Hypocrisy maketh Bollywood, or so it seems after the recent cringe-worthy stint at the IIFA awards (held at NYC) that definitely left a bad taste in our mouths, to say the least.
For all those who didn’t know, this year’s IIFA awards were touted as “special”. The function was dedicated to women empowerment and gender equality, which seems to be a topic that Bollywood is super-obsessed with these days (not that we are complaining). But then, there’s always a catch, you see.
This star studded event, which was sprinkled with (of course) the rich and the famous (and nepotism), gave Taapsee Pannu the “Woman of the Year” award. But then, ironically, deviating from the “women empowerment” theme, three privileged men took it upon themselves to take filthy digs at a self-made woman for speaking out against nepotism.
Well, this is hypocrisy at its very best, like we mentioned earlier.
When Varun Dhawan (son of David Dhawan) went over to the stage to collect his award for the Best Actor in a Comic Role award for Dhishoom, Saif Ali Khan joked how the actor had made it big because of his father. To this, Dhawan quipped, “And Saif, you get them because of your mummy”. Of course, Karan Johar, the “flag-bearer of nepotism” had to intervene and exclaim, “I am here because of my Papa”.
And before we knew it, all the three, who seemed to have found the perfect opportunity for that long-pending catharsis, exclaimed in unison: “Nepotism Rocks”.
If that wasn’t enough, we also saw the entitled star kids, gleam in joy and pride when Dhawan sang “Bole Chudiya, Bole Kangana” from KJo’s film to emphasize whom the joke is on.
Well, what can we say?
If this was Karan Johar’s way of gathering his little bunch of friends to stand up for him, well, then he wasn’t really successful because a lot of people took offence to how this was a case of harassing a woman when she isn’t even present at the event. Here are some tweets condemning this outrageous behavior by these star kids:
ROFL! They’re proving her right. Btw, ‘Padma Shri’ Saif got the award when his mom was heading CBFC, right? #curious https://t.co/QRgE9f4iD0
— Aadit Kapadia (@ask0704) July 17, 2017
So stupid. Shows you what outsiders like Kangana are up against. Not just nepotism but the attitude of us and them too. https://t.co/A4qP8ApgC9
— Gayatri Jayaraman (@Gayatri__J) July 17, 2017
How is it an “insult” to Kangana? If anything it’s a crass/tacky display of how shamelessly nepotistic Bollywood IS https://t.co/qmqTHjZ2aH
— Aditi (@awryaditi) July 17, 2017
The bunch of revengeful men (we mean the trio) should know that this is exactly what privilege looks like. And they proved how Kangana was right all along when she started a debate around Bollywood and nepotism. The jokes were crass, to say the least, and reeked of misogyny and sexism, which was completely in contrast with what the event was propagating.
This also brings to light how bullying is still an intrinsic part of the society. The three gentleman, who we’re presuming are educated enough to understand that everybody has a point of view, definitely need some crash course in “How To Get Rid of that Patriarchal Mindset”.
Freedom of expression is something that most of us are entitled to (including Kangana). But poking fun at someone else’s expense is uncalled for and totally UNACCEPTABLE.
