“Boycott Bollywood” trend is good says Director Vivek Agnihotri

Vivek Agnihotri’s rapid rise has been astounding; from directing typical Bollywood fare like “Chocolate,” “Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal,” and “Hate Story,” to declaring himself “out of the Bollywood tribe.” His modern films are done on a little budget, with almost no A-list talent, but more crucially, they feature a hyper-nationalist story about subjects he feels are under-discussed. His project, “The Kashmir Files,” garnered enormous sums of money at the box office this year despite the fact that movies with big names and budgets are often failing.

With multiple Bollywood films and actors facing boycotts and bans, social media is buzzing with cancel culture. A boycott of a movie becomes popular on social media even before it is released. The director of “The Kashmir Files,” Vivek Agnihotri, said that the cancel culture is a positive trend. He told a news website that it is a complicated problem and that the “Boycott Bollywood” campaign is “very excellent” since it demonstrates the public’s dissatisfaction with the content that Bollywood is producing. Vivek Agnihotri stated that this tendency would have a very favourable outcome in the end. When questioned if these initiatives are part of a right-wing conspiracy, the filmmaker responded to Deccan Herald by saying that they are more like cultural uprisings against Bollywood. Vivek Agnihotri further distanced himself from “Bollywood,” saying that he is not a member of the industry that uses tried and tested formulas and instead works independently to produce Hindi movies.

On social media, “Laal Singh Chaddha,” a movie starring Aamir Khan, was criticised for the actor’s prior remarks. Vivek Agnihotri commented on the incident and told ETimes, “Dangal was released after Aamir made those remarks and the movie ended up becoming the biggest hit despite the boycott discussions around it. I should also say that I have nothing against anyone. All I want is reform in the film industry. This fictitious business plan is comparable to a hot air balloon that has burst. The film business has to get back to the basics, which are the story, the writer, and the director. They ought to concentrate on it rather than simply the celebrities and their PR campaigns.”