The Future of Bollywood: Star Kids...........ONLY?

"You’ll play that stereotypical Bollywood biggie, who is like, you know very snooty and completely intolerant to outsiders… and flag bearer of nepotism, the movie mafia." was a line rightly said by an ace Bollywood actress on a very famous talk show. This line perhaps has a lot of truth about today's Bollywood.

 

Bollywood today has been identified by actors and stars of the previous decade/millennium. Where stars like Dev Anand, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh were all self made, the filmmakers and the casting directors today have become to rely on Star Kids.

                        

 (Source: Desimartini.com and Google.co.ie)

 

Star Kids does not necessarily refer to the kids of only actors or actresses but also to that of movie-makers or producers.  Star Kids have potentially got "everything on a platter." A call to a Bollywood biggie and there they have landed themselves a role. Practically, that is what goes on whenever a newbie has to be launched in Bollywood. They are  99% star kids.

 

What seems around like a very fairy tale world from the outside, is very deep, dark in the inside. Gone were the days where a commoner could make it big in Bollywood and with commoners who entered Bollywood telling their tales of experience with the casting couch tells us as to what standards Bollywood has fallen. Though people like Karan Johar, Vashu Bhagnani, Sajid Nadiawala are keen on only picking star kids for projects pretty much tells us the state. The recently announced debut of Sara Ali Khan opposite Tiger Shroff in SOTY 2, tells a lot about the current scenario which does not seem to change. Bollywood is on its way to completely "Ban" the entry of outsiders into the industry whose talents maybe better than most of the star kids launched/being lunched today. So why are producers so hesistant on putting their stake on new comers? Or why are they only sticking to star kids?

 

   

(Source: Desimartini.com and Daboo ratnani) 

 

Being a biology student, I can gurantee that there is only 25% chance of a kid to have the same character as that of parent. So even if we take into consideration that the child gained all the acting skill from the parent, they still need to work upon the 75% to be an actor as fine as their parent(only if the parent was that refined in acting). Bollywood forever has been racist by typically casting "beautiful faces with Zero expressions" rather than " 2-3 dimples with 100% expression."

Though this can't be ruled out that having a Bollywood kid in from=nt of the camera helps the promotion of the movie even before the start of shoot but it MAY also put the producer in a very likable position when it comes to money as which parent won't promote their kid?

 

Though there can be exceptions like Siddharth Malhotra when it comes to commoners but one still can't ignore actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vicky Kaushal who have immense untapped acting potential which got unleashed by Anurag Kashyap. Jackky Bhagnani is a clear cut example of a failed star kid and there are many others like Faisal Khan( Aamir's real brother), Harman Baweja, Bilal Amrohi(Kamal Amrohi's grandson)etc to name a few.

 

        

Source:IBT Times

 

Exceptions have always been there and star kids too, have exceptions of Alia Bhatt. Perhaps, she is the only star kid to have gone past  the expectations of people. Shahid Kapoor on the other hand took 12 years to win his first Filmfare contrary to what Ranveer Singh did in 6 years of his launch. The gap of 6 years tells a lot about the difference in the acting skills of a star kid( whose father is an actor par excellence) vs a commoner.

 

                        

 (Source: Wikepedia and Shortday.in)

 

And with rumours  of more star kids "polluting the industry", it seems that Bollywood is soon going to be more of a "Family Business" rather than a secular world like it used to be, back in the early 80s and 90s. God save the dreams and aspirations of all those who desire to enter Bollywood amidst this era of Nepotism.