Is Aamir Khan India’s Saviour?
As writer Sonia Faleiro rightly observed on Twitter, Aamir Khan looks like he’s channeling Spock, on the cover of the September 10 issue of Time magazine. His angry expression would have been understandable had the cover been pegged to Ghajini, in which Khan plays a cartoonishly muscular avenger. But the story is about Satyamev Jayate, Khan’s television debut in which he discusses India’s social evils.
While Khan’s mug on the cover is amusing, as is an inside picture in which he gazes fiercely into the distance, Bobby Ghosh’s fawning profile of the actor is not. Over four-and-a-half gushing pages, Ghosh only stops short of calling Khan a messiah. Incredibly, the piece claims that Khan “dispensed with commercial considerations to indulge his conscience” when reports suggest that he was paid a record-breaking Rs3 crore per episode for the show. The article also says that Khan has managed to do what journalists have failed to—influence the government. The story makes it seem as though a recently passed bill on child sexual abuse was spurred by an episode on the same theme when the bill had actually been on the Parliament’s agenda before the show began.
That said, Khan is one of the few among his peers to tackle social issues on television. Bollywood actors are not known to take up serious causes. But there’s an element of phoniness in his reactions to his guests’ sob stories. Some viewers have commented that his sympathy and tears are all an act. A more serious accusation, and one that Ghosh does not address, is that Khan tends to simplify issues. For instance, S. Anand, a publisher of Dalit literature, wrote a scathing commentary on the episode on manual scavenging in which he accused Khan of deliberately avoiding bringing up B. R. Ambedkar and the issue of reservation.
Khan’s Time magazine appearance has created quite a flutter in the press. After all, making it to the cover is considered a major achievement. But, as Lakshmi Chaudhry noted in First Post, it’s not that big a deal. Khan was only on the cover of the South Asia edition, which routinely features portraits of prominent figures from the region in order to sell more copies. In the case of the current issue, however, Khan’s visage might just scare buyers away.
Star Power [Time]
Tags: Aamir Khan, Film, Media, Satyamev Jayate, Television, Time magazineComments (5)
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Quite a poorly written article. Let me deal with the issues one by one:
1. Say he did charge 3 crores per episode. So what? At least he did something meaningful and sensible else he could have done yet another mindless and crass show like most other actors do. Also, there will always be detractors who’ll look to find faults. What if he didn’t charge anything? If he came out and said the same, you would claim he is showing off. But noone knows for sure and we’ll never know what he actually got paid. So just live with it instead of speculating. The show was meaningful.
2. There are myriad issues in India. It is not possible to delve into each one of them. He dealt with the most relevant ones (as per him). Also, with each issue, they tried putting it forward in such a way that it would not face government sanction. Very astute indeed because if it did then the show would not have made it to television. Also, he placed responsibilty on not just the government but also on you and me which i true because if it bothers us so much why dont all of us do our bit. Nope, that’s inconvenient so we’ll sit in living rooms and criticize anything which is remotely good. As for S. Anand, he should learn from Aamir Khan. I get the feeling he is just jealous of the success of the show and looking to gain some popularity himself. Once Aamir Khan did take on Modi’s government but not many people came to his aid when he was rebuked by the BJP. His cause was also lost. So he has learnt his lesson.
3. He did influence the governments in various states and also encouraged organizations to carry on their good work by highlighting the good work they have done. Also, veiwers were made aware as to who to get in touch with if they too want to do their bit for a particular cause. That is quite important because a lot of us have good intentions but just dont know how to start/contribute. Lot of people who have selflessly worked for these causes would have been encouraged by the response and emboldened realing that they are not alone.
Pronoti Dutta, please write better researched articles in the future. Also, you need to think more. It seems as if you conveniently ignored the merits of the show and chose to highlight the few flaws it may have had. The pen is a powerful weapon but in the wrong hands its a WMD. Peace.
Indians suffer from a crab mentality. When somebody makes good money from a worthy cause–making our desentized saas-bahu-type audience aware of basic issues such as manual scavenging and infanticide–we have a problem.
Agreed, the show is dramatized. Who would watch a boring documentary? Do people know of P. Sainath and greats who have worked hard in their respective areas? Of course not. I think dramatization works well, and if somebody makes money out of it, why not.
Time may be doing this to sell more copies in India considering their sales are falling in the West. The question is why are we giving more importance to Time in the first place? Why are we seeking approval from a foreign magazine or critical when our celebrities are applauded by them?
To the writers, I hope u arent in bed with the prominent bollywood members. We all know how bollywood in recent times has become and INCEST in bread family, where u just hear how this one’s cousin and blah blah is coming up. Also if u dont believe it hasnt lost its character then god help you. I doubt bollywood has geniune ARTISTS anymore, in comparison to all the movies which just have overacting and huge budgets, I think Aamir fares pretty well. PLEASE dont write with an agenda against him..
Poor Pronoti…out of job…a failure in life and miserable…how sad!
Ok so they make money from the episodes.
Ok so it is a little dramatized.. the tears etc.
So what?
The show has made a large number of people aware of these issues. Its far better than most of the garbage on television these days.