Here’s Why The Hindi Film Industry Is Called Bollywood

Have you ever wondered why Bollywood is called Bollywood?

In today’s world, the Hindi film industry is commonly known as Bollywood across the globe, but who coined the term Bollywood? Has it been called that since the beginning?

Origin of the term Bollywood

In 1910, India’s first-ever motion picture film was released by Dadasaheb Phalke. Then over the years, we have seen several great people contribute to the growth of the Indian film industry.

In earlier decades, the movies used to be more focused on social issues. However, following the end of the British Raj in India, as the Indian film industry says parallel cinema emerged. It co-existed along with the commercial Hindi films.

With years passing by, Hindi films got more commercialized. The films started to focus less on social issues and started producing films as a means of providing the audience with an escape mechanism. Something that took their mind off reality, making them look away from their real-life issues.

This marked the beginning of Masala films in Bollywood and the transformation of Hindi films.

But how did the term Bollywood get coined?

There are many theories regarding how the word ‘Bollywood’ got coined, although it’s difficult to say for sure who came up with the name.

As the production of the number of Hindi films increased, it was noticed that many of them were greatly inspired by Hollywood films. The American film industry is called Hollywood as most of the American actors and filmmakers used to reside near the place called Hollywood. It’s a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California.

The 1940s to the 1960s is considered to be “The Golden Era” for Indian cinema due to the rising popularity of Bengali filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, and Mrinal Sen. The Bengali film industry was known as Tollywood because most of the films got produced in the Tollygunge area.

So, it was just a matter of time before someone coined the term Bollywood for Hindi cinema since most of the Hindi film industry was centered in Bombay.

This happens to be the most popularly accepted theory.

Amitabh Bachchan doesn’t like the name Bollywood

While Bollywood is the most preferred term used to address Hindi film industry by many within the industry, one actor who absolutely doesn’t like it is Amitabh Bachchan.

Explaining his hatred for the word Bollywood, Big B says,

“The Indian film industry is quite big, important and sufficient in itself to describe our industry. I don’t think we need to borrow any sentiments from other parts of the world to describe our cinema.”

Another theory is that the term “Bollywood” was first used by a writer for a film magazine in the 1970s.