The movie–theatre business is going through an unprecedented crisis. It needs all the support it can get from its devoted patrons if it is to survive.
Preposterous hashtags demanding boycotts of films has now become commonplace in our country. Last Friday they wanted us all to boycott the delightful Darlings on Netflix because the film according to the boycott brigade, espouses male domestic abuse.
I am still processing this one.
Now coming Friday, Raksha Bandhan should be boycotted because?….. Let me see….Akshay Kumar has worked writer Kannika Dhillon who has apparently made anti-Hindu comments in some of her Tweets especially about cows. This makes no sense at all.
And Laal Singh Chaddha should be boycotted because Aamir Khan made a foolish badly phrased comment that he “likes” India. Aamir should sack his writing team and hire a fresh writer. Not Kannika Dhillon.
The absurdity of this homegrown cancel culture is boundless. Firstly those asking for these bans haven’t seen the films that want banned. They have just seen the trailer or a poster and assumed it is ‘boycottable’(to coin a new word in support of the massive trend). When boycott Darlings began trending the film hadn’t started streaming. But the promotional clips showed Alia Bhatt and her mother Shefali Shah tying up Alia’s abusive husband and torturing him.
That was enough to ask for poor Alia’s film to be punished.
I don’t know of anyone, man or woman, husband or wife who has been offended by Darlings. In fact, I feel Mandeep Kaur who killed herself last week after eight years of continuous spousal torture in New York should have tied her husband ensuring that the rope was the tightest around his neck.
Coming to Raksha Bandhan and Kanika Dhillon, she is one of the numerous professionals associated with the film. Why should the film be punished for what she said or didn’t say or said but didn’t mean, or whatever? Why are we giving Ms Dhillon so much importance?
If we do a past-check on every cast-and-crew member of a film we are bound to come up with something or the other to rant against a film and bay for its blood. Remember what one wise man said: if it is going to be an eye-for-an-eye, we will soon have a blind civilization. No worries about offensive artistes in the movies then. Because there would no movies if everyone is blind.
As for Aamir Khan’s silly statement on how he ‘likes’ India’, India will one day be grateful for being liked by Aamir. At the moment India is wondering who the hell writes his public utterances? Laal Singh Chaddha is not about Aamir alone. Approximately 270 crore rupees hang in it. If we are going to punish the film for its leading man’s unthinking proclamations, we will soon have no movies left to watch.
The movie–theatre business is going through an unprecedented crisis. It needs all the support it can get from its devoted patrons if it is to survive. Sulking and pouting in a corner for imaginary insults is not the need of the hour. Let’s get a bit less squeamish about who said what. The professional protesters need to find another means to keep themselves busy. Rather than shout for films to be boycotted, why not ask what the offending artiste was thinking while sending off casually liberal lines? This is fright-wing politics.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.
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