At a time when #BoycottBollywood is trending, every new release comes with a lot of speculation and trepidation. No star can deny that he or she is not affected by it or the trend does not bother them.
Swara Bhasker, who never fears speaking her mind, is returning to films after four years with ‘Jahaan Chaar Yaar’. She spoke to IndiaToday.in exclusively about whether the boycott trends bother her, and what she makes of it. Swara said that she doesn’t believe in celebrating anyone’s failure. She also claimed that the current trend is to spew hate toward Bolly#Botoccwood, which gained momentum post actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s demise.
Speaking about the North Vs South debate, Swara told IndiaToday.in, “I don’t like this kind of division. I think that, as artists, as an industry, if films do well at the box office, it’s good for everyone. I think it’s very silly and petty to divide and celebrate somebody’s failure or to feel jealous and envious of somebody else’s success. We must understand very simply that we are coming out of Covid. It is very devastating, especially for distributors and theater owners, and exhibitors. People, when they talk about films, forget that it’s not only the actors. You can dislike an actor and go on about nepotism, but the film industry actually produces jobs. It’s giving jobs to people. So I don’t actually think that there is anything to celebrate if, you know, (a film fails).”
Addressing the boycott trends, Swara mentioned, “There’s this whole trend on Twitter and on social media, they want to bring Bollywood down, they call it stupid names. I find it so petty, and also disgusting, because I feel that these people in their blind hatred are forgetting that Bollywood gives a livelihood to many people.”
“As far as South films are doing well, it is somewhat a media generalization. You hear about RRR, Pushpa and KGF because those are the three films in the South that have done well, but the South is also releasing so many films that are not doing well. It is not like every film released in the South is a hit. You’re hearing about those that are becoming a hit. That said, even Bollywood has had Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and Gangubai in the last year. I feel let’s acknowledge the slump is happening across. I think there’s no one reason but there are many reasons,” the ‘Nil Batte Sannata’ actress told IndiaToday.in/
Swara explained the various reasons behind the slump. “The first reason and this I am quoting Anurag [ Kashyap], I heard him say this in an interview and it made perfect sense to me. ‘He said the country is going through an economic slump’ and film is a leisure activity and no one wants to spend money on leisure when things otherwise are so costly. So, that’s the first thing and nobody’s talking about that. Everyone is blaming Bollywood, as if Bollywood is responsible for people not coming to the theater. That’s totally untrue,” the actress added.
She further added, “Secondly, after COVID, people don’t want to go out of their houses. The third reason is that OTT has come in and really disrupted the watching experience. The fourth reason is after the unfortunate and tragic suicide of Sushant, Bollywood has been painted as a really dark place, that is only about drugs and alcohol and sex. My question is very simple, ‘if everyone is doing just this, then who is making films?’ Unfortunately, Bollywood is being discredited. There are people who just don’t like Bollywood.”
“We have a 100-year-long history of theater and cinema in India. Yes, there will be changes and changes are not a bad thing. It’s a good thing that society is going through a transformation, and hopefully, something good only should come out of it,” Swara said.
On a concluding note, she cited Laal Singh Chaddha’s failure at the box office and told IndiaToday.in, “When a film starring Aamir Khan flops, it is not just his film, there are many people who have worked on it. We should look at the bigger picture.”
