One-Sided or Propaganda? It All Comes Down to Intent

When polarization plagues a gullible society where cult worship is common, whether in politics or religion, or other aspects of social life, propaganda movies start emerging as mainstream blockbusters from time to time. Various ideologies and movements regularly encourage such content deliberately designed to shape the audience's beliefs, emotions, or behavior toward a specific agenda, but their reach often remains limited to a niche audience. Propaganda movies work best in polarized societies, where social divisions and mutual distrust are already deep. In such environments, it becomes far easier to stoke fear and anger toward a fictional enemy, generally a target minority group, and cast them as the threat from within. This is especially potent when the government itself is involved in spreading such divisive propaganda, as there is no fear of government action. The impact is stronger because the messaging carries an aura of authority and reaches a wider audience. As a result, polarization deepens, emotions escalate, and people become more susceptible to simplified, divisive stories.

One can argue that movies are often one-sided and are made purely for entertainment, and expecting them to change beliefs or behavior is far-fetched. But this argument misses a crucial point: entertainment is just one of many motives behind filmmaking. Movies are made to generate money (as a business), fame, and recognition; to spread awareness; and sometimes for personal satisfaction. Given that, it's not hard to see how cinema becomes a vehicle for something more calculated.

There are one-sided movies, including documentaries, that are biased and present events, characters, or issues from a single perspective. Propaganda movies also do this. So what separates them? Why is a propaganda movie not just another movie telling a one-sided story?

The core difference is intent. And this difference matters.

In one-sided movies, bias is not necessarily intentional; it may simply be incidental. The filmmaker may want to highlight one interpretation or emotional truth, and still aim to entertain, raise awareness, or tell a personal story. Opposing perspectives are ignored or downplayed, but there is no organized agenda driving that choice.

In propaganda movies, bias is strong, deliberate, and purposeful. These films are often backed or favored by a government, organization, or movement. They often glorify one entity (person, government, or religion) while demonizing others. They use emotional manipulation, selective facts, symbolism, and persuasion techniques. Opposing views are not just excluded, they are actively ridiculed and demonized. The goal is not to express a viewpoint but to influence public opinion, promote a specific ideology, or drive behavior.

Artistic liberty is common in all art forms, and there is nothing wrong with taking cinematic liberty while making a movie. But there is a line. When cinematic liberty is used to distort facts or twist truths by blending them with blatant lies, it stops being just artistic freedom; it becomes harmful emotional manipulation. Both these types of movies take cinematic liberty, but there is a difference. One-sided movies involve selective storytelling. Propaganda movies take this to another level entirely; they are engineered to spread an ideological agenda. And here's the subtler point: an intelligently made propaganda movie can easily look like a one-sided movie on the surface. The real difference often reveals itself in how the audience reacts, what they walk away believing, feeling, or wanting to do.

Some examples of one-sided movies: The Social Dilemma and Michael Moore documentaries like Bowling for Columbine. Some examples of propaganda movies: Triumph of the Will, the Why We Fight series. Recent Bollywood blockbusters like Kashmir Files, Kerala Story, Animal, and Dhurandhar have also entered this conversation. Both these movies are biased. Both express a single viewpoint. But which is which? I'll let the reader decide.

Just remember: one-sided movies are biased, but propaganda movies are biased with intent. And it's worth being aware of that intent.

Thank you for reading, and please share your views on this topic.

Is pk anti-Hindu, anti-religion, or anti-religious stupidity?

Somehow controversy related to the movie "pk" refuses to die, and discussions are still going on in various social media forums and news channels. One interesting point that I found many people repeatedly mentioned is that they don't have any problems with pk talking about the bad practices of religion but they have a problem with the movie targeting Hinduism unfairly. They cite various scenes from the movie to prove their point, but at the same time, they conveniently fail to mention scenes where it also comments about other religions like Christianity and Islam. But they do have a point that the central theme of the movie is to comment on hypocrisy associated with religious practices in India, mainly about scams these babas and gurus are running in the name of spirituality and god. So, in this post, I am looking at the allegation of pk being an anti-Hindu movie in a very sympathetic way and see if there is any truth in it. May be there is but let's analyze it first before jumping to any conclusion.

The movie is targeted towards the Indian audience. This is not a Hollywood movie that is targeted at a world audience but it is a commercial Hindi movie whose audience is mostly people belonging to India (where the majority follows Hinduism). So I think one should understand the reason why it talks about religion by taking Hinduism as a prime example, simply because it connects to more customers and helps to generate more revenue. After all, movies are commercial products, designed and produced to make money. If one is going to invest so much money to make any product for any market then it makes perfect sense to make a product that appeals to most customers of that region. Another main reason is, that cinema as a medium itself has its own limitations. Apart from being a commercial product a movie also has a time constraint, it can be two or three hours long. People are not going to sit in a theater for five or six long hours to watch a movie no matter how entertaining or educating it is. I don't think any movie maker can comment or criticize equally about wrong practices from each and every major religion in one movie. So, the matter of fact is that they have to pick and choose and Raju Hirani chose his pick. If someone is not happy with this movie and wants to make a similar movie using Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or some other religion as a central theme then they are most welcome to do it. It is every artist's choice what they want to use in their artistic creation. One can criticize their work, debate about it, discuss or even protest about it. But questioning why they chose to talk about A and not about C or D is a bit too much, let the artist decide that. Everyone is not an expert in every field, I know more about Hinduism because I was born in a Hindu family and lived my most of life in Hindu-dominated surroundings. So, if I decide to comment about religion I may use Hinduism as an example because of my familiarity with it, someone may use Islam or Christianity because they know more about it. It is a personal choice. I think it is very simple to understand. You make your own choice and let others make their own.

