There was a time when people would watch Bollywood masala movies just for entertainment and would keep commenting regarding how they liked the film. The audience would discuss about the film to the most extent, rather than looking over whether the actor or actress belong to any influential Bollywood family or not. But then the situation started to change, especially since the last decade. The word 'nepotism' got highlighted and people started to notice that how favoritism is winning over anything else. Many of the real talents would get side roles or roles equivalent to junior artists and after then they would disappear forever. The reason had been majorly one of these two- either those aspiring actors were not connected to any insider or else they were not willing to give in their body to the directors (the latter one is known as casting couch, many outsiders unfortunately falls victim to this one just to make an entry into the industry). Then Metoo movement happened just a few years back and many directors' name started to come out one by one. Since then, the directors and producers have to think twice before doing casting couch again (it's not like casting couch doesn't happen anymore, of course it does, but the impact of Metoo movement has still been remained there somehow).
Now let's talk about nepotism. We already know what nepotism is and how it works, when the actors' relatives or family members get an easy access into a film with an eye-washing audition, then it is called nepotism. It has always been there in this industry, and even many talents including Aamir Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Tabu, Sunny Deol, Kajal, Rani Mukerjee, Anil Kapoor are part of it. Still there was no backlash when they debuted, but why the situation is different now and why people have started to notice Nepotism more than ever? Is it coz of the influence of internet during this era? Is it coz the controversy Queen Kangana highlighted about it? Or is it coz the quality of the launched starkids kept degrading? I think it's a combination of all of them.
Someone who is part of the industry had to highlight about it, be it for their own agenda, and perhaps it served a good purpose. Just look at the debut of Karan Deol, who is the son of Sunny Deol but he doesn't even come to 1% when it's the terms of both look and acting. In my honest opinion I have never seen such a bad debut ever, with such a cringeworthy acting! Then comes the debut of Jhanvi Kapoor, among the female newcomers her appearance has to be the worst. Her talent is also no where near her mother. But still she is managing to get so many roles at the same time, isn't it questionable? All the newcomer starkids' names are deliberately kept in the news headlines so that they get more limelights. Anyone would likely blame the media at first, but what would the media do if the producers and the influential relatives would shower all their money to them for taking their interviews? Then comes starkids like Sara Ali Khan, who appeared like a helpless girl who claimed that she got no help from her father and mother, so one day she just went to the studio and begged Rohit Shetty for a role and then he gave her the lead heroine role in Simba without any hesitant. In case of an outsider they wouldn't even get access to enter into Rohit Shetty's office, forget about begging! At the same year Sara's movie Kedarnath got released too, so did she beg to Kedarnath's director as well?? Regardless to mention, at the same year she signed up for Kooli No. 1 as well. Eventually it got revealed that Sara was almost a cast of Jawaani Jaaneman, in fact she was offered for it but later on opted out of the film since her father suggested that she should be doing films with Varun Dhawan and Ranveer Singh. So that's how she didn't get any help from her daddy right? Her 'bechaari' appearance didn't work on the audience anymore and they figured out her trick, then Karma happened and she got backlashes for her acting in Love Aaj Kal and it got bombed at the box office. Then comes Ananya's struggle comment where Ananya claimed that she has done a lot of struggle and then she got trolled a lot for her statement, which was quite obvious to happen. All in all, people started to get sick of the nepotism thing way before Sushant died.
Now let's talk about Alia. Years after years how she managed to get the best scripts in platters is also questionable. Karan Johar went overboard with promoting her everywhere and she was being shoved down to our throat since day one. The when she won awards like Filmfare, Star Screen as the Best Actress category for her small role in Gully Boy movie, then people started to criticize her like they never did before. Her instagram comments were full on hatred and people gradually started to boycott her since ever. It didn't happen overnight.
Then only after a few months of all these fiasco, Sushant's death happened. Then again those agendas came out and called out about nepotism and claimed that how nepotism killed Sushant and so on. In actual nepotism might not have killed him, but outsiders like Sushant have had an impact on their career due to nepotism indeed, and this is undeniable. Only a few actors are extremely lucky such as Shah Rukh Khan, Vidya Balan, Ayushmann Khurrana. Otherwise the rest of them become an easy target to be mocked by the insiders. Also it's hard for them to get into any circle since they are not invited to most of the parties. Day by day the influence of nepotism was getting worsened with all these talentless newcomers, so the shoutout against the nepo kids was supposed to happen one way or another.
Sushant's death has made many people moved, it's true that he was not so much loved when he was alive but still better late than never. Let's not lebel it as sympathy when the netizens are fighting for justice, the mass audience have been doing so coz they are genuinely tired of watching those same faces who are being shoved down to our throats everyday. Perhaps the audience have reached at a point when they can't take all these favoritism anymore.
Look at actors like Avinash Tiwari and Tripti Dimri, the audience didn't acknowledge them or their movie when they did Laila Majnu. But should the audience be blamed alone?? The major reason was coz the movie was not promoted well while the other movies with great star casts or casts that included starkids were being promoted for 24 hours. Now look what happened after Bulbul got streamed online, this time people appreciated Tripti Dimri and many downloaded and watched Laila Majnu (though I watched the film long time back when it got released). Again, better late than never. Be it sympathy or whatever, now people have learned to appreciate the talented ones and looking forward to see their works more and more.
You may feel bad if you see that a star kid is being brought down and criticized by the audience just coz he or she is a star kid, but don't worry. If a star kid is really talented then they will end up convincing the audience that they are here to stay. For example actor like Hrithik Roshan will continue getting love coz he has already won the audience by his pure talent. We just don't want to see actors like Arjun Kapoor who don't improvise over years but still keep getting roles just coz their father or mother is this or that in the industry. Perhaps the time of revolution has come, the audience has finally realized that they have to decide by their own that whom they need to keep and whom they need to throw away. Now even if forcefully, the directors will have no other option but to look for fresh talented newcomers who are completely outsiders. Coz it's high time they realized that they can't get away everytime by showing us garbage movies full of crap acting. Content and talent both are very essential.
Yes, it's we the audience who can make it do this, rather than any producers or directors who would forcefully try to present any talentless actors whoever they wanted to. This time things need to get changed for good.
5