Bangarada Manushya [2]
This is an extremely important poster. Important because of the many issues it tries to touch upon. This poster in a very subtle manner tries to establish the 'Rajkumar effect' on the Kannada film industry. The poster does not once refer to Rajkumar by name but the multiple references to 'Bangarada Manushya' leaves the reader with no doubt as to the purpose of the poster.
This poster is not simply meant for publicity, it has been cleverly used as a retaliatory measure. The agenda of the poster is remarkably different as it is text heavy compared to the image heavy posters widely used even to this day.
This poster trounces the claim of another film(trying to find out) of having surpassed the box office collection of Bangarada Manushya. Interestingly enough it does not challenge the claim on the ground of currency or numbers. In an unprecedented manner the poster challenges the claim on the grounds of economics and popular support. It brings into play the inflation and cost index. It argues that what should be considered is not just the currency value but the value of money when the film was produced and the collection had to be accounted for the inflation growing over the years.
This poster also voices the popularity and the target audience issues. Drawing a comparison with Sholay which at the point of the poster being written had successfully completed 4 years of screening in Bombay, the poster argues that Sholay had a multi star cast, 70mm track, six track sound and it completed 4 years in Mumbai which has a hindi speaking audience base approximately 8 times larger than the audience for Bangarada Manushya.
The fact that 'States Film Theatre' had to resume the screening of Bangarada Manushya has been used as a ploy to answer to the Rajkumar rival camp and the pulling down of Bangarada Manushya from that theatre is seen as an act of conspiracy.
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