How Netflix is changing Indian Entertainment
Indian movies and television shows were a staple in my household. I watched Bollywood movies and listened and danced to the music while growing up. Also, no, Bollywood isn’t only Slumdog Millionaire.
After coming to Brisbane, I became part of a wider diaspora of Indians. A diaspora, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is defined as a group of people who move to countries that are not their own.
Being a diasporic Indian in Australia, it was difficult to get the same level of access to Indian entertainment content like movies and television shows. But platforms like Netflix has made it easier than ever to consume local content. As a diasporic Indian, I have a wide access to very local content.
Netflix has managed to localise it’s platform by using local actors and content creators to tell local stories to a diasporic Indian audience. Through this process, it has managed to address the global demand for local content whilst creating dramatic changes in the film industry.
Netflix follows something called a ‘conglomerated nice strategy’ . This strategy basically means that Netflix, with its global access to data can work with local content creators and actors to produce content that appeals to a global diasporic audience. Moreover, they create content that is specific to their audience’s varied interests.
For example, Netflix worked with local content creators in India to create Lust Stories. It is a Netflix original that focuses on female sexuality in an Indian context. Another very popular series is Sacred Games. A Netflix series that is focused on politics, drugs and police corruption in India.
But how did Netflix make its way into India?
In the book World Entertainment Media, Somjit Barat talks about NRI’s (non-residential Indians) who, through their inability to let go of their roots, managed to create enough demand for local content. This led to a lot of global cable companies showcasing Indian channels. These cable companies were first in line to address the global need for local content.
In the same book, the author also mentions the changes in change in tastes and interests of the Indian population — those who live in India and those who moved out. After recognising this need, many directors and film producers began creating content that integrated, at least to an extent, themes of promiscuity and sexual freedom.
But content like this was never shown enough on mainstream media. Many Indian television companies, even till today remain focused on older audiences and traditional format, including prime time soap-operas and political news discourse. These television and film companies did not accommodate the maturing interests of their local audiences.
This made a lot of younger audiences create their own content through different affordances, specifically social media. They began to create content online that was unique to the experiences of the Indian youth. They showcased a variety of content, from political satire to regional-specific content. This was a way in which the demand for new content — content that questioned traditional norms and values, were addressed by local content creators. Moreover, these content creators now had the freedom to create content that is unique to what was showcased by traditional television and film companies.
Many local content creators in India began creating regional specific content by using languages popular in a specific region. This could be seen by the YouTube channel ‘Put Chutney’ as examined by Sriram and Aswin (2018) in Localising YouTube. They note how through the use of YouTube affordances and algorithms, regional content creators in Indian had easier methods to make content that had regional-specific languages. Through this method, a global platform like YouTube was localised by the use of language.
When Netflix was introduced in India, through conglomerate niche strategy, they managed to capitalise on these strategies that were already used by local content creators. They did this by creating shows that showcased content that was riddled in themes of sexuality and promiscuity while using languages that were local to an Indian Audience. Secondly, through their global accessibility, they addressed the demand for local content by a global Indian diasporic audience.
Moreover, Netflix changed the game for Indian entertainment. They gave local content creators like filmmakers and actors, unparalleled opportunities to create and produce content with creative freedom. They now have creative freedom and earn much higher than they did when working with traditional Bollywood producers.
“Given our diversity, history and culture, India is home to powerful stories waiting to be told to audiences around the world,” said Netflix director, international original film, India, Srishti Behl Arya. “We want to be a home for India’s finest content creators where their stories travel to more people than ever before,” she added. @forbesIndia
Through their global accessibility, they have managed to capture the attention of a global audience by telling them stories riddled in culture, diversity and history. Shows like Sacred Games and Lust Stories are only a beginning to a plethora of content geared towards a much more mature global Indian diaspora and other such global audiences.
They have changed the game for Indian entertainment. They provide a platform for content creators to have an extensive amount of creative freedom while allowing them to tell local stories. These stories not only give light to who we are as people but they also leave space to question the values we believed for so long. Netflix has provided a global platform with very local content.
It is from here where we think about what this means for local producers? Currently, the scales seem tipped in favour of Bollywood producers who now have access to a multitude of mobile and internet platforms. I’m excited to see how content production and the filming industry changes because of the existence of these platforms!
