Entertainment

Is Bollywood the flag bearer of Nepotism?

• By All That Trending
• 22-03-2021
• 10.36K

After the sad demise of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, the word Nepotism has again taken center stage in Bollywood. Star kids like Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Ananya Pandey, and Sara Ali Khan have been accused of getting it all easy in the form of nepotism.

What is Nepotism?

In simpler terms, when you show favoritism on the basis of family relationships. Is it practiced only in Bollywood? That’s a big no. It is practiced in other industries as well, like Business, Politics, etc. In Bollywood, the debate of nepotism became a hot topic when female actor Kangana Ranaut called filmmaker Karan Johar the flag-bearer of nepotism on his chat show, Koffee with Karan and the debate took an ugly turn after the suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. “I definitely believe that knowing people in the industry does help. That’s not a fact that I can run away from. I’ve often admitted to the fact that the biggest advantage of nepotism is the fact that we have easy access to people. I can call up Karan Johar without doing any film. I can go to Rohit Shetty’s office. So these are privileges I’m well aware of.” - Sara Ali Khan. Nepotism does give you an edge and privileges over other actors in terms of getting opportunities, but can nepotism makes you stay in the game? Well, that’s something that depends on the actor’s ability. Star kids like Esha Deol, Tusshar Kapoor, Uday Chopra, Tanishaa Mukherjee had big names behind them, but they failed to create any impact and slowly went MIA from Bollywood. During the Newcomers Roundtable 2019 with Rajeev Masand, Actor Siddhant Chaturvedi described nepotism in an explicit and one statement. “To where our dreams come true, their (Star Kids) struggle starts.” The negative effect of nepotism starts when the real talent is not being appreciated, and they take a lot of time to make space in viewers' hearts compared to the star kids who are already a known face. In fact, Bollywood is not kind enough to the people who have a tag of outsiders. But another side of the story is that sometimes nepotism does give us genuinely talented actors, like Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Kajol, Kareena Kapoor Khan, etc. These actors are the perfect example of privileges granted in the right hands. “I want to punch all those people who say that star kids have it easy because it makes no sense. The way the world is today, either you have it, or you don’t.” - Alia Bhatt As the result of the debate going around Nepotism, Mahesh Bhatt’s film Sadak 2’s trailer became the 2nd most disliked video on YouTube. But Alia again managed to win audience hearts with her stellar performance in the Gangubai Kathiawadi’s trailer. So, real talent never goes wasted.

How can you bring a change?

Nepotism is a debate that's never going to end. Because of too much hype about a topic, we often forget the actual problem. The problem is not nepotism; the problem is not being kind enough to outsiders. We, as an audience, have the power in our hands, so next time, when you decide to watch a film, don’t go because you saw a star kid on the film’s poster, go for the content, go for the storyline. As an audience, if we start being more appreciative towards talented outsiders, Bollywood will also become more tolerant towards them.

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