Today star sons and their sons are ruling the Hindi Film Industry. Every aged star is eager to bring their son or daughter to the industry. The bollywood has now become full of star sons and daughters. There is hardly any space for outsider. Even producers and directors are bringing their sons. Earlier, there were only one or two star sons. But now it has become a norm.
When a son of a star enters the industry, he has every thing ready for him. People know him because, he is the son of star. And for the same reason he gets free media attention. People wait eagerly for his film. He gets producers ready at his door step with lots of money and distributors ready to buy his film. His call sheet becomes full before his first film is even released. Even if his first film flops at the box-office, he still gets films. He gets film until he becomes a big star, like Amitabh Bachan’s son Abhishek Bachan. Abhishek’s all earlier films were big flops one after the other. Even his first film, the much hyped film was a flop, even though it was directed by the big director, JP Dutta. In spite his flop films he still got films until he become a star. If he was not the son of a star he would have never reached this position.
Well, bollywood is famous for being very clannish. There is a very long list of clans in Bollywood. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bollywood_film_clans. Because of this nepotism, I think talented people would have a great difficulty in getting a chance in this industry. I think we want new faces, who doesn’t have the resemblance of earlier star, either in looks or in their acting style. Film industry has become a family business. I think nepotism is more prevalent in Bollywood than any other Indian film Industry. But this trend is slowly creeping into other industries also.
Like in Tamil film industry, it is producers and directors, who are bringing their siblings to this industry. In Telugu, there are already a lot of actors who either are son of actors or their brothers, cousins or nephews. In Malayalam this trend is less prevalent. One reason is that there is less space for others, because it is a small industry.
I think, Directors and producers should bring in more fresh talents, to this industry rather than choosing who already were there. Fresh talents should be given chance in every field of the cinema, than only we can get good quality films. It is this outsiders like, Ram gopal Varma, Manoj Vajpayee, Irfan Khan, Madhur Bhandarkar who had made a difference in the Hindi film world. Among them, I think Ram Gopal Varma had a big influence in Hindi cinema.
I hate nepotism. I think, now its time that bollywood industry should become more professional. In Hollywood, I think nepotism is looked with disdain. For eg. Nicolas Cage is actually Nicolas Coppola, who is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola. To avoid been seen as nepotism he changed his surname. But here nepotism is taken as a matter of pride. Most of the siblings of great stars even don’t know acting. They merely survive on the basis of the names of their parents. I wonder how they become stars. For eg. Abhishek Bachan, I don’t what is in him that makes him a star. He doesn’t have any looks. He has all the mannerism of Amitabh Bachan, his father. You cannot spot anything special in his acting. Well, I think, I should understand that in Bollywood there are no actors, only we have are showmen.
