Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor Khan recently weighed in on the nepotism debate when she blamed the audience for making children of film stars, stars.
In an interview with journalist Barkha Dutt for Mojo News, Kapoor said that she found the entire nepotism in Bollywood debate - which surged once again following the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput - rather “weird" as it was the audience that had the power to make or break the star.
Adding that if people had such a problem with star kids, then they should stop watching their films. The comments have attracted an insane amount of trolling on social media. Days after the interview was aired, a clip from the interview - the portion where Khan asks viewers to not watch films of star kids if they hate it so much - has been going viral on Twitter on Monday.
Critics objected to Kapoor’s statements as rather ungrateful, considering that she herself is the daughter of actors Randhir Kapoor and Babita and that she entered the film industry when sister Karisma Kapoor was already an established actress in Bollywood.
The trolling soon took a nasty turn when trolls started to call for a boycott of her upcoming film Laal Singh Chaddha with Aamir Khan. Many called Kapoor an arrogant snob.
This trend of calling for a boycott of films by trending viral hashtag campaigns against actors on social media came to the fore earlier when trolls downvoted ‘Chapaak’ on the film rating site IMDB following its actor Deepika Padukone show of solidarity for the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. The students had been protesting on against an attack that took place within campus previously when masked men and women entered the premises and beat up students and teachers.
The intimidation tactic may work to reduce the success of an actor’s film. But what about all the other people involved in the making of the film? Do trolls ever wonder how a film’s bad performance due to social media trolling affects filmmakers and other actors whose hopes or finances might be pinned on its success?