So its a point of contention between hardcore Sridevi fans and... fact checkers! Without any qualifiers, a statement was released around the release of
Mom that it was Sridevi's 300th film. Now, having worked with very strict editors - particularly the meticulous New York Times fact checkers - every figure and statement had to have verifiable evidence. Now when it comes to film journalism - particularly for bloggers and sound bytes on television - what sounds good is better than what facts are.
Fans have listed unreleased films, incomplete films, dubbed ones (as opposed to entirely re-made films like say
Sadma or
Tohfa and so on) to amp up the number for... no valid reason. We've - and I'm adding other reasonable, moderate, thinking Bollywood insiders, as opposed to blind fanatics - drawn up the list and its about 266 films released in cinemas over Sridevi's prolific 50-year career.
Starting with this and a few more - we're launching a category called Fact Check. So look out for more.
Indian media, particularly film journalism and television journalism - is hardly a paragon of verisimilitude and virtue. If anything came out during Sridevi's untimely and tragic passing, Indian television news is the absolute bottom-feeder in the hierarchy of journalistic standards, morals and ethics. Too many to list in the horrors they revealed when soooo many stars spoke out against the television trolls.