What is wrong with the word "Bollywood"

Totally agree. I just dont get it. When we can adapt to the western style of clothing and die to wear them and have our music fusioned to the west style and do everything in tandem with the west, just this petty name all of a sudden became a big issue.
Plain stupid.

You ask what is wrong with the word "BOLLYWOOD" and then you give many reasons to justify that nothing is wrong with the word. Perfectly alright, you are entitled to have your opinions, but I am also free to counter those opinions. Let me counter your every reason,....

You say,...
For some (from Aam cyber Aadmis on this site to our mega star Amitabh Bachchan), it's a derogatory term. Agreed, it is derogatory for you if you are still living in that world where you associate every minor thing with richness of Indian culture and civilization or the whole "sone ki chidiya" concept. It is derogatory if the role model of a teenager growing up in India was Chanakya and not Curtis James "50 Cent" Jackson III.
I say,...
Does this mean that today we must not associate with our richness of Indian culture and civilization? Then whose culture and civilisation we must associate with? Pakistan's culture? England's culture? or American culture? Does this mean that we must forget Chanakya and consider our role model as Curtis James (I dont even know who that is?). Does this mean that after the so called "Globalisation ", "Liberalisation", and "Americanisation" we throw away our heritage in dust bins.
And "sone ki chidiya" is what India was before England came to India (now don't say that there was no such united India....), with our economy based on cottage industries, England destroyed our cottage industry based on caste, I know it very well because I am a Telugu Padmashali (popular Solapur chaddars), Telugu Padmashali caste was the richest caste in India. After the arrival of cheap cloth from England our caste was doomed, they lost the self respect, the pride, eventually most of our caste became addicted to liquor and meat. This is what England did to every other Indian under their rule they systematically looted and raped our country for 200 years, taking out our resources to their country as raw materials for their industries and then selling those finished products in India.
England arrived as traders and then ruled us, today America has arrived as traders of Globalisation, it will be not long before America rules us. Indian people slaved for 200 years to make England Great Britain , fuel their Industrial Revolution, now we will help America to become the ultimate super power by becoming "cyber coolies" fueling their IT revolution.
This is sign of ultimate slavery, total surrender, if you are not ashamed by this, if your patriotic blood does not boil by this, then you probably have very thick skin.

You say,....
It is derogatory if you made the most original movies in the world and told stories that transcend cultures, boundaries and languages. Think about it what is so bad about the term, the fact that it is tagging Indian film Industry as a copy cat of Hollywood?? I thought that's what we were...we copy scenes, dialogues, dresses and numerous movies and we get pissed if they call us Bollywood? This is double standards at it's best. Amitabh Bachchan the role model of Indian film industry comes out and says " I think Bollywood is a derogatory term, we have our own film industry and they have their own...blah blah blah" and next thing you know he's walking in slow motion in Kaante and Ek Ajnabi - pathetic ripoffs of Hollywood movies.
I say,...
Why don't we stop copying? instead of giving it a certificate? Yes the name "BOLLYWOOD" is indeed a certificate for copying. And it makes us to copy more and more. Is this what we want to become? a cheap imitation of HOLLYWOOD? like duplicate chinese goods.

You say,...
I think it was someone's sheer genius that such a term came about and is very much in line with the "high concept" theme in the film industry
I say,...
Why dont we call the American film industry according to our own name? Our genuis.
'H' from Hollywood and 'umbai' from Mumbai make it as HUMBAI, why dont we rename HOLLYWOOD to HUMBAI? We cannot because American people will get angry (oh mummy I am scared of their nuclear bombs)

You say,...
While we are on this point I've never heard anyone refer the Japanese, Chinese, Korean or French film industry by their respective woods.....case in point maybe it's because it's all original stuff or could it be that they probably don't feel the need to be recognized by US media.
I say,..
But then Japan has Japanese language, China has Mandarin language, Korea has Korean language, France has French language English is not present in their country. Why do they don't have English? Why do they associate with their own language? Why do they associate with their own culture and civilisation? Why dont they have Curtis James "50 Cent" Jackson III (again who the hell is this person?) as their role model? The answer is simple because they are proud of their own heritage. We have lost our self respect our pride.

