Entertainment

Jimmy Kimmel slammed for calling RRR a Bollywood movie. What other Hollywood-inspired nicknames exist in India?

Shaurya ThapaMarch 14, 2023 | 20:02 IST

Everyone loved Everything Everywhere All At Once’s stellar victory at this year’s Oscars. As for Indians, we had more wins to cherish with The Elephant Whisperers and RRR’s Naatu Naatu. 

As expected, RRR was much talked about in the ceremony with host Jimmy Kimmel opening his monologue with a Naatu Naatu reference. While it is a common tradition for awards like Oscars to shush their winners with music whenever their victory speech gets too long, Kimmel said this year, the tradition should be playing Naatu Naatu with the dances escorting out the winners. 

In fact, a group of Indian dancers dressed in the same garb as Ram Charan and Jr NTR in the song’s video, did appear at the stage and shooed away Kimmel himself!

For Kimmel, RRR is Bollywood

While the joke was quite a chuckle-inducer (in an arguably so-so hosting routine by Kimmel), Indians were bothered by how Kimmel described RRR as the talk show host called it, 

“A Bollywood movie”

It is obviously unfortunate that the over-the-top action flick which has been earning millions and garnering positive reviews on an international scale is still reduced to a Bollywood production. That is perhaps because of how the US tends to equate Bollywood as the Indian film industry instead of the Hindi film industry. 

With RRR’s original non-dubbed version being a Tollywood film, it is high time that Telugu cinema gets its due credit at least with the correct name of its film industry. It’s only sad that Netflix’s distribution rights over RRR are mostly regarding its Hindi dub that might give off the wrong impression to global viewers who might not know much about India’s linguistic diversity. 

Even back home in India, Netflix still has the Hindi dub with the Telugu original and a Tamil dub available on Disney+ Hotstar. As with the term Bollywood, the amalgamation of Bombay and Hollywood itself draws ire from Hindi actors and filmmakers. A montage in the recent Netflix documentary series The Romantics shows Karan Johar, Ranbir Kapoor, and others scoffing on the term, explaining their disdain towards it, and rather preferring to use a label like Hindi film industry instead. 

The other “-ollywoods” of India

Kimmel’s factual slip-up at the Oscar stage proved how the Westerners need some basic lessons about the Indian film industry and its regional break-up. With the pan-Indian success of several hits from the South, Indian cinema is no longer headquartered at Mumbai and it can no longer be identified by just Hindi. 

For the ones who are even more interested in understanding the etymological origins of the regional cinema of the country, they will chance upon some interesting names indeed. 

(designed by Shaurya Thapa for DailyO)

The Hyderabad-based Telugu film industry is usually nicknamed Tollywood, although the origins behind this name remain unknown. Delving further into other South Indian film industries, the Tamil industry is referred to as Kollywood. 

Why Kollywood? There is a geographical reason behind the name with Kollywood being a mix of Hollywood (obviously) and Kodambakkam, the neighbourhood in Chennai where numerous Tamil films were and continue to be made. 

(photo-Indian Rail Info)

As for the Kannada film industry in Karnataka, Sandalwood is the name! The label is quite different from most of the other industries that try to come up with names rhyming with Hollywood. But Sandalwood also seems like a great choice for Karnataka given how the state is rich in sandalwood resources. Using the tropical tree for sandalwood oil, it is also Karnataka’s official state tree. 

Completing our South Indian film industry tour is the Malayalama film industry in Kerala AKA Mollywood. The name however is also used at times to describe Marathi films in Maharashtra, becoming a common label between the two industries. In fact, even Bengali films are sometimes put under the name of Tollywood, borrowing the same name as the Telugu industry. 

As for the rest of the country, another interesting name aping Hollywood is the Assamese film industry that some call Jollywood! Pollywood is the name for Punjabi cinema while even states with minimal film output like Odisha and Chhattisgarh have their Ollywood and Chollywood!

The list goes on…

What about India’s neighbours and other countries?

Western hegemony is such that every country aspires to meet the standards of the American film industry (at least in name). That’s why the creative reinterpretation of the word Hollywood continues all over the world. India’s neighbours Pakistan and Bangladesh have their Lollywood (the Urdu and Punjabi industry of Pakistan, the “L” possibly signifying Lahore) and Dhaliwood (the “Dha-” standing for capital city Dhaka). 

(photo-Asia Art Archive)

In Africa, there are numerous examples like Ghollywood (Ghana), Hillywood (Rwanda), Nollywood (Nigeria), Riverwood (Kenya), Sollywood (Sierra Leone), Swahiliwood (Tanzania), and Zollywood (Zimbabwe). 

While Uganda’s film industry is called Ugawood, Wakaliwood is also quite a nascent but noteworthy example from the country. Named so after the slum of Wakali in Uganda’s capital Kampala, the small-scale industry is the brainchild of director Nabwana IGG who is known for making low-budget action flicks like Who Killed Captain Alex and Crazy World, both fascinating examples of cheap production yet passionate storytelling. 

Despite resorting to laughably outdated green-screen VFX, the Wakaliwood features are wildly original yet fitting tributes to the over-the-top brand of 80s-era Hollywood action flicks starring the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenneger. 

Elsewhere in Asia, the Hong Kong-based Chinese-language industry and Japanese cinema don’t have such names despite their global reach. But the South Korean film industry still calls itself Hallyuwood, an apt name given that Hallyu refers to the “Korean Wave”, the new wave of globalisation-era South Korean pop culture taking over the world. 

Jackie Chan at Seoul's Hallyuwood Start Festival (photo-K-Popped)

In the end, if you think that cinema can just be divided in the binaries of Hollywood and Bollywood, there are a lot of “-ollywoods” to explore.

Last updated: March 14, 2023 | 20:02
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