For a few days now I have been coming
across articles and post on social websites that apparently Priyanka Chopra was
paid more money to emulate Mary Kom than Mary Kom made in her entire life
playing herself. This has come in as a great criticism towards the society who
is willing to pay more to watch Priyanka Chopra enact Mary Kom than they would
actually pay to see Mary Kom perform live.
Is this wrong? Should Mary Kom be
paid royalty from the film’s revenue? Should movie actors be paid less? Or should
sports starts be remunerated more?
How can the above questions be
answered? Who decides the remuneration of these professionals? According to my
knowledge I guess it’s the market forces. You cannot force someone to pay more
to watch something which is apparently not worth it. I know many including
myself who will pay ₹ 500 – ₹ 700 or even more to watch a movie but not even a
tenth of those would pay ₹ 50 to watch a boxing match. And why should they. Indecently
a boxing is not entertaining enough to attract the attention of the audience
and nobody can be forced to go, pay and watch something they don’t want to.
I am not taking anything away
from Mary Kom, she has been great to achieve every bit of what she has done, but
in the wrong field possibly, if she believes she should have made more money.
But if she is content with what she has done and all the accolades she received
for being what she is then I guess that should be satisfactory enough. On the
other hand everyone here is ignoring the act that Priyanka Chopra was not born
as an actor. If she is getting paid a hefty amount that is because she has
struggled enough to be where she is.
Why is sports so important? Probably
because it brings fame to the nation, entertains the audiences relives them
from the stress of everyday work. A country good at sports depicts its prosperity.
So does movies. Movies are pure form of art. Every good movie has a reach
across the globe and brings name and fame for the country. Mary Kom’s hard work
and achievements may not have impressed the people across to remunerate her as
much as Priyanka Chopra’s hard work to depict the same. So where is it wrong on
the part of the society to pay a movie star more than a sports star.
Another debate that always crops
up in such situations is ‘had she been a cricketer!’ Looks like Cricket is the
only natural child of sport and rest are all foster. Again the same thing,
people pay for cricket matches because they enjoy watching a cricket match. I am
not being rude but who accepted boxing as a sport in the first place. Two or
more people hitting each other deliberately in a ring unless the other falls.
This is nomadic and if I am asked should be banned. No literate society would
ever accept such hooliganism. Whereas sports like cricket, football, tennis,
golf, hockey, Sprint racing etc are sprots in every literal sense; boxing ,
wrestling, weightlifting etc are baggage from ancient society when man was not
developed enough to know what is right and what is wrong.
I believe Priyanka Chopra deserves
every penny of what she has made and if Mary deserves more she will get it if
she doesn’t then she never deserved it. Well she deserved a movie being made on
her which I guess not even greats like Hema Malini, Madhubala, Madhuri or even
Priyanka did. So that’s something to be proud of.
