Aug 9, 2011

My Biggest Bollywood Pet Peeve

In an earlier life, before I was a Bollywood fan and Occasional Blogger of Things of Dubious Importance, I was a cellist.  Not, you know, a concert cellist or anything, but a pretty decent cellist nonetheless.  I knew how to do all the important things, like how to play open string notes on the strings below them because I was too lazy to tune my instrument properly, and how to make a really whiny noise by turning my bow upside down (or playing on the wrong side of the bridge). 

Most importantly, I knew how to hold my damn instrument in a way that made people think I wasn't touching a cello for the first time.

Your move, Kat:


I don't expect film stars to be the reincarnation of Pablo Casals or anything, but it takes maybe thirty seconds to look up a picture of Yo-Yo Ma and check out what he's doing with his right hand.  And his left one, for that matter.  Look at her!  She's not even playing a real note!  She's got her fingers in a squished up version of first position on the A and the D string, but her bow is on the C string!  Cheeee!

This has got to be my biggest pet peeve in the history of the world right here: actors who play musicians who can't be bothered to try and look authentic.  We all know Katrina Kaif isn't playing the cello but would it kill her to try and look the part? 

Lest anyone think I'm picking on Katrina, let's check out some other offenders.  Like Rishi "I'm just gonna put some fingers on some strings and hope it looks good" Kapoor.



Or this.  WHAT IS THIS I CAN'T EVEN OMG.  Are you going to play that or eat it?  Because based on what you're doing here I'm leaning towards the eating.



Here's Akshay, demonstrating that it may take two Bollywood stars to film a romantic scene but only one to fuck up the violin.



Sigh.  The less said about this the better.  If only I could find a job teaching the violin where there was no requirement that I actually be able to play the violin.




Long story short: Katrina, if you ever decide to film Yuvraaj 2 (and I think we can all safely say we hope that never happens), here's some study material for you.


Memorize this.  For my sanity.

3 comments:

red42 said...

I am so with you on this! I am constantly complaining about actors pretending to play musical instruments and getting it totally wrong! I play the violin, which is probably the most mistreated instrument in BW! Closely followed by the guitar, trumpet, drums..... the list just goes on.
I get mad just thinking about it - grrr!
We really need a campaign to stop this abuse of musical instruments in films!

Bombay Talkies said...

Let's not forget the saxophone! I've got a whole folder of pictures of stars horribly abusing saxophones (I'm looking at you, Sanju and Salman).

Maybe we should try to get jobs teaching proper instrument posing technique to the stars?

Ness said...

Oh...I feel the same way about the trumpet. I played the trumpet for 7 years - not amazingly, but I know how to play the instrument, and I am always torn watching things between "Ooooh Rishi! Awesome disco dance glory" and "OMFG WHYYYYYYYY do you need to abuse the instrument that way?".

I was...so, so, so gloriously in love with (the tv series) Treme when I saw the first season on dvd, to discover that it has REAL MUSICIANS playing instruments properly; and the ones who don't play have obviously been taught how to fake it properly. It was...beautiful.

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