Cancel culture hits SS Rajamouli and Brahmastra

It was meant to be a grand show of strength, bringing together the best of the Telugu film industry SS Rajamouli , Nagarjuna, NTR Jr , along with the crème de la crème of Bollywood- Karan Johar , Ranbir Kapoor , Alia Bhatt , on the same platform in Hyderabad .

Only hours before the mega-event was to take place, it  was unceremoniously  cancelled, leaving fans of both the Telugu and Bollywood deeply disappointed. Luckily for the team, they immediately contacted a high-end hotel, where they were given space for an impromptu press meet right after the cancel culture claimed its casualty. But the damage was done.

S S Rajamouli’s son Karthikeya, who had organized the entire event down to the minutest detail, is wondering what hit them. The spiel about a security risk  just doesn’t add up. Even if the event was seen to be dangerous to the law-and-order situation in Hyderabad (ha ha), why wait until just two hours before the actual show to inform the organizers and the hosts? A pregnant Alia Bhatt flew in to Hyderabad with her husband Ranbir Kapoor, when she is not allowed to travel by plane.

One doesn’t want to propagate any conspiracy theories here. But it does  smack of sabotage: all evidence points to it, and the sooner we accept that the cancellation culture is a man-made disaster, the better. Exactly who are these people asking for films to be boycotted, no one knows. The one thing that we  do know is that they haven’t seen a single frame of the films that they want to be boycotted, except perhaps the trailer.

As the release date of Brahmastra approaches, the entire film industry holds its collective breath : would the collections be affected? The answer, luckily, seems  to be in the negative. Early indications are very encouraging. The advance booking for the 3D version of Brahmastra opened to a thundering welcome on Friday. The film has fetched itself the best advance booking since KGF 2 and THE best post the pandemic for a Hindi film.

I was speaking to Nagarjuna , who plays  one of  the key roles in Brahmastra ; he has seen the complete film. The Telugu superstar says the  film is a treat to the eyes and a feast to the senses. “I wouldn’t like to compare it with  Lord Of The Rings or Dr Strange or anything from the Marvel universe. That would be like belittling what Ayan (director Mukerji) has achieved. I don’t think audiences in any part of  the world have seen anything like this.”

Rajamouli, whose epic extravaganza, RRR , is a global craze, is under-fire from the trolls. They want to know why he is sullying his haloed name by mixing with “decadent” Bollywood. But Rajamouli is way too sorted for this kind of bullying. No, the trolls won’t scare him off. As he told me about the trolls, “They are faceless, nameless. How can we be worried about something that has no real existence?”

Rajamouli feels content is the king. “With the right content in place, I think the film industry can be revived to its previous glory. Tens of thousands of people in our country are directly dependent on this great industry of ours, and it is important for all of us that people come back to the cinemas. The  theatrical experience is something else. There’s something magical about sharing a larger-than-life experience with five hundred other people. Digital platforms are here to stay, and I’m sure that we’re going to see more great content in the future. But the theatrical experience is so embedded in our country’s zeitgeist that it is a part of our culture now. The theatrical experience was threatened by television  also a few decades ago. But since then theatres have only increased multifold. Cinemas cannot be  damaged by some misguided elements.”

So speaks the Movie Moghul. From his mouth to the Gods.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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