Movies of star kids face flak: Fair or not?
MThe nepotism fire in the Hindi film industry refuses to die down, and people seem to be boycotting films starring star kids. In the latest instance, the trailer of Janhvi Kapoor’s Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl has been trolled by a section on social media, citing nepotism. Earlier, it was the Bhatt family’s Sadak 2, starring Alia Bhatt, daughter of filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and actor Soni Razdan when #BoycottSadak2 was trending.
Apart from these, a number of other star kids’ films such as Coolie No. 1 (Varun Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan), Bhuj: The Pride of India (Sonakshi Sinha) and The Big Bull (Abhishek Bachchan) are up for release.
This raises a question: is it fair to troll a film before it has even released, just because the actor is a star kid? Industry people disagree strongly.
Writer Apurv Asrani, who had come forward in Kapoor’s support, says, “The real problem is the bullying; and the ganging up. That is what many did to Sushant (Singh Rajput, late actor). Now, they are doing the same thing to Janhvi.”
Pankaj Tripathi, who plays the role of Kapoor’s father in the film, says, “Right now, we can praise it and say ‘it’s great’. But till people don’t see it, doesn’t matter what I say.”
Pooja Bhatt, on the other hand, says, “I don’t have time, energy or interest to hate the haters. I’m too busy loving the lovers.” Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar feels that people need to realise nobody is forcing them to watch any movie. “I know how much time goes into making a film, to even raise funds. It’s a humongous task to complete and release a film,” he says.
As for filmmaker Hansal Mehta, he thinks that trolling is an ‘absolute insane thing’. He feels that a film should be judged as a film. “All this nonsense narrative should not come into your judgement about the film,” he reasons.
Kapoor, in an interview to Hindustan Times, addressed the backlash and said that taking away from what (people are) feeling “would be demeaning.” But she added, “I’m confident of what I’ve done and there is no reason for us to be apologetic.”
GURMEET CHOUDHARY ACTOR
Nikita Deb
Rishabh Suri