Plagiarism in Bollywood movies

In Welcome to the Forum

Dec 01, 2023

A very interesting read! Reading this made me wonder what the line between taking inspiration and plagiarising really is. Being inspired by media products, as is apparent with intertextual references, adds weight to narratives and enables the audience to instantly relate more to them. However, oftentimes, media creators tend to wholly plagiarise plot lines, lyrics, concepts, and more. I enjoy watching movies that are remakes of films made in other countries and cultures – it gives me an opportunity to compare. However, I feel like remaking movies without adding any cultural references and not appropriating them to your own culture really defeats the purpose. Netflix India recently recreated the popular Spanish teen show "Elite." The Indian version, "Class," fails to actually appropriate itself to Indian culture because the characters feel like an exact copy of their Spanish versions and their personas become hard to believe. Even though such productions claim to be recreations and not plagiarisms, they feel wholly ridiculous because they lack any kind of originality and creativity.