Here is the lecture content:

"Hi everyone, welcome to week eleven. We are spending this
entire week talking about Karan Johar and films by Karan Johar. So I
wanted to start by looking at a few films that our reading talks about and
then I wanted to actually talk about Karan Johar, the human being a little
bit too in in some ways contextualize what we are talking about today or
this week. So these are some of the films that are prominent examples in
our reading for today. We see This film that's Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna,
we're going to actually, which is Kal Ho Naa Ho. My glasses guys, I am just
not doing very well with these things. So this is <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON>. Okay film,
set in New York, Shahrukh Khan is kind of well I maybe shouldn't spoil it
for you but very very Karan Johar and we will talk about what that actually
means. Kuch Kuch Hota hai, Kabhi alvida Naa Kehna and another film for
today Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. These are these are four films that made
Karan Johar extremely famous and you see that Shahrukh Khan is in all
four of them. So Shahrukh Khan and Karan Johar as a team have have
done a lot together and have made a lot of films together. And they
continue to interact in professional as well as, as far as I understand,
personal ways. So Karan Johar was a was an assistant director for Dilwale
Dulhniya Le Jayenge, our film, a film you have watched. We we talked
about this film at great length and we saw that how even after 27 years,
even after a number of years this film is still very much present in the
psyche of the average Indian Bollywood viewer or I should say average
Bollywood viewer. So we see that So Karan Johar is an assistant director
and then at one point during assistant director, and you know guys I have
seen so many interviews with Karan Johar because again when I'm not
watching film, I'm watching these random interviews with people and
whatever, we don't need to go into why I do that to myself, but I do. So we
are, we are thinking about. So. So yes. So Karan Johar in one of his
interviews has said that he was talking to Shahrukh Khan on the set of this
film Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, which you have seen. And Shahrukh
Khan is like, So what do you want to do with your life? And Karan Johar is
like ohh, I don't know. And Shahrukh Khan says, well you know, if you
come up with a film I'll act in it, I'll do it. And that is how Kuch Kuch Hota
Hai is born. So like Karan Johar starts his career with Shahrukh Khan and
they make a lot of films together and of course make a lot of money
together. But as Karan Johar comes up as this big director in Bollywood, he
also kind of evolves as a human being. So when Karan Johar started here,
you see Karan Johar also acted a little bit in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge.
He was one of the two friends that go to Europe with Shahrukh Khan and
he has this really random type of role in the film. And then he is, you know,
he's just a photo of Karan Johar. Here he is with his two children. He has
two children by surrogacy. He has never talked about his sexuality, but it is
quite obvious that he is queer because he talks about being queer, but he
also never comes out and says, well, this person is my partner or anything
of that nature, but he has two children and this is in the last five years or
so. These are young, young children. He also has lately become this big
fashion icon who was, you know, the shoes Karan Joker wears, the glasses
Karan Johar wears, it's all a thing. So he's, you know, he's come up as an
individual as well as a fashion icon as well as a big producer in Bollywood.
Other things that made current to her famous is this show, Koffee with
Karan. And here he invites a lot of Bollywood celebrities and he talks to
them about really random things. Like really random things. And again, if
I'm watching interviews with Karan Johar, I'm obviously watching Koffee
with Karan. So I've seen so much of this. Also he has a book, it is called An
Unsuitable Boy. A Suitable Boy is a book by Vikram Seth. It's this really
giant book and An Unsuitable Boy is kind of a a take on that and he talks a
lot about his life, his films, his things of that nature. Uh. My God, I want to
say in 2019 on a way on, on a trip back from India, which takes, you know,
15-16 hours, I finished this entire book and it's, it's, you know, it's a casual
type of read, the kind of book you read in an airport when you don't want
to focus a lot on what you're reading. But it's an interesting thing. What I
want you to do now for a minute is to go ahead and watch this. About 5
minutes of this interview that Karan Johar did in 2022, late 2022. This is
with Twinkle Khanna. Twinkle Khanna was herself a pretty, you know,
decently fame, decent amount of fame actor and her father was a really big
deal actor in in the 1960s. And early 70s and like after that, he played a lot
of roles, really popular actor. His name was Rajesh Khanna. Weirdly
enough, we haven't watched anything by him, but there's a lot of people
we can't watch everything, right? So this is an interview with Twinkle
Khanna. Twinkle Khanna interviews a lot of people. She has interesting
takes on things. And go ahead and watch this interview and we'll talk a
little more about Karan Johar.
