‘Marketing has taken over content’

Actor Kay Kay Menon, who has been in Bollywood for over a decade now, feels cinema is being misused....

Actor Kay Kay Menon, who has been in Bollywood for over a decade now, feels cinema is being misused as most of them are riding on marketing gimmicks while content has taken a backseat. “Marketing has taken over content today and I have serious objection to that. It is the job of marketing people to think of creative ways to publicise a film. Just adding an item number in the film is not marketing,” the 48-year-old said.

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“I don’t subscribe to such nonsense. If the content of the film is good, it wouldn’t require an item number to make it work,” he added. Menon feels filmmakers’ focus has shifted to other not-so-relevant aspects of movies; as a result the content of the film is being compromised with. “Cinema is being misused today. Filmmakers today focus more on which dance step should be better for an actor, how the music should be packaged. As a result content becomes secondary,” he said.

The management graduate sailed into films with Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s 1995 release

Naseem

, but it was his role in Sudhir Mishra’s

Hazaaron

Khwaishein

Aisi

that brought him into the limelight. Later his role as DCP Rakesh Maria in

Black

Friday

won him critical acclaim.

Like many others, in his early years Kay Kay too worked in TV shows such as

Pradhan

Mantri

and made for TV movies like

Zebra

2

and

Last Train To Mahakali

.

The actor, who has been a part of some of the meaningful cinematic offerings like Corporate,

Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, Sarkar

and

Life in a...Metro

, blames the audience for promoting ‘trash’.

“Filmmakers are succeeding in promoting trash because people are lapping it up. It is sad to see that nobody is standing up and raising voice against it,” he said. Menon will now be seen in a cameo in forthcoming film

Bhindi Baazaar

.