Express Archive
Humour is a versatile weapon. It can be used to ridicule power, to cut through moments of tension and, for those who wield it with skill, even self-deprecation. But when three rich, powerful men — Hindi film industry royalty, each of them — deploy their inherited privilege against a first generation talent, the joke is entirely on them. At the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards held last week, Karan Johar, Saif Ali Khan and Varun Dhawan said they were there because of their “papa” and “mummy”, and claimed “nepotism rocks!”. Johar even took a jibe Kangana Ranaut saying that “Kangana na hi bole to achha hai. Kangana bahut bolti hai.” (“It’s best if Kangana doesn’t speak. She talks a lot.”)
That Bollywood is something of an insiders’ club is no secret. Among their male superstar contemporaries, for example, Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar are the only ones who are “outsiders”. The normalisation of nepotism was openly challenged by Ranaut on Koffee with Karan in February when she called the host its “flag-bearer” on his own show. While Ranaut seems to have moved on, she has clearly hit a nerve. Rather than acknowledge the advantages of their lineage, the three men decided to ridicule her from a public stage. While Dhawan has since tweeted a vague apology without mentioning Ranaut, Johar and Khan remain mum on their misfired attempt at humour.
The Hindi film industry has stayed vibrant and relevant because it absorbs talent — both in front of and behind the camera — from across the country and beyond. Ranaut has emerged as an actor of substance and a vocal public figure. She is also a bankable star. In its own way, her jibe on Koffee with Karan was an opportunity for the entitled inheritors of Bollywood to make fun of themselves, to recognise that cinema cannot — and must not — be the fiefdom of a few. Instead, they went with “nepotism rocks”.