Interview Clip Subtitles
-I’m quite enjoying this cathartic. I felt like I was sitting with my therapist. -
Yeah, I have this sort of order aura around me. Come tell me your secrets. -
I quite enjoyed this therapy session. Tina, thank you for calling me. In fact, I
should pay you. -Yeah, you can pay me in kind and by that I mean gives
Gucci. Is she here yet? Okay, now I’m panicking. -Oh, you outdid it. -Big is
always better! -I’m hot! -Listen, I'm not playing this game. -His bum is that
good? -Scuba diving. -You want to go scuba diving? -Sitting there going- -
Gopi. Gopi. Stop it Gopi! -Welcome to Tea with Twinkle and we did have
to misspell and mangle words like ‘K’. Coffee with K to have a fancy title. -I
know but literally there is tea in my cup. I just want to say that it's legit Tea
with Twinkle. -So that's why I bought you all these desserts. Two reasons.
One, you can stuff your face. And two because you made fun of me once
when you came to my house in front of everybody. You said I was giving
bite-sized desserts because nobody eats and you said that am I in your
house or in Jet Airways flight. It was highly offensive. So now you better
eat all of this. -I want to tell you, you're still on a Jet Airways flight. I mean, I
don't know when last I have been given desserts that look like this. And
the last time- -What about this? -But the last time I was in the house, they
were the same. Are these recycled? -We just keep them. Actually they're
made of cardboard. -Yeah, I feel like they're props. -Yeah. -But the tea is
very good. -Okay good. Okay so now that you've made fun of all my
hostess skills because you are the legendary man who has these legendary
parties that everyone kind of attends. Farah Khan said that she was more
stressed about getting dressed for your party than for her wedding. -Yes. -
How did you go from being this what I recall awkward, chubby, weird child
into the most popular guy in town? -It was, you have something to do with
my big change. And I'm glad you are asking me this question because I
remember there was a moment where we were all at my place. Your mom
and you and there was this big discussion about how happy you were in
this school in New Era. I was like I suddenly started seeing that my life
because I was very bullied, you know, in school because I was a feminine
child and I was also very large. So I've just felt like I needed a switch in my
life and when you told me about your boarding school days or rather your
experience at New Era and Panchgani. I was like Mom, I want to go.
Beautiful big trees, like it was a beautiful school and I went and I was like I
need to get in because you look so happy there. And they were saying
Tina's doing so well. She's topping her class and blah blah blah. It all seem
like very rosy. So, I, of course, went. Gave a farewell party. Made towels
with my name. Chaddi with my name. Everything with my name written on
it. It was Karan Johar like nobody. Like I was always like thinking like Karan
Johar koi royalty ka naam hai ki har jagha daldo. And I packed my bags,
reached there and the very second day you told me that why are you here.
Like I said, you told me it was great. You said it's great for me. I don't know
if it will be great for you and I was miserable day two, day three. Then you
asked me to run away. I tried, failed. -Because you kept coming and saying
you’re hungry and I find you food and I was robbing things for you. -I was
a very plus-sized child. The food that was given to us was not enough for
my Punjabi-meet-Sindhi appetite. And the school was great and I really
think that I failed as a human being by not really being resilient enough to
last out. But when I came back, to answer your question, I remember my
mother was distraught that I had been so- She's a board. She’s a boarding
school product herself like she was in boarding school when she was nine
years old. So she was like you know, I've raised you to be a strong, resilient
and you know, you just turned out to be so like you know, like such a mess.
And it really hit me hard and when I went to school back again to the same
school that I was at, after returning all the farewell party presents which I
had got and removing my name for my chaddi. I went back to school and I
was like I have to change something about myself, I have to tap into who I
really think I am because I was always very shy and introverted. And I just
joined something called an Interact Club. It led me to elocutions, debates,
drama, all that. And then, I remember the 10th standard like you know
because three years I had become like real. I went from like nobody to like
this popular kid like who was like a great in elocution, in drama and debate.
And in the 10th standard they announced my name. And you know like
how like they call like for Lifetime Achievements they called like that. They
were like and for the last time to perform on our stage, Karan Johar. And I
came like you know ki mujhe hi gold milne wala hai. And I went with that
and there was a big applause. And there was a moment where I stared at
everyone, I genuinely I'm saying this with all my heart, there was a beat in
my head that went like I'm gonna be really famous one day. From then on I
just felt like I just needed to be really famous. Like do something that
makes my name known in the world. Bad, good we'll see and realise. Now
when I read the trolls, I'm like ah maybe not. But I was like that's when I
think that my journey began. So you have something to do with this big
transformation that happened. Back to where we began.
Lecture Video Transcript (cont.)
