Trends like #BoycottPathan mirrors our Society’s mentality

(Do check our Word Smitheries section in the end of the article)

As ‘Pathaan’ is about to release in theatres, the boycott calls have got active again and clips from Shah Rukh Khan’s interviews and song ‘Besharam Rang’ are making rounds on the internet. Not only this many are selective choosing pics, videos and speech of SRK interpreting them in a manner which is appellable to their propaganda.

Madhya Pradesh minister Narottam Mishra (from BJP) said the song was objectionable and raised objections about its costumes, saying that unless it was changed, the film may not be released in the state. Since then, the hashtag #BoycottPathaan has been trending on the microblogging site Twitter.

This type of clutter only benefits the moviemakers and politicians. It is the common citizens of the country who indirectly get affected by such drama. 

Movies which were in controversy in the past few years have earned a good amount of money . These controversies become the hot topic of debate and indirectly works as a promotion tool to fill the pockets of producers. Rarely has it happened that on account of calls to boycott, any movie has bombed at the box office.

This benefits the politicians too as now the topic of discussion is not poverty, unemployment or corruption but the movie gossip. Whatsapp forwards and unreliable platforms are the source of these discussions.  These discussions perpetuate communalism and harm the tranquillity in the society. In some manner this helps the government (the contemporary one) in making sure communalism thrives in society from which they can reap in political benefits. 

I personally don’t like the trailer of the movie and won’t go for it. It is not because of the religion of its lead character but because of the abysmal story and more abysmal its execution (Do Read our Trailer review here). I too am a big fan of Shahrukh Khan and want him to be in play character, which does justice to his talent and brand (like the one in Swadesh, Chakde India).

Surprisingly though, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's warned party workers to avoid 'unnecessary comments' on films amidst boycott calls and protests against Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone-starrer Pathaan. Though intellectuals are terming it as an empty formality as they believe BJP is the one behind all this mess. 

Shah Rukh Khan also made an appearance at the Kolkata International Film Festival 2022 (KIFF) on Thursday evening. During his speech at the inauguration of the festival, the actor spoke about negativity that exists on social media. The timing of the address was interesting as Shah Rukh’s upcoming film Pathaan is currently facing boycott calls on Twitter. Without mentioning Pathaan, Shah Rukh addressed the ‘narrowness of view’ on social media and even challenged those with negative mindset. 

In his speech at the festival, Shah Rukh touched upon the negativity on social media. “The collective narratives of our times are shaped by social media. Contrary to the belief that the spread of social media will affect cinema negatively, I believe cinema has an even more important role to play now. Social media is often driven by a certain narrowness of view that limits human nature to its baser self. And its somewhere that negativity increases social media consumption and thereby increases its commercial value as well. Such pursuits enclose the collective narrative making it divisive and destructive.”

Word Smitheries 

1. Propaganda - information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.: "he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda".
2. Intellectual - a person possessing a highly developed intellect.: "a prominent political thinker and intellectual".
3. Boycott - withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protes
4. Communalism - a principle of political organization based on federated communes.
5. Abysmal - extremely bad; appalling.