One comment already made by snazzy.
And snazzy says we must do everything western ....
I say,...
Ok what if China Attacks the US and defeats them, and destroys the western civilisation and English language supremacy from this world?
Will India still continue to speak English? Will India still continue with that western culture? Or.......
Will India now accept the supremacy of China and become the slaves of Chinese, adopting Chinese language, Chinese culture and every thing Chinese..........
Then we would be told that "Aryan's" migrated from somewhere in China to India instead of the present day "Aryan Invasion Theory " which states that Aryan's migrated to India from Germany.
Then we would start wearing Chinese style Kimono instead of English Suits and Tie (how the hell do they wear tie in Indian summer heat?) (I know Kimono is a national dress of Japan and not of China, now don't go to the details ... just understand)
Then we would have a Chinese fast food culture (already this has started to happen)
Then our music would be remixed with Chinese musical instruments with Chinese taste, instead of the western musical instruments and English taste.
Then our films would be remade with Chinese cultural imprints.
Then we would be having someone to justify this cultural domination by the Chinese as Sunil and snazzy now do it for cultural domination by the West. (there should be cultural exchange instead of cultural domination)

All this will happen because we are a nation of a bunch of cowards and slaves. We have been under foreign rule for more than thousand years. 800 years of Muslim rule and 200 years of Christian rule ( someone will say Muslim are as Indian as their Hindu counterparts so what if they partitioned? ). We are used to slavery. Slavery is now in our blood. Hindus' are destined to remain as slaves forever.

I say stop worrying about the name, instead start making good cinema, which has no bounds. Call it anything - Bollywood or Hindi Film Industry...it will still remain the same crap of xerox movies, copied from Hollywood, Chinese and others.

Having said that, you must not forget that it's not that we do not have "original" talents. We do have, however limited in number, some genuine film makers. We have had Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor, Satyajit Ray, V Shataram and the likes in the past. And Nagesh Kukunoor, Rakeysh Mehra, Rajkumar Hirani, Ashutosh Gowarikar and a few others in the current lot.

Getting back to the point, it does not matter what you call yourself - let your work speak. So, stop bothering about "Bollywood". Leave that to politicians, the way they keep renaming Bangalore to Bangluru, Madras to Chennai, Bombay to Mumbai...instead of working towards betterment.

Aam Bhartiya Aadmi, I see nothing wrong in trying to be like Hollywood or US for that matter. There should be no shame in trying to be like the best. US is at least 200 years ahead of India. So, that way India is at an advantage that it does not need to reinvent the wheel. It can reuse the best practices and get even better. Yes, the efforts should be sincere and genuine with some innovations rather than plain copy. At the end of the day, what matters is the end product.

ABA Curtis Jackson is actually a rapper who is apparently very famous and also known as 50 cent.....and he's very famous in China after Yao Ming ofcourse.....

you wrote a lot of good things in your comment and its nice to see someone feel so strongly about something.....but the sad part is you completely missed the point of my post.....I wasn't saying that we should be like America or any other country....hell we shouldn't even be talking in English if we think we are self reliant and don't depend on dollars and pounds why should we? right?.....but that's something which you are aspiring that we as a nation should achieve.....and that's all good, more power to you and whoever else feels the same way....I'm with you there....

My problem is with double standards.....when people do something and say something else.....for example copy all Hollywood movies and have a problem with the name Bollywood.....that's it that was the simple point I was trying to make.....the day they start making original stuff they have every right to cry foul.....it's like saying don't call a fat guy fat....I mean you are fat so if you have a problem start working out and lose weight.....but if you are happy being fat then don't get mad when people call you fat.....its a very simple argument.....

I am not even going to touch on other issues you raised because they are your opinions and you are entitled to those.....

BTW read again Snazzy didn't say we should do everything western.....she said when "we already do" everything western.....whats in a name?

I have no problems you using this place to vent and feel better......but atleast read what others have said before going on a tangent.....

As the author says, there is nothing wrong with the word "Bollywood". What's wrong is what kind of movies it makes...