Shah Rukh Khan Is Right About Negativity On Social Media
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-12-19 09:48:35
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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Shah Rukh Khan is right - cinema is a medium that brings people together. It was always like that in India of yore. People of all communities, castes and religion contributed to making movie making in India an awesome experience and the audience also enjoyed the same without any prejudice. The only barometer for a film's commercial success or failure was its entertainment value. But things have changed drastically in the last decade or so. The country is now full of different kinds of imagined phobias and the people are divided along several lines, religion being the foremost among them. Social media, with faceless 'soldiers' (and somtimes bots) representing this or that phobia, has fuelled this and has spread toxicity and negativity at the speed of light.
There can be no other explanation for a politician objecting to a song on the silly premise that a male character clad in green shirt (which incidentally is not green but black, but who will explain that to a person, or persons, who have a pre-set divisive mindset) romancing a female character dressed in an orange outfit shows a Muslim man cavorting with a Hindu girl and it is objectionable. For God's sake, a film is a fantasy and filmmakers have no time to inject such thoughts in their song sequences. The song and dance routine in Indian cinema is one of its major attractions and the audience loves it. Nothing should be read into the colour of the dress the characters wear. The call to boycott Khan's latest movie Pathan is disgraceful. In the recent past, protests and calls for boycott were carried out against Lal Singh Chaddha and Padmavat. Also, uncalled for controversy was created over The Kashmir Files. These protests and rubbishing of films, for whatever reasons, must stop. Those dissatisfied with the content have the option of not watching it.
Various groups (sometimes of not more than a few hundred people in a country of 130cr) have made it their business to protest against works of art on real or imaginary grievances. In case of Pathan too, a Muslim group has also called for its boycott as it feels that it tarnishes the image of Pathans (even without watching the movie). The worst part is that in a nation that swears by the rule of law, these groups never proceed as per law but fight it on the streets. Their nuisance value is immense and it can result in a film's producer losing crores of rupees that went into making the film. The government must act against these mischief makers and ask social media platforms to verify users (and not allow unverified accounts) to stop this menace.