So this is <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON> in late 2022. This is the first five minutes of a 32
minute interview. And the reason I picked this interview for you guys to
watch is some of the really difficult topics That this video touches on, this
interview touches on, while also being a product of an industry that really
brushes over so much. So I'll elaborate on what I mean by that. The video,
of course, touches on body image. Karan Johar keeps calling himself a big
person, as in a physically big person. The video also talks, or the interview
also talks about being bullied in school. So really two very difficult topics.
For a film industry, for the Bollywood film industry, the topic of body
weight and body image is of course a big deal because people who rely on
their own physicality for the screen have a very different take on what it
means to be a body of a certain type. And once we have social media and
we have people looking at people's bodies, gazing at people's bodies, it's a
very different thing. So Karan Johar is really vulnerable in this interview. He
talks about how he has a lot of feelings about his own body and his own
body image. He of course does not talk about these things as as we do in
the West, in this country, where we really talk about body positivity and
we talk about all body types being part of the frame of an advertising, for
example. However, Karan Johar and Twinkle Khanna talk about this in and
of itself, it's a thing, at least it is a thing for me. It's a positive thing. It's a
step in the right direction. So all of this to say this interview, this book
Karan Johar has written Koffee with Karan, Karan Johar's collaborations
with Shahrukh Khan, all of that To say that Karan Johar is not, is not. He's a
big deal person. He's a big person as in he's not a behind the camera
director, producer. We never get to see he's he's out there. We see a lot of
Karan Johar in Indian media. And the films that Karan Johar has made have
an impact on the Bollywood film industry and the relationship between
Bollywood, the filmmaking body and Bollywood as it is, felt, seen, thought
about, and as it relates to our class, right. So I'm like making a distinction
between the kind of films Bollywood makes and the kind of impact these
films have. And I'm saying that the reason we are studying Karan Johar
today, and a film by Karan Johar today, is because Karan Johar has done
something that is in a few ways industry changing, right? So films were
doing a certain thing till Karan Johar comes about and then films start
doing a slightly different thing and that slightly different thing is what we
are trying to study today and read about today, understand. So let's get
started with what our reading says about Karan Johar. So our reading talks
about or I should say, if you will recall in the earlier part of the semester we
talked about a lot of people critiquing Bollywood as this cinema of the
masses, cinema for the masses and art cinema in India as being actual
cinema. Things that we should, we should interact with, we should see; we
being the upper class, the informed, the educated, that type of class and
art and Bollywood being like this thing that we should look down upon. Uh.
Our author says that now in contemporary Bollywood cinema making, and
this article is from 2010 from a book called Bollywood and Globalization,
the film industry, let's say in the 2010s after the coming of Karan Johar,
after Karan Johar making the four films that we have seen the posters of,
the film industry becomes Hatke Cinema, Hat Ke meaning removed from
the norm and then there being KJo cinema, Karan Johar Cinema. Karan
Johar is also called KJo. Go figure. So Hat Ke cinema is cinema that is
talking about the everyday struggles of people. Something like Peepli Live,
which you have seen, and then there is this big Bollywood Karan Johar
moment. Karan Johar moment is cinema, which is accentuating everything
that has been critiqued about Bollywood. So things that are critical that
critiques talk about Bollywood is it's too long. Well, Karan Johar, if an
average Bollywood film is 2 hours and let's say 30 minutes, Karan Johar
films are three hours. if an average film has huge sets, Karan Johar films
have massive sets. If an average film has you know, two big stars, Karan
Johar films have six big stars. And that is our film for today, actually. So we
have Amitabh Bachchan, we have Shahrukh Khan, we have Jaya
Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan's wife in real life. We have Kareena Kapoor,
we have Hrithik Roshan, we have Kajol. Six really big names. Each of
whom could carry a film on their own. And of course we have touched on
the gendered nature of Bollywood film. A female star's carrying films on
their own is a different deal than men doing it, although thankfully that is
changing a little bit. So Bollywood, so Karan Johar film kind of accentuates,
kind of makes worse things that are bad about Bollywood or are thought
to be bad about Bollywood. But Bollywood, but what Karan Johar Cinema
does a little bit of a few other things. So before we get to that. Let's see
what Karan Johar says about his own films. And this is a quote from your
article from page 19. It says, he says, "My films are one big Indian joy ride
with good looking faces and good looking clothes, saying beautiful things
and teaching the right morals to their children." So there's really a lot to
unpack here, right? I mean, he's recognizing the shallowness of his cinema,
right? Good looking people in good looking clothes and saying beautiful
things. All kind of shallow things, right saying beautiful things can be
