On criticism in Telugu cinema
Twitter, the ever brimming cesspool of world events, constantly brings up one issue ailing Telugu cinema, the lack of proper film critics who stand against the waves of Telugu movies released each year with nothing remarkable to write home about. What ends up as film criticism is marketing, where the critic functions as another arm in the hype machine to pull precious eyeballs to the screen. As a critic's ability to survive in this cutthroat business depends on the acceptance of the power centralization in the Telugu Film Industry, there's never any dissent heard from them in any of the major issues that audience find in the movies. Instead, they ensure that the fans are never too rattled and thereby insulating themselves against further criticism and sustaining their career for another season.
The fact is, critics are the bottom-of-the-barrel scuds in the whole film tapestry, they're distillers of culture that other people have written, produced, directed and acted in, they are elevated filmgoers with a megaphone but apart from this they're indistinguishable from the rest of the audience. For people working within the film industry the critics are an necessary nuisance, no one knows if the critics can influence the Box Office future of a film but it's a chance that'd not be considered especially when the probability of a hit is so low.
A critic needn't SJW warrior through the politics of a movie but needs to have the spine to call out bad acting, writing and any other pet peeve technicality they might have a super focus in (and my working hypothesis is that the best critics turn out to be the best directors). But this is already too much to ask – check the number of times a Telugu film critic called out a major male lead for bad acting in the past years, even though these actors are typecast or sleepwalking through their roles, the critic needs to pay lip service to the fans or have their social media walls vandalized. This doesn't even consider the umpteen times that male actors have glorified sexual harassment, colourism and choosing to not pair with older actresses on screen.
In a society where politics and film converge, it's worth noting the similarities between attitudes towards political dissent and film criticism. Freedom of thought and speech relegate themselves to idealist visions and there's a top down enforcement of power. Can't say much about how that fares for politics but atleast in art, that doesn't bode too well for the long-term.