Post the Covid era(March 2022), the audience has grown tired of the same stereotypical mainstream Bollywood drama that the movie-goers once thoroughly enjoyed.
With Over-The-Top (OTT) content catching the wind, Bollywood is staggering and finding it difficult to get a hold of its audience.
With the boom of social media, the opinions of every user can surface, eventually hampering the art in the end. The latest trend on social media which is making the lives of filmmakers miserable is the infamous “Boycott Trend,” any tweet that the filmmaker and actors have made knowingly or unknowingly is making them suffer now.
The latest brunt of the trend has hit hard on the Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan starter ‘Laal Singh Chaddha,’ the movie has been in trend ever since the project went on floors. Be it citing the former’s wife Kiran Rao’s remark that she doesn’t feel safe in India, or the comment of intolerance made the waves.
Aamir Khan has gone on record and pleaded in front of the audience not to hate on an endeavour that has taken years to make.
The latest victim of this trend is Akshay Kumar, where “Raksha Bandhan” writer Kanika Dillon’s four-year-old tweet surfaced and netizens remarked it as “hurting the Hindu sentiments,” and mocking cows which hold a high place in the Hindu religion.
Akshay Kumar broke his silence over the trend by saying “India is a free country and every individual is subject to his opinion, The movie is out and if you don’t feel like going then don’t. I’d like to add that every industry, be it entertainment, cloth industry or telecommunication contributes to the economy of the nation that we’re living in, and boycotting is not the ideal way to boost the economy.”
Taran Adarsh a box office analyst and movie critic shared a poll on Twitter where the users chose the option of not going to watch any of the two major releases (Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha and Akshay Kumar’s RakshaBandhan) of the week the most.
The trend has become such a nerve wrecker that it has become every filmmaker’s biggest nightmare, and is affecting the box office.
The box office has been massively impacted, but the curse seemed to be lifted post the release of Kartik Aaryan and Kiara Advani, starrer Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, as The Anees Bazmee-directed horror comedy, ended its run at the box office with a worldwide gross north of Rs 250 crore.
Some movies suffer because of their directors, an eminent example of the same is any movie made by the ace director-producer Karan Johar who has often been named the chaperone of nepotism or the person responsible for gatekeeping outsiders.
Recently, even Alia Bhatt suffered the brunt of the trend, as she made her debut as a producer with her movie “Darlings,” which was her debut on the OTT platform. The movie portrays domestic violence, and netizens felt the movie was taking a dig at domestic violence.
Laal Singh Chaddha and Raksha Bandhan take horns on August 11, 2022, at the box office.
Also Read: Kangana: Aamir Khan curating negative publicity for Laal Singh Chaddha
