god bless, regards - aa
@ sumanta,
as per my knowledge i differentiate actors and commercial
stars----
actors: kamal hasan,
amitabh bachan,
anil kapoor,
aamir,
nana patekar,
hrithik roshan,
ajay devgan,
naseeruddin shah and some more who are
versatile
kamal hasan being the number one that india has ever
produced and not produce such kind of versatile and veteran
actor in years to come ahead.
commercial stars: rajini kanth,
akshay kumar,
srk,
sunjay dutt,
salman,
saif ali khan,
govinda
sunil shetty and
some of them who can entertain u with the same kind of
roles.
an actor may be said that he primarily works for the
director and then for the audience.
but a commercial star, he just works for his producer /
banner and then works for the audience.