Measure your words, Bollywood biggies! Public memory is short no more

Anurag Kashyap’s time-travel mystery drama Dobaaraa will need more than a miracle to make a one-rupee profit at the box office. That’s unfortunate because the Taapsee Pannu starrer, a remake of Oriol Paulo’s Spanish film Mirage, deserved a far better deal. The reality is out in the open though. The film, which reportedly saw between two to three per cent attendance at the theatres and earned Rs 60 lakhs on Day 1, will vanish from the theatres soon.

Dobaaraa’s (estimated budget Rs 50 crore) failure was preceded by the box-office collapse of two potentially tentpole films, Laal Singh Chaddha (estimated budget Rs 180 crore) and Raksha Bandhan (estimated budget Rs 70 crore). Unlike the Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar offerings, Dobaraa wasn’t expected to make thousands gravitate to the ticket counters. The near-absence of viewers at the theatres is, however, a grim reminder of modern-day realities that have continued to hit Bollywood hard in recent months.

Times couldn’t have been worse for the Hindi film industry. A shockingly high number of films, among them big-budget ones and those made with small budgets, have failed to attract audiences. Dubbed South Indian films have been the real success stories with few Hindi films such as The Kashmir Files and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 earning significantly more than what was spent to produce them.

While films continue to bomb, Bollywood has been guilty of underestimating the power of trending hashtags on social media. Because of the widespread belief that the industry has been propagating anti-Hindu and anti-India sentiments, and also because of its inclination towards nepotism, it has been the subject of many hate campaigns with hashtags like #BoycottBollywood and, most recently, #BoycottDobaraa hurting the films at the box-office.

It is high time those in the business of filmmaking understood that trending hashtags represent the opinion of real people who are critical of the industry. Such groups can influence many others who respond to calls for boycotts even if they do not participate in hate campaigns. Acknowledging the power of social media, in other words, has become more important than ever before. Filmmakers and actors must learn this lesson soon.

Films like Laal Singh Chaddha, Shamshera and Raksha Bandhan have been the subjects of boycott campaigns in recent times. All of them capsized. Both Kashyap and Pannu took these facts of failures lightly, or so it seemed during a media interaction before Dobaraa hit the marquee. Kashyap quipped, “I am feeling left out. Even I want ki meri film boycott karo….” Pannu added, “Yes, please boycott Dobaaraa trend karva do…we also want to trend on Twitter.” Their desire for having a trending hashtag was fulfilled, followed by the bad news of empty theatres on Friday.

Arjun Kapoor hasn’t had a hit-studded film career so far. The actor, whose films need to click when commercial successes have become increasingly elusive, spoke against the boycott trend and trolling on social media. In a bollywoodhungama.com exclusive, Kapoor said, “I think we made a mistake by being silent about it and that was our decency, but people have started taking advantage of that. I think we made a mistake by thinking that ‘our work will speak for ourselves’…We need to come together and do something about it because what people write about us or the hashtags that trend, are far away from reality. When we do films that do good at the box office… people like us not because of our surnames but because of the film.” Kapoor needs to understand that work is more important than words, and abstain from making comments that can encourage trolling and result in boycott campaigns against his upcoming films.

Going to a movie theatre is not an emergency visit to a hospital. It is, at its best, another entertainment option at a time when satellite television with countless channels is old news and OTT channels offer home entertainment for a modest fee. With hostility towards Bollywood on the rise on social media, those in the industry cannot afford to ignore the potency of a hate campaign. That’s what Alia Bhatt did while speaking in an interview with DNA, “How do you know where that (trend) is coming from or how manufactured it is? How do you know how organic it is?” The actress has had a huge solo hit in Gangubai Kathiawadi, but her doubts regarding the authenticity of such campaigns might result in a hate campaign before her next film is released. Does Alia need it? She doesn’t.

What film stars had said before hate campaigns assailed Bollywood repeatedly cannot be modified or deleted from public memory. Times are such that those associated with the industry need to measure their words while expressing their opinions in the public sphere. The situation is far from ideal, but those who wish to see Bollywood flourish again do not have choice any longer.

The author is a freelance writer and author. Views expressed are personal.

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