The use of "Pop Culture" in 'Gully Boy'

Aftab (Murad’s father) – I’ve taught you what I’ve learned. Son, your dreams must match with your reality.

Murad – I will not change my dream to match my reality. I will change my reality to match my dream. God has given me a gift and I won’t give it back

A powerful scene from Gully Boy, when Murad’s father asks him to align his dream with his reality because people like us have to think twice before dreaming big and we have to make sure that our head is always down while we’re moving forward in life because this is our destiny. But, Murad was very determined that he can change his life because he is gifted. 

The intent  Zoya Akhtar had was not only to present the popularity of hip-hop culture in India, but also to bring in light the struggle of those who are not privileged, but want to change their life. The film tries to present the dark inequality in India.

 In John Fiske’s book Understanding Pop Culture, he says “Popular culture is made by various formations of disempowered or subordinated people out of the resources, both discursive and material that are provided by the social system that disempowers them”.

 In Gully Boy, Murad and many others like him use hip-hop as a channel to change their lives, to make the world feel their presence and it’s all because development happened but they don’t have the access to all the resources and opportunities.

 

Pop-culture can be reactionary in nature, it opposes the culture created in a social system that disempowers them. This opposition can be done through songs, popular texts, films, politics, technology etc.

In Gully Boy, music was used as a medium to oppose.  Even NDTV in their recent Swachh Bharat campaign used Rap as a medium to educate the people about the importance of cleanliness.  Now coming back to Gully Boy,  in the song ‘Azadi’,  there’s  a beautiful rap, they want freedom from starvation, freedom from discrimination because these issues exist in our society. India was ranked 102 out of 117 countries in 2019 Global Hunger Index, we want to become a 5 trillion economy but we can’t feed our people.   Recently two Dalit children were beaten to death in Madhya Pradesh over defecating in the open.  Discrimination, Starvation, Unemployment, Accessibility to good healthcare etc. these problems highlight the dark side of our society.

 John Fiske in his book says that “If the cultural commodities or texts do not contain resources out of which the people can make their own meanings of their social relations. Then these popular forces transform the cultural commodity into a resource, pluralize their meanings and pleasures it offers”. But why did this happen and why there was a need to address these problems through music in a film.

 This reactionary form is quite evident in Gully Boy where a song like ‘Doori’ comments on India’s Socio – Economic Inequality.  Murad through this song tries to hit the reality hard on our face. He wants the listeners to understand the condition of city slums, where a line  “On the right, I see a building touching the skies and on the left, I see a hungry child sleeping on the streets” or  “There’s an empty sack of rice, and on the other side there’s a sack filled with money”.  This comparison tells us the way development has taken place or is taking place, the gap between the rich and the poor has increased so much that the contrast is very evident.

The ‘Oxfam Inequality Report’ in 2018 said that billionaire fortunes in India increased by 35% – 2200 crore a day – while 13.6 crore Indians who make up the poorest 10% of the country continued to remain in debt since 2004. It tells us the condition of the marginalized and also tells us that even if they dream big, they don’t have an easy access to all the opportunities because there exists a gap.

This song  and this report just show the reality and it’s difficult to ignore because it surrounds us.

Murad wanted to be a professional rapper but his conditions  forced him to prioritise other things like first finding a job, feeding his family, saving his mother from an abusive father. He had to first secure his future, then only he could fulfill his dream. But sometimes in this process dreams get killed.