Those are some really good points Minty 👍🏼
This is my take on the whole Bollywood nepotism situation:
First of all it DOES exist. And it is rampant. I don't think that is even up for debate tbh.
However, another thing I know for a fact that nepotism is also rampant in various educational institutions, companies, even some schools and hospitals in India. Those who get extremely angry/uncomfortable at the mere thought of India banning "employee quotas" and "donations" in universities or "recommendations" for corporate jobs but rant against nepotism in Bollywood need to do some serious self reflection. Because they can't have it both ways. These people need to realise that it's pure hypocrisy of the worst kind to rally against the nepotism that benefits the upper class at the expense of the middle class, but fiercely defend the types of nepotism that mostly benefit the middle classes at the expense of the working classes.
But sadly it's highly unlikely the government would want to risk losing swathes of middle class voters by cracking down on nepotism. And the opposition would never bring up this subject in a million years, as their own party is probably the biggest bastion of nepotism in the whole of South Asia.
So yes Bollywood does have a nepotism problem, and so does India.
BUT-
The commonality of nepotism in other areas outside Bollywood does not in any way justify the situation we have there today. Pointing fingers at examples of middle class people also using nepotism doesn't prove that Karan Johar isn't doing anything wrong- it just proves that Sharma Uncle is also doing wrong 😆.
How can some of these big production houses justify not launching a SINGLE outsider in a lead role in over a decade?? And to think those are the slightly better ones... In it's 23 years of existing, Dharma Productions has launched but two outsiders in a lead roles, Siddharth Malhotra and Tara Sutaria. SLB Productions seems to have a policy of only taking established stars, but of course they made an exception back in 2007 for star-kids Ranbir and Sonam when they were launched with the typically high-budget Saawariya...
Nepotism has progressively got worse over the past couple of decades too- starting with the 40s right through to the early 00s, it was very common for big production houses to conduct auditions that were open to all members of the public, and launch newcomers from middle class or even working class backgrounds...
The fact that no specialised qualifications are required to become an actor has made nepotism reach another kind of level in today's Bollywood, one much higher than those of most other types of nepotism in India.
And this will carry on as long as we the audiences take it. The only solution to this problem is like Minty and some others on this thread have said: stop hyping up sub-par nepotism products. Stop paying to watch films launching 2-3 nepo kids with no important roles for outsiders. Stop fawning over talentless indiviaduals because of who their aprents/grandparents/siblings are. Start paying to watch movies starring outsiders as leads. Start appreciating good performances from outsiders. When film makers see that the audience want to see talented outsiders on screen, they will start casting them more. We have more power in this than most of them would like to acknowledge, and this is how we use it.
And one more thing- stop practicing and defending nepotism in other areas of life yourselves.
Edited by Anjalika01 - 4 years ago
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