Karan Johar Says Bollywood Has Derived Toxic Masculinity From Pushpa, KGF: 'They Can Pull It Off...'

Director Karan Johar has expressed concerns about the state of the Hindi film industry in his latest interview. He mentioned how the industry is learning the wrong lessons from successful South Indian films and trying to cater to an audience that is becoming increasingly ‘angry.’ He also discussed the changing portrayal of heroes in Hindi films over the years, from challenging the system in the past to embracing misogyny and vulnerability, and now, reverting to anger once again.

In an interview with Nikhil Taneja on the We Are Yuvaa YouTube channel, he talked about how films influence society and admitted that the concept of heroes is fading in Hindi cinema now.

“Hindi cinema has no hero; the hero today is the film, and thank god for that. We don’t need a Vijay to save us or a Raj to rule our hearts. We need our content to be impressionable in a good way,” he said, and added. On being asked about the inherent violence that Hindi cinema sees in masculinity, he said, “Hindi cinema has derived this from South cinema. This is not our core being, this is our derivation. Suddenly now we are deriving it because KGF and Pushpa are big hits. And we’re deriving it in an inauthentic manner. South (filmmakers) have their own conviction and how they can pull it off, and that’s their strength. We don’t have that strength. We don’t know what we’re doing, me included. We’re all walking around like headless chickens trying to find our feet.”

According to Karan, Hindi cinema is trapped in a ‘herd mentality.’ He said that the audience now prefers strong and flawless male characters over vulnerable ones. However, he criticised that even the portrayal of anger in Hindi films lacks authenticity. “We don’t want to see soft characters any more, we don’t want to see vulnerability, we don’t want to see flawed men, because the men in this country, generally, have gone back to being angry. But Hindi cinema hasn’t even got the anger right. Kabir Singh is Arjun Reddy, it’s not even authentically Hindi,” he added.