Gone are the days when we bunked classes to catch a movie. Out with the old and in with the new, the new being “Netflix and chill”. This phrase adequately captures the rise to prominence of the web series culture. Web series have gained increasing popularity especially amongst the youth and their riotous attempt to break the fourth wall is commendable. Movie theatres are now just a bunch of redundant structures, grieving the loss of their popularity. Why do you think the youth is moving away from the once popular art form of cinema?
Movies are essentially time and budget oriented. They cannot go on for a prolonged period of time. Web series by contrast respect no time constraints and are inherently more fascinating. They do not conform, which means they adhere to no taboos, are not censored and can achieve their effect in turmoil and shock. Also, movies often begin so close to their end, it leaves very little space for character development. One remains what one is, the character arc often looks forced and the action-shallow. Spectators are not given enough time to imbibe what they just witnessed. Also, characters like Eleven (stranger things) or Pablo Escobar (Narcos) or Ganesh Gaitonde (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Sacred Games) are far more intriguing than the one-dimensional roles we come across in movies.
Prasenjit Ghosh, a corporate worker says, “The story building in a web series is a lot smoother compared to movies. You can tell a long story into a series without compromising the story but the same can’t be said about movies. Also accessibility to web series is lot easier than movies.” Of course we would agree that you can watch a series on your TV, phone, laptop – anywhere, without having to conform to the timings of the movie hall or having to travel to any place.
“The stories are original and pertain to the modern young-adult society in contrast to the somewhat exaggerated lives that Bollywood movies often portray” says Agnimitra Chatterji, a student.
Suchismita Kundu, an engineering student says, “Being a core web series fan, I feel a web series creates much more curiosity among the youngsters because films can at maximum run for 3hrs and somewhere while seeing the trailer we can presume much. But, coming to the new flow of the web series, the time duration increases as well as one can’t presume much since it is broken into series and needs to watch more and more to know about it. And present day Youngsters have a sort of competition or rather feel the peer pressure to binge watch web series. That’s also one of the reasons of its rapid popularity.”
“Netflix and chill” marks the beginning of an era. And with so many talented actors cast into these series, these really give a tough competition to movies these days!
