Why We Need More Films Like Bohemian Rhapsody
I’d heard all the songs in isolation. On the radio, on rock playlists, in cafes. Clips, covers, full-length renditions, heard with half an ear. Sometimes it was just a line or a few words, punched into something bigger and hence barely recognisable as a song in its own right, yet somehow memorable. “We Will Rock You”, of course, is a song I knew as a kid before I had the slightest clue what rock music was. The “stomp, stomp, clap” rhythm has made its way into advertisements and kiddie choirs with the tenacity of a burrowing mole, and I still vaguely remember warbling out the refrain with a bunch of other schoolmates at some talent competition over fifteen years ago.
Over the years I learnt about musical mammoth Queen, about this bunch of lanky collegiates who shot to fame and the legendary Freddie Mercury, who was brilliant, bisexual, died of AIDS and was, apparently, Indian by ethnicity! (Perhaps unsurprisingly, my country chooses not to trumpet this wayward son of the soil.) I won’t deny that after this monumental discovery I watched several Freddie videos to try and discern the Indianness in him, and was more than a little disappointed to see that to the unschooled eye, Mr Mercury’s as British as they come. I did play their songs occasionally, and I enjoyed watching the London 2012 Olympics performance where Freddie controlled the crowd from the afterlife, but that was about it when it came to me and Queen.
And then along came Bohemian Rhapsody, named after the ballad/opera/rock extravaganza that has puzzled and delighted critics and fans for half a century now.
And a story that I knew only vaguely came to life like never before.
This is not an analysis of the film. I am no cinephile, nor am I an authority on Queen. From the layperson’s point of view, I can say that all four boys were 70s Brit rockstars to the life, that Live Aid was recreated as accurately as though the cast had travelled back in time, that the music was picturised in a manner worthy of the original tracks (who doesn’t love the folks standing on their benches and stomp, stomp, clapping to possibly the greatest crowd song ever?), and that Rami Malek has cemented his status as a grade-A actor and an attractive one to boot (that jawline could cut through glass). Yes, the movie is riddled with inaccuracies about Freddie Mercury’s life and the evolution of the band, and I’m sure the filmmakers are as aware of it as the nitpicky public. I don’t know enough about what really happened to separate fact from fiction, and I don’t particularly wish to. It’s enough for me that the film is a fabulous one and that Queen’s music is now ten times more relevant to me.
And I’m certainly not the only one who’s discovered Queen through this film. In all the hype leading up to and surrounding the movie, there’s a whole new group of people from around the world who’ve fallen in love with this legendary band. Kids who didn’t have rocker daddies or a rock-loving peer group now sing along to the hits as lustily as any old-timer fan. Even older viewers, people like me who may have heard a few songs here and there without caring much about the magical whole, now proudly declare themselves part of the Queen family. Music sales have skyrocketed, talk shows are abuzz with excitement over the band’s renewed relevance, and Queen itself has intelligently capitalised on the movie’s success by announcing the Rhapsody Tour 2019, with Adam Lambert continuing as the frontman who has filled gigantic shoes with flair and helped keep Freddie Mercury’s legacy alive.
As swiftly as new fans have joined the Queen brigade, old fans have lost no time in putting them down, flooding YouTube with comments on how ‘people are only here because of Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘like this if you’re a real fan of Queen and not just a movie watcher’. Quite apart from how snarky the comments can get, that entire perspective is fraught with debate on what makes a ‘real’ fan. Many rock aficionados claim that real fans are those who’ve loved a band for years and not just the overtly popular hits or as a result of a movie about the band. That may be a valid point from one angle. But while that may indeed make you a longstanding fan, it doesn’t make you any more ‘real’ than someone who discovered Queen after the movie. Real, after all, means sincere. Wholehearted. Loyal. Not necessarily longstanding. Some fans can love a band more in a day than in twenty years — can their love be discounted because it bloomed rapidly instead of over time?
I see hundreds of rock ‘aficionados’ online who use YouTube and other platforms to look down on those who discover a band thanks to a biopic, a movie/TV show soundtrack or some other reason apart from ‘worshipping a band for decades’. These self-proclaimed experts often garner a lot of following — but they seem to forget that rock bands are discovered in as many ways as love happens. For some of us, our family or friends introduced us to bands. Some of us were around when certain bands acquired their status as legends, others have relied on YouTube videos of the classic hits and live performances. And some of us didn’t know much about a band until a film or TV show featured their music and it caught our attention. Whichever the path, we have all arrived at the same destination — that of rooting for a band with all our hearts. That being said, to squabble over our journeys is childish, unproductive and smacking of the elitism that unfortunately seems to surround rock music nowadays as social media makes it easy — all too easy — to put people down.
I think it’s important to understand that the film is not meant to be a bible or even a documentary, but simply a magnificent bit of filmmaking that brings Queen alive to a new generation of fans in a colourful and essentially authentic manner. Freddie was flamboyant, Freddie was flawed, Freddie was a freaking good entertainer, and the film does justice to all that regardless of whether it’s a copy-paste of actual history or not. In that sense, it has served to perpetuate art — for Queen’s music is art, oh yes it is — and make it meaningful to a new generation. Bohemian Rhapsody lets us all enjoy the Bohemian Rhapsody — and in a world where inclusiveness is such an important word, aren’t films like these the need of the hour?
