‘Chink’ headline raises question: How responsible are we for things we do not know? | Poynter.

‘Chink’ headline raises question: How responsible are we for things we do not know? | Poynter.

Why Sajid Khan should shut up (and keep making his duds, if he has to)

“Hindi films are not made for critics; it is made for Hindi film watching audience worldwide.”

I love the Khan siblings — Farah and Sajid. Motor-mouthed both of them, rarely do they realise where their mouths are leading them. And, in the process, coming out with a gem, like this one above, at the launch of Sajid’s first trailer of his film forthcoming film (sorry, “blockbuster”) Housefull 2, in Mumbai on February 9. (Read: Sajid Khan: Hindi films are not made for critics)

The brother-sister duo makes films that, well, reportedly do good business. Although I have to admit here that most such reports about the ‘good business’ (“blockbusters”, again if you actually want to quote them on record) their films do come from the duo only, the self-professed aam-janta-ka-directors.

While their chutzpah in rattling off their love for the kitsch is admirable (heck! who am I to pan them if the janta likes their duds; though even that I questionable), I always find it funny the way they go whacking, all out, at the “critics”.

So who, pray, are these ‘critics’ whom so many Bollywood types with sterile ideas, hackneyed plots, and déjà vu-esque end products love to hate?

“A person who expresses an unfavourable opinion of something,” according to Oxford Dictionary. And also: “A person who judges the merits of literary or artistic works, especially one who does so professionally.”

Now Sajid, whose film Housefull 2 is set for an April 5 release, here of course means the latter, though his tone and tenor, I am sure (since I was 1,400-odd km away when he mouthed his quirks in Mumbai), meant the former.

Sajid, who used to (I don’t watch much telly any more, so wouldn’t know if it’s still on) host a show called Ikke Pe Ikka on Zee Movies (or was it Zee TV?). I remember the show (it not because it was good, great or anything on those lines, but because the half-hour show had perhaps 12 minutes of adverts, as many minutes of the anchor giving his gyaan and one-liners and the rest on which they showed the songs. Perhaps ten of them, but I could be wrong. Again.

I watched it off and on with a thumping heart (Sajid would reappear), a praying mind (that they would show more songs, at least this time), and a probing head (why is he such a hit?)

Years went by, Yamuna turning from gray to black under the ITO bridge in Delhi, and Sajid, now portlier (like me) but still as opinionated and a motormouth (unlike me), made Heyy Babyy and Housefull — two full-length feature films. I remember watching bits of the first — it was a pirated DVD from the neighbourhood pirate, who gave Heyy Babyy by mistake when I had asked for another film (which shall go unnamed here). Of course, the pirate being a pirate, he did not make a mistake of charging me. Sajid’s art cost me Rs 40.

I cursed.

And then I cried, well almost, after watching bits of the film.

I find the idea that he thinks it was funny quite funny.

The film left me with such aftershock that I refuse to watch any Akshay Kumar films till date. The rest of the cast, crew and director are not even within my peripheral vision.

Now, I am sure the film made good money, did good business, was liked by hundreds across the world, but for the life of me it cannot be called a good film. I am sure even Sajid, sitting quietly on the pot, with the bathroom lights switched off and with all honesty in his heart and bowels would agree with that.

And neither of us, Sajid, are critics/reviewers.

So what is wrong if a reviewer gives you bad marks? No film is made for a critic, not here, neither in Papua New Guinea. And if you still mean the art house/NFDC-produced films made certain directors in the ’70s and ’80s, please wake up. That distinction is long gone.

Films are made for the audience — here or anywhere, and even in Jupiter, if they make motion pictures there. The difference is not the by-now-clichéd art versus commercial; it is between good and bad films, both kinds being made primarily for public consumption, which in effect means a commercial venture.

It’s about the hackneyed plotted, sleep-inducing, frustration-dawning films like Heyy Babyy or Tees Maar Khan and well-crafted, intelligently scripted and edited ventures such as A Wednesday, Wake Up Sid, Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year or 3 Idiots (there are examples aplenty but these are some I just recalled offhand).

But in deriding everything the ‘critics’ say about their films, in an apparent effort to appear nonchalant about what those critics in effect say, I am afraid Sajid and Farah appear to be taking those very critics a jot too seriously than they perhaps deserve. I have a stinking feeling that in panning them without waiting to be panned, Sajid, Farah and the likes of such gung-ho ‘mass filmmakers’ take the opinion of these reviewers far more seriously than even the critics themselves. And certainly far more seriously than the poor masses think of the reviews.