| No Images? Click here  CASTE AWAYThis weekend, the choice for cinegoers, as somebody pointed out on Twitter, is between toxic masculinity and Brahmin saviour. While Kabir Singh continues to draw audiences to the box-office (it's likely to touch 200 crores. No, seriously), Ayushmann Khuranna's Article 15 arrived in theatres yesterday. While a powerful and relevant film, the Anubhav Sinha directorial isn't without its flaws and suffers from a serious Brahmin saviour complex.Meanwhile, Karan Johar has announced the cast of the (woke?) sequel to Dostana (one that nobody asked for, but anyway). Kartik Aryan, the unofficial brand ambassador of dudebros, toplines the cast with Dharma darling, Janhvi Kapoor as the leading lady. A third actor will also be added to the cast.As for the coming week, it'd be interesting to note how much Article 15 makes at the box-office considering the serious issue it tackles.Love this newsletter, hate it? Write to me @aktalkies At a cultural moment when there’s much political interest in, and conversation about, caste and marginalised communities, Article 15 captures dominant caste apathy and indifference, but also offsets it by showing Ranjan, an extension of the privileged cinegoer, as the emancipator.The film may be sincere in its intent of mainstreaming conversations around discrimination, but raises complicated questions about the ownership of stories and who has the right to tell those stories. And there are no easy answers.  Landing some months after a wave of #MeToo allegations exposed men guilty of sexual crimes across industries, and started important conversations on consent and agency, the tone-deafness of Kabir Singh is particularly startling.And its success — the film opened to over Rs 20 crore and is on its way to gross 200 crores — is dangerous. Bollywood’s tendencies to replicate a successful template means that more Kabir Singhs are likely to be made.Don’t be surprised if the industry, which has turned a blind eye to known abusers, rolls out a film about male victimhood before confronting the monsters that lurk within.   New to this email? You can sign up here.You can also follow HuffPost India on Flipboard.©2019 HuffPost India | Worldmark 3, FL 3, Aerocity, Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, Delhi 110037 |
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