shallow because you know, a lot of life is not beautiful things. Good looking
faces, very like subjective thing about who thinks, who's good looking,
what faces are good looking, whatever. Good looking clothes really class
based really, again, very subjective. And then there's this piece of teaching
the right morals to their children. Umm. We arrive at Karan Johar movies in
the late 2000s, not late 2000s, I'm sorry. In like 1998 to like 2006-7 is
when Karan Johar is doing these big films. He's still doing a lot of films, but
he now has a production company that produces films and it's a slightly
different deal now. But our author takes us through this really interesting
journey, which I want to kind of take you through here. So our author says
that Karan Johar Cinema does something with family that the cinema of
1980s and 90s was not doing. And our author gives us a few examples
and let's just very quickly look at these examples. So these are two films
from the 1980s. The first one is Ek Duje Ke Liye, 'made for each other'
literally, and the second one is Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, meaning 'from
doomsday to doomsday', right? So And both of these films and the
protagonists, the male and female protagonists here, these are both
heterosexual love stories. The protagonists basically committing suicide
because the society is really not saying yes to their love. And both of these
films become extremely popular films. So what is the role of these? What is
the role of family in these films? Well, family is the organization, family is
the unit that is imposing this massive discipline on love, on people's
choices to the extent that people say, you know what, I'm done, I'm gonna
die. So that is to our author, the 1980s film that is the family in 1980s film.
The other example the the reading gives us is the 1981 film called Silsila.
This film was really interesting because it stored and it created this
massive wave in the 1980s. It starred Amitabh Bachchan who in the
1970s as, I am sure you are sick of me talking about Amitabh Bachchan
being the angry young man, but here it is for you again. 1970s, Amitabh
Bachchan, the angry young man. Early 1980s, this film comes out. So
Amitabh Bachchan is married to Jaya Bachchan in real life. So this is Jaya
Bachchan. And in this film Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan and Rekha
uh this lady who you have actually seen in Umrao Jaan, not the whole film
but a few dances from a few songs from. In real life, Amitabh Bachchan
and Rekha, old tabloids are basically saying that they're having an affair
and they are this really interesting couple. It's really bizarre. Like even now
in award ceremonies for Bollywood, if Rekha comes in at Amitabh
Bachchan coming and they're both like in there, you know Amitabh
Bachchan is 80 now. Camera goes to Amitabh Bachchan and then it goes
to Rekha and it's like, ooh, what's happening here? Silliness. But in 1980s,
this film comes out and it's basically about infidelity, right? It's basically
about these two characters, Amitabh Bachchan's character and Rekha's
character having an affair, while in the film Amitabh Bachchan's actually
married to Jaya Bachchan. So where is, what is the family doing here?
There is no family here, right? The family unit has kind of collapsed here.
The other example we see from our author is the 19, I'm sorry, there's a
typo here. It's a 1998 film Roja, which is, which is about a terrorist attack.
And in this film also the protagonists are completely alone. The male and
the female protagonist, the hero and the heroine, they're completely alone.
The family unit is just really absent. We see in the first part of the film, like
the first 15-20 minutes, they they get married, there's family around them,
and then the family goes away. And the two are left to themselves. And
then the authors give us an example from a 2000, early 2000 film, Ek
Hasina Thi, 'there was one beautiful girl', and in this film, the protagonists
are just really out there. They are really violent. They are just unlike other
protagonists in Bollywood film. So it is in the backdrop of these types of
films where the family is either introducing this really negative aspect of of
being a family, of being a disciplined family, the negative aspect being in
the first set of films we saw where where the lovers basically cannot love
because their families are so against it and therefore they end up, they end
up dying for each other. Or we see the aspect of family where the family's
absent or the protagonists, are themselves really negative characters. Or
there's infidelity as in Silsila, the Amitabh Bachchan film. We see that
family is being presented in this kind of weird sort of negative way as
either not being there, or being there too much and and too negatively.
That Karan Johar comes up. So this is the background in which Karan Johar
film becomes a thing. And what are Karan Johar's films about? They are
about family. So. I'm going to end this lecture here with a little bit of a of an
overview of what we have done so far in this lecture, We have kind of
learned a little bit about Karan Johar, the human being. We have kind of
seen the backdrop of films that become the precursor to Karan Johar brand
of cinema. And in the next lecture we are going to actually learn a little bit
more about the Karan Johar brand of cinema."

Using only the lecture content, answer the following in a 150 word response. Use less complex words than usual.
1. Parents in Bollywood films were usually in the way of love between protagonists. How did this change with the arrival of Karan Johar brand of cinema?