Another point that I see that various people make many times is that foreigners feel that India is the only country they know where the majority is mocked by the minority. In any other country if you are the majority you will never be able to make a movie like pk. I don't understand where they got the impression that in India minority mocks the majority. If we look at the makers of pk itself, its producer, director, and scriptwriter all seem to belong to the Hindu religion. So, the first part of this argument that in India minorities mock the majority is not correct. Based on my personal experience I can say that in the USA, I see a lot of criticism directed towards Christianity which is the majority religion. People make many documentaries that attack these religious beliefs and make fun of Christianity but there is no attempt to ban them or attack the makers. So, it is false to say that India is the only place where minorities or the majority are mocked, it happens everywhere.

Each of these allegations and attacks on pk seems to be out of some anger and emotional outburst but without any rationale or logic. People have the right to feel angry and protest but they don't have the right to force their own beliefs on others. Freedom of expression is the fundamental right of everyone. If people have the right to protest then people also have the right to express themselves freely. I don't find pk anti-Hindu or anti-religion, rather it hesitated from attacking on concept of God. It supports the existence of God, it only attacks on hypocrisy propagated by these so-called agents of God. If these people who are attacking this movie think that these agents and their theatrics are real Hinduism, then they are right in saying that pk is anti-Hindu because the movie specifically attacks these things. But, if they feel that Hinduism is something beyond these babas, gurus, and their theatrics then they don't have to worry about this movie as it doesn't say anything about other aspects of religion. It only attacks hypocrisy and stupidity. It is not anti-Hindu or anti-religion but it is anti-stupidity.    

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

If you are not happy with this one, go make your own pk

As expected Raju Hirani's recent movie 'pk' created a lot of controversy because of the subject it dealt with, the bad practices in religion. Some lunatics are claiming that it hurts their religious sentiments (no surprise here). As expected these people are demanding to ban this movie, but their argument has no legal or logical sense. So, as usual, they are trying to attack movie theaters and attack the messenger rather than the message. This is not the first time any movie has been targeted like this or people are demanding to ban something because their so-called sentiments are hurt. Surprisingly these are the same people who also like to claim that India is a very tolerant country and Hinduism is a very tolerant religion. The good thing is that this time apart from some right-wing Hindu groups some Muslim and Christian groups are also against this movie, so it seems every religious group is feeling offended by this movie. Maybe this is because pk is not against a particular religion or section of society but it attacks on commercialization of religion and exposes attempts to scare people in the name of god. This movie also like another similar movie 'Oh My God' doesn't attack the concept of God or doesn't question the existence of God, I guess in a country like India no commercial filmmaker can dare to do that. The movie just raises some uncomfortable questions about the way people practice their faith in today's world. These questions try to expose the way religion is marketed today. I guess this is why many people and organizations who depend on such things to make their living or who are addicted to such marketing are getting offended. 

I always wonder why don't these people or organizations make some movie that can counter the points raised in 'pk'? Many of these organizations are very rich, they collect a lot of money from donations from various sources, and they even have very strong political backing, so all resources required to make a movie is definitely not a problem for them. These people also claim to know everything about their religion. If this is the case, then for them it should not be a big deal to write a good script that can prove a movie like 'pk' wrong, and expose every lie. If they are so sure then they should be able to expose the lies propagated by Raju Hirani and company easily. There is no need to damage public or private property, no need to create a law and order situation. Just one movie or even a documentary exposing 'pk' is enough. If they don't want to make a movie because it is too much of a hassle then they can even challenge people associated with this movie for civilized debate or drag them to court. They also have the right to protest or raise their objections but in a lawful and civilized way, why don't they do that? Does their religion teach them to use violent ways for such trivial things? If yes, then what type of religion is that which can not tolerate disagreement or questions? If not, then why they are going against the teaching of their own religion?  

The main purpose of any movie is to entertain people, they sometimes also try to deliver some message using this platform of entertainment. If any such attempt provokes discussion or raises some questions in people's minds then any such attempt should be welcomed, not attacked. Many mythological movies show many nonscientific things under the name of miracles but scientists or atheists who don't believe in such things don't go and attack cinema halls showing these movies or demand to ban them. In any civilized and tolerant society, everyone has freedom of expression. This freedom should be protected and cherished. The freedom of expression is very important for the progress of any society or country. People of every country have to decide in which direction they want to take their country; conservative and intolerant or liberal and tolerant, choice is theirs.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. 'Oh My God'- A courageous attempt in main stream Hindi cinema.
2. My favorite scene from movie OMG.