Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor holds nothing back, talking with News18 Showsha about how the Hindi film industry has been impacted by an “anti-Bollywood narrative” which started by a “certain section” of media during the Covid-19 pandemic.
After Sushant Singh Rajput’s unexpected death in 2020, Bollywood was subjected to severe criticism for alleged “favouritism,” “nepotism” and “discrimination” against outsiders. The anger soon translated into hashtags like ‘boycott Bollywood’ and ‘ban Bollywood’ taking over top trends on Twitter. Things got even uglier for the industry when several Bollywood celebrities including Sushant’s then-girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty were brought in for questioning by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) over alleged drug abuse and procurement claims.
Two years later, the controversial hashtags made their return when Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha and Ranbir Kapoor starrer Brahmastra: Part I – Shiva were releasing in theatres. While Ranbir believes that there are still a lot of people who “love Hindi cinema and equally fight for it”, there’s a certain section which has been spreading a “narrative of lies” against the industry.
“I don’t think everybody does it,” says Ranbir. “But I have been seeing this since a couple of years that suddenly there’s an anti-Bollywood narrative has started post the Covid-19 pandemic which hasn’t stopped yet whether it’s comparing it with South film industry…”
Of late, there has been a constant debate around the box office numbers of Bollywood films and South movies and how the latter has beaten several big Hindi releases when it comes to collections. And, Ranbir says he finds these comparisons “silly” as the Hindi film industry is extremely happy with the success of South films.
“Hindi cinema is very proud of films like KGF, RRR and Baahubali. We all are inspired by these films and we also want to do films that reach such a large audience, but I think a lot of it is media to blame. There were certain media members during that period who were going with this propaganda of ‘boycott Bollywood… Bollywood ye hai, wo hai… drugs and all of that to kind of shame Bollywood,'” points out the actor.
He further adds, “I’ll just say that our job is to entertain you but ‘aapko film nahi dekhni aap mat dekho na… why are you starting a narrative of lies?’ It’s not just the actors but there are so many people who work in this industry toh aap unke paet pe kyu laat maar rahe ho (why are you destroying their livelihood?) I found it really silly and stupid and now since I have been doing marketing, I’m asked this question repeatedly in press conferences so it’s like ‘aap mere paet pe laat maar rahe ho mere industry pe laat maar rahe ho toh what do I say?’ They read something on social media then ask me and when I give my opinion it gets misconstrued. It’s all silly and stupid.”
On the work front, Ranbir Kapoor is currently gearing up for the release of Luv Ranjan’s Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, which also stars Shraddha Kapoor.
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