The answer lies in the audience's contract with the filmmaker. In Masala Woods entertainment, emotion precedes logic . The hero sings in Switzerland because joy demands expression. The hero flies through the air because justice should look heroic. It is not realism; it is .

Films like Sholay (1975) and Deewar (1975) perfected the formula. Sholay —still cited as the greatest Bollywood film ever made—is a Western, a musical, a comedy, and a tragedy all at once. It was the birth of modern .

, when it is at its best, is not trying to win an Oscar for Best Picture. It is trying to make the man in the back row of the dilapidated theater whistle so loud that his ears ring. It is trying to make the grandmother cry, the grandson laugh, and the lovers hold hands.

The logic is simple: In a depressing news cycle, audiences don't want grim realism. They want a hero. They want color. They want the Masala. A common critique of Bollywood cinema from The New York Times or Sight & Sound is the "lack of verisimilitude." They ask: Why does the hero sing in the Swiss Alps right after his mother dies? Why is the physics of the fight scene impossible?

Suddenly, a viewer in Ohio was watching RRR (a Telugu film, cousin to Bollywood) and losing their mind over the "Naatu Naatu" dance sequence. While RRR comes from Tollywood (Telugu), its success flooded interest into . Netflix and Prime Video began buying Masala films for record sums.