After Alia’s Sadak 2 poster, now Janhvi’s Gunjan Saxena trailer faces flak for nepotism: How fair is it to judge a film starring a star kid?

As the trailer of Janhvi Kapoor’s Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl becomes the latest target of trolls for nepotism after Alia Bhatt’s Sadak 2, we talk to the members of the film fraternity about how fair is it for people to call out a film even before it’s release, just because it stars an industry kid.

The nepotism fire in the Hindi film industry refuses to die down, and people seem to be in the mood to even call out films which star an actor belonging to a film family. In the latest instance, the trailer of Janhvi Kapoor’s Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl has been trolled by a section on social media, again citing nepotism. Earlier, it was the Bhatt family’s Sadak 2, starring Alia Bhatt daughter of filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and actor Soni Razdan. Actor Pooja Bhatt had shared with her social media followers that the final edit of the film has been locked, only to face flak. #BoycottSadak2 was trending too.

Actor Alia Bhatt is the lead in Sadak 2 directed by her father Mahesh Bhatt, while Janhvi Kapoor stars in Gunjan Saxena.

This raises a question: is it fair for people to judge a film just on the basis of whether it has a star kid in it, and not the content? Industry people disagree strongly, and say it should always be the merit.

Writer Apurv Asrani had come forward in Kapoor’s support, and tweeted too. He tells us, “If you make the debate about nepotism, you can allow yourself to be mean and cruel to people like Janhvi. Which is exactly what is happening right now. The real problem is the bullying; the ganging up; the not giving the deserving a chance. That is what many did to Sushant (Singh Rajput, late actor), and I raised my voice to say it’s not okay. Now they are ganging up and bullying Janhvi.”

While he initially says that we should talk about this ‘after the film releases’, Pankaj Tripathi, who plays the role of Kapoor’s father in the film, does tell us, “Right now, as actors of the film, we can praise it and say ‘it’s great’. But till people don’t see it, the things I say won’t matter. Kya hai, hume har cheez ke maamle mein itni jaldi hai na, patience nahi hai. Ruko aur art, uss work ko dekho. Form an opinion after that about how it is.”

Kapoor, in an interview to Hindustan Times, also addressed the backlash. She said to take away from what (people are) feeling “would be slightly demeaning.” But at the same time, the 23-year-old added, “I know I’m confident of what I’ve done, and I’m confident of the film and the story… I don’t think there’s any reason for us to be apologetic for what we’ve done.”

Pooja Bhatt, on the other hand, replies to us with a quote when we reach out to her for a reaction: “I don’t have time, energy or interest in hating the haters; I’m too busy loving the lovers.”

Filmmaker Hansal Mehta thinks that such kind of trolling is an ‘absolute insane thing’. He feels that a film should be judged as a film. “All this nonsense narrative should not come into your judgement about the film. Also, in this whole thing, the abusive concern has come up on social media. People have found some voice for vicarious abuses, what it actually does is defeat what people are trying to fight. They are defeated by this kind of shallow, mean behaviour,” reasons the 52-year-old.

From a trade analyst’s point of view, Taran Adarsh says that the nepotism debate was raised prior to Rajput’s death too, by Kangana Ranaut. “The conversation is aggressive now after his demise. People are in no mood to spate nepotism and the kids belonging to the film fraternity, and the whole insider-outsider bit is going on. I genuinely feel people need to judge the movie in it’s entirety, because the trailer would not reveal much,” he says.

Madhur Bhandarkar, who came into the film industry as someone with no connections, feels that people need to realise nobody is forcing them to see the film of any personality or actor. “My problem is that a film comprises a lot of people- labour class, director, actor, technicians. As a filmmaker, I know how much time goes into a film, to even raise funds. It’s a humongous task to complete and release a film,” he says.

Though he agrees that people have the right to protest and not seen the film, but there is a section who wants to. “There’s not one criteria of watching a film. Basically, it’s a work of art,” Bhandarkar emphasises.

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