The world of social media has a lot of noise and not a lot of that is white noise. Those who have a keen ear for listening to what is being said, can decipher the truth from the noise. Recently, Arshad Warsi has gone viral for the wrong reasons as he expressed his opinions on watching Kalki 2898 AD and not liking the film or the leading man, Prabhas’ performance. Everyone’s jumped at the idea that Arshad called Prabhas a “joker” with respect to his performance in Kalki 2898 AD. But we at Filmfare, sat down to hear and re-hear the podcast, specifically the part about Kalki 2898 AD and Prabhas. Here’s what was out takeaway and it’s not part of the popular opinion at all. We explain.
Revisiting the conversation
During the podcast, the show’s host Samdish Bhatia asked Arshad is he’d recently watched a film he didn’t like and if he could drop a name. Samdish says and we quote, “Last kounsi film dekhi buri? Ek naam lelo jo le sako.” Arshad replies, “Maine Kalki dekhi joh mujhe achchi nahi lagi.” The host follows up with a retort, “Trailer se bahut khaas toh nahi lag rahi thi.”
Arshad agrees and continues to say, “Mujhe nahi achchi lagi. Mujhe bahut takleef hoti hai jab… Amitji (Amitabh Bachchan) was unbelievable. I can’t understand that man yaar. I cannot understand that man. I swear, jitna power unmein hain na, thoda sa mil jaye na, life ban jayegi. He is unreal yaar.”
Then Arshad starts to speak about Prabhas and what he thought about the performance. He says, “Prabhas I am really sad but, why was he… (pauses) He was like a joker. Why?” And then Arshad explains his rationale and says, “You know, I wanna see a Mad Max yaar. I wanna see Mel Gibson over there. Tumne usko kya bana diya yaar? Kyun karte hain aisa log nahi samajh mein aata yaar.”
Here’s what we feel Arshad was trying to convey when he said and we quote, “He was like a joker. Why?” Arshad was trying to ponder why Prabhas’ character was reduced to being a comedic one, who was doing physical comedy like a joker in a circus would. The key lines come later on when Arshad says and we quote, “Tumne usko kya bana diya yaar? Kyun karte hain aisa log nahi samajh mein aata yaar. (What did you turn him into? I don’t understand why do people do that?)”
The most obvious inference we can draw from these lines is that Arshad is asking the makers or writers or director why they relegated Prabhas to doing physical comedy when the subject and setting of their film should have featured him in a no-nonsense, intense action avatar like Mel Gibson did in the Mad Max movies from the early 1980s.
What Arshad was probably trying to do was draw parallels between two styles of performances and he referred to Prabhas’ performance in Kalki 2898 AD as being akin to a joker’s when it should ideally have been that of a hard-core action hero.
Social media loves to misconstrue opinions
We all know, bringing out the viral factor in celebrities’ opinions is far easier and more important in the world of social media than the representation of truth. While Arshad hasn’t cleared his stance and there’s no reason why he should, we honestly believe his words were misrepresented and their true meaning wasn’t really put forward in the posts and articles that claimed Arshad had called Prabhas a joker.
This has been a Filmfare explainer on this misunderstood matter and we will keep scrolling the social media timelines to find more perplexing matters that need a little deep dive and explaining. Stay tuned.
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