The film industry, by and large, comprises polite people. Even when a preview indicates that a soon-to-be-released film will be dead on arrival, there is much backslapping and clubbiness. Funerals are duly attended, marriages even more so. Holi and Diwali party invites, especially from top stars, are prepared for weeks in advance. Everyone is polite to everyone else, no matter who has slept with whom or sabotaged whose career.
So when a rule-breaker comes around and calls out the decorum for the hypocrisy it is, there is naturally much consternation. But then Kangana Ranaut has never given any indication that she was either going to be polite or a pushover. In a 14-year-long career, she has not managed three National Film Awards, commercially successful films, or the obvious perks of success by allowing the film industry to walk all over her.
Tired of colouring within the lines, she has not only binned the colouring book, but also taken the crayons with her. It’s not that she didn’t try to fit in. She did. She dated a young actor who was a star son, who then whined to the media about her dark arts. She then dated another star son, higher up in the food chain, who denied the affair altogether. She considered acting opposite A-list actors before saying no to being an accessory. She even appeared on Karan Johar’s Koffee With Karan in 2010 and answered intrusive questions about her love life with an icy disdain she was just discovering.
At some point though she decided she had had enough. If Aamir Khan could walk away with the credit from under the director’s nose for Taare Zameen Par, so could she for Manikarnika. If Akshay Kumar could ride the nationalist tiger in a polarised industry, so could she. And if Karan Johar could say the unsayable on Koffee With Karan, she could be equally outrageous—does anyone need reminding of the “high priest of nepotism” remark in the 2017 episode?
It’s not that women in the Mumbai film industry have not been outspoken before. But that was usually within the boundaries of what was acceptable, whether it was Mallika Sherawat or Rakhi Sawant, one-time staples of headline chasers and tabloid makers. What makes Kangana different is that not only does she make the rules of the game as she goes along but also that she makes it about herself. Naseeruddin Shah said to me recently in an interview that the Mumbai film industry has no leadership. Kangana may well be making a play for that spot and what could be wrong with that?
A lot if she is driven only by one agenda, where anti-national equals anti-Hindu. And nothing if she is powered by the idea of reforming the industry structure to make it more equitable for those at the bottom of the hierarchy like the daily wage earners, to make it more accessible to youngsters from small towns and smaller villages, and to make it less about the drug culture and item numbers, as she tweeted recently, and more about creativity and originality.
Can all of these points be made with less ferocity and more felicity? Most certainly. But having finally come to a point where she can announce films, secure funding for them, and ensure adequate promotion, Kangana sees no embarrassment in using the power she has got. In that she embodies the New India, which believes in an eye for an eye. She has spoken at length on her own beginnings in the industry, abused and exploited by actor Aditya Pancholi.
She has also spoken of her own drug use. Few actors have had the courage to wear their battle scars in public. Even fewer have talked of the journey of self-reinvention, whether it is her English lessons, her fashion makeover, or her spiritual practice. When she tweets that a woman’s compassion is often taken for weakness and how no one should be pushed to the point where they have nothing to lose, thereby making them dangerous and lethal, there are thousands who are disenfranchised and disenchanted who identify with her.
Could she be more generous to her self-declared enemies? Yes. Could she be a willing tool to further a particular party’s agenda, especially one whose supporters back her enthusiastically? Perhaps. Should she keep quiet, move on, not engage with those who call her names or laugh at her at awards shows? No.
She has already announced films on Ayodhya and Kashmiri Pandits, displaying a remarkable ability to make every narrative about herself, whether it is demolition or displacement. These are extraordinary times. One hopes that when they are over, Kangana will go back to being the hero of good movies onscreen and not merely of dramas manufactured in TV studios. The world can never have enough of revolutionaries on and off the screen.Email: kavereeb@gmail.com
What makes Kangana different is that not only does she make the rules of the game as she goes along but also that she makes it about herself.