{"id":742,"date":"2012-08-10T07:29:32","date_gmt":"2012-08-10T07:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teekhapan.wordpress.com\/?p=742"},"modified":"2012-08-10T07:29:32","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T07:29:32","slug":"what-ek-tha-tiger-has-in-common-with-mona-lisa-harry-potter-and-rajinikanth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/2012\/08\/10\/what-ek-tha-tiger-has-in-common-with-mona-lisa-harry-potter-and-rajinikanth\/","title":{"rendered":"What Ek Tha Tiger has in common with Mona Lisa, Harry Potter and Rajinikanth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nVivek Kaul
\n<\/strong>
\nSalman Khan\u2019s Ek Tha Tiger<\/em> releasing on August 15 is expected to do roaring business. A famous film critic who runs a film trade magazine feels the movie will break new grounds and has the potential to earn more than Rs 200 crore.
\nOnce the film has done the roaring business you will find film critics, analysts and even you and me giving all kinds of reasons for the success.
\nThe film was shot in Turkey, Ireland, Cuba and Iraq, countries that most Indian movies haven\u2019t been shot before.
\nFor once, Katrina wasn\u2019t just arm candy.
\nUnlike other Salman movies this one really had a story.
\nBhai was doing what he does best: beating up the baddies.
\nThe film had an uninterrupted six day long weekend (starting from August 15, the Independence Day to August 20, the day of Eid).
\nAll Salman Khan movies releasing during the Eid weekend do well.
\nAnd so on.
\nBut these will be explanations about something that has already happened after it has happened. The film may have worked because of all of these reasons or none of them. We really wouldn\u2019t know.
\nLets take the case of the famous painting Mona Lisa to understand this phenomenon in a little more detail. The painting was commissioned by a wealthy silk merchant. He wanted Leonardo da Vinci to paint his wife Lisa Gherardini del Giocindo. By the time da Vinci got around to finishing the painting in 1519, nearly 16 years later, he had moved to France from Italy. Hence, Lisa Giocindo nor her husband ever got around to seeing what has turned out to be most famous painting in the world.
\nThe painting hangs at the Mus\u00e9e du Louvre in Paris. Nearly 80% of the 6 million visitors who come to the museum annually, come to see the Mona Lisa. But the interesting thing is that for most of the five centuries of its existence the Mona Lisa was an obscure painting. As Duncan J Watts writes in Everything is Obvious \u2013 Once You Know the Answer<\/em> \u201cfor centuries, the Mona Lisa, was a relatively obscure painting languishing in the private residences of kings\u2026even when it was moved to the Louvre after the French revolution, it did not attract as much attention as the works of other artists.\u201d
\nIt was only when an Italian named Vincezo Peruggia stole the painting in 1911 that the painting became famous. Peruggia managed to hide the painting for two years but was arrested while trying to sell it to an Italian museum. The painting came back to the Louvre.
\nSince then the painting has attracted large crowds. It has also led to a situation where people have explained the reasons behind its popularity. Some have talked about the smile and the novel technique employed by da Vinci to produce so gauzy a finish. Some others about the play of light and so on. As Watts writes \u201cTo oversimplify only slightly, the Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world because it is the best, and although it might have taken us a while to figure this out, it was inevitable that we would. And that\u2019s why so any people are puzzled when they first set eyes on the Mona Lisa.\u201d
\nThey wonder what the fuss is all about. As Watts explains \u201cOf course, most of us, when faced with this moment of dissonance, simply shrug our shoulders and assume that somebody wiser than us has seen things that we can\u2019t see\u2026It sounds as if we\u2019re assessing the quality of work of art in terms of its attributes, but in fact we’re doing the opposite \u2013 deciding first which painting is the best, and only then inferring from its attributes the metrics of quality.\u201d
\nA more recent phenomenon is that of Harry Potter which has been a smashing success. But Joanne “Jo” Rowling, better known as J K Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, had a tough time finding a publisher for the series.
\nIn 1995, she finished the first Harry Porter book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone<\/em>. It was rejected by 12 publishers before Bloomsbury agreed to publish it. The publisher wasn\u2019t really optimistic about the book and the initial print run was 1000 copies, of which 500 were distributed to libraries. The advance Rowling got for the book was \u00a31500. The book and its sequels were a smashing success. According to the Forbes magazine Rowling was the first person become to dollar billionaire by writing books.
\nOf course after the success of the book many reasons have been pointed about why Harry Potter was successful and was a phenomenon waiting to happen. Michael Maouboussin explains this in a research paper titled Was Harry Potter Inevitable?<\/em> \u201cOur society often associates success with quality. In a fiercely competitive market, the thinking goes, only the best products rise to the surface. Once a product is a hit, whether a blockbuster movie or a
\nbestselling book, we readily point to the attributes that make it so appealing..\u201d he writes.
\nWhat this basically means is that it is easy to rationalize success once it has happened. But that doesn\u2019t mean that those were the reasons for the success. Mauboussin calls this the halo effect or \u2018our proclivity to attach attributes to what has succeeded, solely because of the success. The halo effect creates substantial distortion in our thinking.\u201d
\nA similar phenomenon is now playing out with E L James\u2019 Fifty Shades of Gray<\/em> which has outsold Harry Potter. \u201cSorry Harry, it looks like you\u2019re losing your magic. Erotic novel \u201cFifty Shades of Grey\u201d outsold all seven Harry Potter books on Amazon.co.uk on Wednesday, making author E.L. James the website\u2019s best-selling writer ever,\u201d wrote the Sunday Times of London recently. A small cottage industry has sprung up trying to analyse the success of this book which many have dubbed as \u201cmummy porn\u201d.
\nThe film actor Rajinikanth is another great example of this. Realms have been written on trying to explain his stupendous success. But as Manu Joseph wrote in the Open \u201cRajinikanth is another proof that not everything can be analysed just because there is something called analysis. There is no reason why Rajnikanth exists, there is no reason why he did not retire as a Marathi bus conductor, and no reason why he instead became the Superstar who can have theatres go up in flames if he is ever killed at the end of a film. There is nothing in him or in Tamilians that explains his fame. He is the very end of analysis. Some things happen for no reason. And it is no coincidence that the people who really love him are people who do not know that there is a form of employment called analysis.\u201d
\nTo conclude, the explanations people come up with to explain the success are at times largely irrelevant. Watt explains it the best when he says \u201cUltimately\u2026it may simply not be possible to say why…the Harry Potter books sold more than 350 million copies within 10 years…In the end, the only honest explanation may be the one given by the publisher of Lynne Truss\u2019s surprise bestseller, Eats, Shoots and Leaves, who, when asked to explain its success, replied that \u201cit sold because lots of people bought it.\u201d Similarly Ek Tha Tiger<\/em> will run because a lot of people will watch it.
\n(The article originally appeared on www.firstpost.com on August 10,2012. http:\/\/www.firstpost.com\/bollywood\/what-ek-tha-tiger-has-in-common-with-rajinikanth-harry-potter-413290.html\/<\/a>)
\n(Vivek Kaul is a writer who can be reached at vivek.kaul@gmail.com)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vivek Kaul Salman Khan\u2019s Ek Tha Tiger releasing on August 15 is expected to do roaring business. A famous film critic who runs a film trade magazine feels the movie will break new grounds and has the potential to earn more than Rs 200 crore. Once the film has done the roaring business you will … <\/p>\n

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