Who shrunk my movie star?

The presence of movie stars on social media is a double-edged sword. It facilitates real-time, direct communication between them and their fans. But it also renders them vulnerable to constant scrutiny and easy judgment with regard to their films and their public utterances and actions. Familiarity also breeds fatigue. In a larger context, with AI and social media strategies increasingly driving film planning, casting, production and promotion, Bollywood producers tend to prioritise business considerations and number-crunching over the creative, organic impulses that should ideally form the foundation of cinema.

That explains why the Mumbai movie industry has been struggling to deliver genuine blockbusters despite star remunerations shooting through the roof. The stars’ unmediated interaction with fans has turned them into ordinary social media influencers selling brands, talking up causes and propping up their public image. 

It often boomerangs. Over-familiarity puts them in the line of fire of troll armies that, from behind their shield of anonymity, can take hateful potshots at them. With Amitabh Bachchan leading the way on X (formerly Twitter) for years now, the older generation of Bollywood stars, too, are very much in the game.

They are, however, relatively impervious to the negative fallout of untrammelled access because their stakes are significantly lower. Big-budget Bollywood movies no longer ride on them to the extent that they did in the past. In the current scenario, casting directors are reportedly being increasingly instructed to take into account the social media following of actors before pencilling them in. This is particularly true of those who aren’t A-list stars and cannot on their own steam guarantee strong opening weekends for their films.  

It is well known that the likes of Alia Bhatt, Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif and Shraddha Kapoor are among the most followed Bollywood actresses on social media. They and Priyanka Chopra, who is ahead of them all on the global scale, cannot, however, rely on those numbers to ensure that every film that they feature in rakes in big bucks. 

Take Kangana Ranaut, actress, film director and Member of Parliament, as a case in point. In the phase leading up to her plunge into right-wing politics, she made her ideological leanings very clear through her social media pronouncements. Her attempt to curry favour with the ruling dispensation yielded fruit all right, but she ended up alienating large sections of filmgoers.  A string of resounding flops ensued even as Kangana’s visibility increased manifold – proof that heightened media spotlight and commercial success have no correlation. Not a day passes without Ranaut hitting the showbiz headlines with her opinions on the industry and political developments, but none of her releases lasts beyond a week in the multiplexes.     

The rules of engagement between stars and their constituency may have been profoundly altered by the social media landscape, but fans will vote for a film with their feet only if and when it appeals to them as a package. While A-listers such as Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn have in recent years delivered multiple box-office duds, Rajkummar Rao, Vicky Kaushal and even Abhay Verma (lead actor of the horror-comedy Munjya) have had massive commercial successes to show for their efforts.

Ranveer Singh, among the most visible Bollywood male stars on social media, has had a patchy run at the box office. In recent years, he has had only one certified solo hit (Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani), with films like Jayeshbhai Jordaar and Cirkus tanking at the box office. He is everywhere. His films not so much. 

What social media has done is demolish the barrier that stood for decades between moviegoers and their favourite actors. Once distant and ensconced in a firmament high above the world of the ticket-buying public, the stars have now literally come down to earth and have, in the bargain, lost some of their mystique. That, in turn, has undermined the lasting impact that they once had on the minds and hearts of moviegoers.

Hollywood’s methodologies are seeping into Bollywood, nowhere more so than in the proliferation of franchise films and the emergence of cop and horror comedy universes. Playing safe is the name of the game. Sequels and tried-and-tested fare now gain precedence over original films that are commercially risky and, therefore, exciting and more likely to push the boundaries of the medium. 

More and more films are being conceived keeping a target demographic in mind. The strategy works only sporadically. Even when it does, it can only deliver short shelf lives for films. The innate magic of the movies is lost in a maze of SWOT calculations. No matter how big a star is and what his or her social media following is, it boils down to the quality of the films that are being made.

Ranbir Kapoor is a rare Bollywood frontline star who does not have a social media account (barring a secret one on Instagram). He is on record that he isn’t active on social media because he wants his fans to relate to the onscreen roles that he plays rather than to his real-life personality, which, in his own words, is boring.

On the career front, Ranbir, one of the most gifted actors working in Hindi popular cinema today, may have had his ups and downs but he has retained a degree of aura that eludes other Bollywood male stars of his generation. By resisting the temptation to join the social media bandwagon, the scion of Hindi cinema’s most prominent family has managed to stand apart from the crowd. 

Hrithik Roshan, another third-generation Mumbai cinema celebrity, has a social media account on which he posts photos and updates on his work, but he does so only occasionally. He isn’t out there all the time. The cloak of privacy that surrounds him, no matter how thin it is, stands him in good stead. In a hyperconnected world, audiences are bombarded with information, images and movies (with the streaming platforms dropping multiple titles every week, what was once a trickle has turned into a veritable torrent). Being unattainable at the click of a laptop or mobile phone key could soon become the differentiator.  But are Bollywood’s new-gen stars alive to the possibility that lesser visibility might translate into greater staying power? Time will tell.        

The writer is an award-winning Indian film critic.