Sure Bollywood is nepotistic

We all saw the trailer of ‘Tubelight’. We all agree that Sohail Khan is a bad choice to play the character of a brother lost in the war. However, ‘Tubelight’ might still work at the box office, purely on the star value of Salman Khan. It, however, does not change one blatant fact about Bollywood – that Bollywood is as nepotistic as Indian political system. As a result, if you look at most of our current stars, who bag heavy duty A-list movies, are backed by powerful film families.

We can also look at the positives of this first. Some of our better actors or entertainers have come probably because of nepotism. Can you imagine anybody else in those roles like ‘Ghayal’ or ‘Gadar’ but Sunny Deol? Could anybody else have delivered that "Thappad se dar nahi lagta" dialogue with the confidence that Sonakshi had? She probably delivered it, as she has the genes of legendary ‘Shotgun’ Shatrughan Sinha.

Some of our biggest superstars like Salman and Aamir owe their understanding of cinema to their family background and obviously the resulting success. Hrithik Roshan was able to build a super screen presence and acting capability probably because of his father's training with of course his inner capability.

So nepotism has given us good or probably it has given us worse.

For example, how many chances does an Abhishek Bachchan or a Bobby Deol get while an Irrfan Khan-led ‘Paan Singh Tomar’ waits to get released and when someone does show guts to release it the audiences gives it far better attention than films like ‘Baadal’, ‘Bichoo’, ‘Chamku’ and ‘All is Well’. For all the calibre and content, Manoj Bajpayee’s two or three films failed and Bollywood was quick to snatch his ‘Satya’-infused stardom and the guy had to wait for Anurag Kashyap's brilliant ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ to get his career back on track.

But a Sohail Khan or any other star brother/son continues to get many chances, despite repeat rejections from the audience because somewhere there is a powerful brother/father/family, etc, going blind with "apna munna deserves a chance".

With the honourable exception of Abhishek Bachchan, which of these star brother or sons have shown improvement in their acting that Bollywood keeps pushing them at us? Today Sohail Khan is a third class actor as he was 15 years ago. Bobby Deol decent as he is, where did he make that one effort where we would have felt sure the guy has failed but he deserved better.

How many chances would Bollywood give to a talented newcomer compared to the chances it gave to that complete below average actor called Fardeen Khan?

The problem is the way nepotism is blindly supported by the spineless A-listers of Bollywood. Sure, Alia Bhatt is a good and competent actress but was she not a total a misfit in the Bihari worker role in ‘Udta Punjab’? She spoke Bhojpuri with Mumbai accent in that one.

You will soon see one A-lister director after other praising Sohail Khan and ‘Tubelight’ on their social media pages. The same directors will not think twice before ripping a far better actor (newcomer) in front of the entire unit if they were to give one wrong take.

The problem with Bollywood nepotism is that it does not know where to draw the line. Our makers and the blind backing system do not realise how we the audience get deprived of better talent when the same failed star sons and daughters are pushed to us repeatedly.

Sure today a Twinkle Khanna tells us on a Karan Johar chat show that she was a bad actress but had ‘Mela’ become a hit would she, in all honesty, retire? She would have continued and probably not marry Akshay too. In fact, the larger question would have been in what capacity was she invited to that chat show?

The answer lies in the face of Bollywood's most dark side. The same dark side of nepotism, which makes us, sit through dragging movies based on re-launching a failed star son or brother or daughter.

How much ever the supporters tell you there is nothing fair about this characteristic of Bollywood. Else tell me which other profession offers you as many chances as they gave to Arman Kohli?

Luckily the audience has ensured that good for nothing “Laadla” siblings stay inside family protection and sometimes this arrogant system of Bollywood is forced to keep them away from the screen. Audience ensures, thank god for that, that nepotism, in the end, does not work.