By Shailesh Kapoor
Four weeks ago, the news coverage of the Uri attacks and its aftermath were the subject of this column. I had written that it is a pleasant surprise that the news coverage has been restrained in most part. I may have spoken too early.
That column also mentions a “silly side storyâ€, that related to the demand of banning Pakistani talent from working in India. As it turned out, that silly side story became the headline story for much of October, sidelining, in turn, the main story itself.
The “surgical strikes†provided a climax to the main story that the news media found hard to surpass. In search of a hot topic, they found a low-hanging fruit in MNS’ opposition of Fawad Khan’s (cameo) presence in Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (ADHM). And since then, the theatre of the absurd has played out.
The logical fallacy in this controversy is like an open-and-shut case. The film was shot a year ago, under entirely different circumstances. Yet, a political outfit used it as an opportunity to get noticed. And the state’s political leadership actually legitimised it by brokering some kind of a settlement.
While much of this has been written about and subsequently criticized, especially in the social media, one aspect of this ADHM drama has not got sufficient media attention. And that’s to do with the media’s ability to influence public opinion unfairly.
A film like ADHM would have about 1.5-2 Crore (15-20 million) target audiences across India, who could potentially purchase a ticket and watch the film in a theatre. It’s safe to assume that almost all these people are consuming news in some form, and were aware of Uri and the subsequent developments, including the surgical strikes.
A large section of this target audience (60-70%) would have seen the film’s trailer (or read about the film) and recognised that it stars Fawad Khan, a Pakistani actor. You would expect these grown-up adults to put the pieces together and make their opinion on whether they want to “boycott†the film based on the connection between the two pieces of information – news from the LOC and the ADHM campaign.
And they found no evident connection. In early October, in our regular film work, we got no traces of any sentiment among the actual target audience to suggest they would stay away from the film for this reason. Many didn’t want to watch the film for various reasons, such as the trailer not appealing to them, but the anti-Pakistan sentiment was conspicuous by its absence.
And then, over two weeks, the said “connection†was hammered into their heads via prime time news debates and the social media machinery that inevitably accompanies such debates. By last week, about 15% audiences were actually considering the boycott.
Just 15%. Despite all the noise, there was no impact of a huge majority of the target audience. The film trade, especially single screens, were skeptical, fearing damage to their properties. But at the audience end, it was a fringe issue at best.
But it’s this fringe issue that should bother us too. About 20-30 lac of the film’s target audience (and several times of that in the huge non-theatre-going universe) were “brainwashed†into making an opinion. It’s one thing to watch news and build your opinion. But here, we had patriotic blackmailing at play. If you do not boycott, you are not a good Indian. And we have seen this argument play out increasingly in the media over the last year or so.
Should we worry? Yes and no. Yes, because our media is dangerously positioned to create these false binaries. And no because a vast majority of audiences have the ability to make their own judgment. And that’s a saving grace alright.2