hhota Bheem’s creator Rajiv Chilaka, CEO of Greengold Animation, talks about the psyche of the fans of the show, plans of a reboot, toning down the violence and why it’s hard to please everybody.
We’ve seen Chhota Bheem in his trademark dhoti and bare bodied look. He seems to have got a makeover in the upcoming movie?
It’s only for the movie, Chhota Bheem Himalayan Adventure that releases in theatres on January 8. His look for the shows on TV remains the same. All the previous three movies until now were set abroad. Chhota Bheem and the Curse of Damyaan (2012) was based in a fantastical land, The Throne of Bali (2013) was set in Bali. A spinoff of the series, Mighty Raju (2014), was in Brazil.
With the new one, we thought why should look outside and instead chose something that forms the core of India — the Himalayas. Bheem and his friends go on a vacation there; they want to play some adventure sports. And to ski and enjoy the snow, they have to be well-clothed.
Chhota Bheem is arguably the most popular cartoon show in India today. What have you grown up watching?
There weren’t many choices of entertainment when I was growing up. The first cartoon I watched was Jungle Book when I was five years old. My father took me to a theatre in Hyderabad. I didn’t know what a cartoon looks like, as there was no TV.
I thought a cartoon is something that forms when a pencil moves. The film left an everlasting impact in my head. After that I got into Superman, Spiderman, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and other comics. Then there was Tintin, Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle.
I always wanted these things to move. And that was already happening in the West. When the Superman movie came out in 1986, I wanted to meet a superhero. When I told my dad this, he said that Superman lives in America. Whether it was Spiderman or Donald Duck, the answer was always America.
Having gone through that, I now understand the psyche of kids. Often, when I go to see a film, I observe how kids respond to them more than I see the film, what they are laughing at, what’s scaring them.
Kids like to be in a comfortable setting. They like to hear the same story again and again, just like we did from our grandparents. They like familiar things. They don’t warm up to new characters easily. You have to put on a lot of work to do that if you have to introduce a new character. For example, the Minions instalments Part 2 onwards is far more successful simply because kids took time to register the new cartoons.
Children also prefer simple, linear storytelling. In Mighty Raju, we tried flashback, in a non-linear track and they got confused. The slightly older kids between nine and ten years were fine. But the ones below it didn’t respond well when we did our tests with our research groups. They always tend to know what next and not what happened in the past.
Another thing that may surprise you is that CB has more girl fans than boys. Girls watch it till they are 14 years old. Boys stop watching it till they are eight or twelve years old. Then they graduate to other things. And even if they watch, they don’t like to admit it because they think it’s for younger boys. Girls communicate better and are more upfront that way. Also, Chutki, Bheem’s closest friend has a big role to play here. It wasn’t the case at first. The first time I showed the pilot episode to my niece, she had asked why was Chutki not doing anything. Since then we’ve made it a template that Chutki gets the ideas and Bheem executes. So even if one doesn’t connect to Bheem always, there are others in the team who they connect to.
There is tremendous responsibility that comes with being such a popular show with kids. The cartoon has now spawned into merchandise, gaming, movies. What kind of values and lessons do you promote?
We make sure there is always some kind of a moral message. Despite the internal enmity in Bheem’s group, for example, they always stand by each other in times of trouble. And we discourage lying and encourage respecting elders. We also try to spread awareness of modern problems by telling them to wash hands before eating or how to avoid dengue or other epidemics.
In spite of its popularity, CB has attracted criticism for promoting violence, propagating stereotyping by showing the good as fair-skinned and evil as dark-skinned and reinforcing gender roles.
Nothing is intentional of course. These are artistic exaggerations, someone is muscular, and someone is short. It’s for variation, to mix and match. Indians come with different skin tones. The characters could be from anywhere in the country Then why do movies have only good-looking actors playing heroes and heroines?
After we got mails addressing these issues, we corrected wherever we felt we needed to. Now, we have villains who are fair and good characters that are purple in colour too. We have toned down the violence a lot.
The initial episodes had a lot of fighting between the characters. Earlier 10 minutes of content had three minutes of action, now it’s only used when required. We have evolved. But it is also true that it’s hard to please everyone. We’ve got letters questioning Bheem’s bare bodied look and accusing us of promoting nudity. Our mythological gods are topless. CB is set in the past where half of India still doesn’t have shirts to wear.
According to critics, the quality of animation in Chhota Bheem is aesthetically mediocre. Today, when kids are exposed to cutting-edge animation from the likes of Pixar and Disney from Hollywood, how do you expect them to stick around with CB?
I agree that it’s very simplistic. Under the circumstances that we had started CB, our aim was to make it as low-cost as possible. That’s how we arrived at this look and feel. We can change the style of animation now but I’m afraid that the characters will lose their charm. But we are not very far from the kind of work the West is doing. It’s not only about their budgets. They spend more time; people at work are more experienced. We too, at some point, want to reboot Chhota Bheem. That’s a natural progression.
How has the Internet changed the game for CB?
It’s changed a bit but not completely. CB is still a TV phenomenon. The episodes are shown exclusively on Pogo. But one can’t deny that every kid today has access to an Ipad or a phone. Mothers write to us demanding shorter CB related clips, songs to keep their kids engaged so that they can finish cooking or do the chores. We’re working on that. We have games for smartphones that are doing very well and we also will also be soon available on Video on Demand platforms.
Chota Bheem Himalayan Adventure will release on Friday, January 8.
