Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om is a 2007 Bollywood mix of drama, thriller, musical, and comedy. The film follows Om, a junior artist in a 1970s Bollywood setting, as he tries to find his break into super stardom and get noticed by his Bollywood crush, and personal heroine, Shanti.

Like the film Tropic Thunder (2008), Om Shanti Om pokes fun at its own industry. The whole idea of the movie was to play on every Bollywood trope to the point of ridiculousness. In a way, it’s so Bollywood that it’s not at all. As a parody, the film has so many in-jokes with itself and its audience. Many of these are in the form of Bollywood cameos, history, and culture. The musical number in the film, Deewangi Deewangi was a nine minute cramming of cameos. In the whole number, there were about thirty of them. The point of this self mocking was to imply that Bollywood doesn’t take itself as seriously as people think.

The film features various musical numbers, the most iconic being Deewangi Deewangi. However, unlike most musicals the songs didn’t drive the story, as much as they recapped on what had happened up until that point. This begs the question; did those musical numbers really need to be there? While, it is true, from a narrative point of view, the musical numbers were not important, and one could watch the movie through, skipping the songs, and still understand the plot. So, why did the film focus so much on the songs, if they were, in a way, pointless? There are various reasons. First of all (and this is all completely debatable), as a parody film, it needed to mimic the most iconic Bollywood trope of all; random bursts into expensive musical numbers. The point of them was that they were there to enhance the films aesthetic. Ideally, the songs were meant to fit in, and increase the authenticity of it as a Bollywood film, but to some, they felt awkward and out of place. Secondly, it’s a significant part of their culture. Hindi film songs have been a major part of Bollywood, right since the beginning. The first Hindi sound film, Alam Ara (1931) featured seven songs, and was shortly succeeded after, with Shirheen Farhad (1931), which featured 42 sequences, but was then followed by Indra Sabha (1932), which had as many as 69 song sequences. Lastly, because it’s such a big part of their culture, it’s one of the main factors in the films, aside from stardom, which generates revenue. Because of the way that they always generate revenue, even if the film isn’t the best of quality, production studios sometimes set a minimum amount of musical numbers that must be in the film.

So, overall, the film was a statement about its own industry, that they don’t take themselves as seriously as many people think. As a musical, the songs didn’t play an important role in the narrative, but were essential due to the films themes and aesthetic.