Actor vs art: The Kartik Aaryan problem
By: Jayati Bhola
Tags: Metoo, Kartik Aaryan, Entertainment, Misogyny, Bollywood

Still of Kartik Aaryan, and his famous 5-minute monologue from 2011 Hindi film, Pyaar ka Punchnama

Of monologues, misogyny and moronic choices

In Pyaar ka Punchnama, Kartik Aaryan was the bullied boyfriend with the now infamous and viral self-indulgent 5-minute monologue — an ode to the wronged lives of boyfriends. In Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety, he was the saviour friend of the groom, and in Luka Chuppi, a coy yet persuasive man who prefers a live-in setup than marriage.

It’s a special genre now defined by the 30-year old, Gwalior-born, Kartik Aaryan, who’s given a slew of hits in the past three years. With his release ‘Pati, Patni Aur Woh’, a remake of 1978 comedy centered around celebrating an extra-marital affair, he officially entered Bollywood’s ‘hit factory’ club. Though he followed it up with Love Aaj Kal, a colossal disappointment, let’s focus on the rather ‘genre defining’ films Aaryan has been part of.

Let there be no doubt — Kartik Aaryan isn’t just the underdog here — he’s also a legit star in the making. He comfortably finds company in, and completes the holy trinity with Ayushmann Khurrana and Rajkummar Rao — the small town heroes with small town stories. The same towns with a population that makes up for an ever-increasing growing consumer base. It also makes for a clever move on his part to woo the audience that resides in these cities, armed with their now redundant tik tok accounts.

And so Aaryan has carved his own niche like Khurrana and Rajkumar. The latter, obviously, have established a strong fan base and have cemented their position in Bollywood’s star pyramid with their heartland connect, and exceptional performances.

For Aaryan, it’s in his ‘commitment-phobic, next-door boy’ roles ready to take on the women. You can see the charm. It’s always the bumbling character surrounded by manipulative women, or the socially-awkward boy that wants to romance the beautiful, and ‘out of his league’ women. In simple words, he’s your average brown man, who somehow, always gets his happy ending, with or without the woman.

I’m not here to say that Aaryan’s talent needs to be questioned. He’s a hard-working actor at best, and an outsider trying to make it in the highly cliquey industry, at worst. The struggle, in itself, finds a place in his graph charting the peak of success in a Khan-dominated industry.

But it was only after the massive 2018 success of Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety directed by Luv Ranjan, an equally controversial director, that Bollywood took note of Aaryan. From his stint on Koffee with Karan with Kriti Sanon to bagging revered Imtiaz Ali’s film opposite Sara Ali Khan to being inducted in the famed halls of Dharma for Diwali parties — Aaryan is making inroads to his Bollywood mainstream dream.

Do his films reek of sexism, overtly sexual jokes and misogynist charades? Yes. But it isn’t something that our society already doesn’t laud. Misogynist dialogues elicit laughter in the audience. This is, in fact, a loud reflection of the way our society reiterates “boys will be boys”, also plastered all over tees being sold on Bandra’s Linking Road, closely followed by the popular ‘Apna Time Ayega’.

When Aaryan goes on to proclaim ‘he doesn’t understand women’ the theatre laughs with him in acknowledgement — because, yes, we don’t understand women. Instead, we choose to label them. They’re the mothers, sisters, girlfriends, and wives. Never just themselves.

The society, with its overarching hand, pulls them back and pushes them in a velvet box — they’re soft by association, bad by rebellion.

The conversation on showcasing female actors in Bollywood through a male gaze, still largely remains on the fringes. Spurred by Twitter observations, in enclosed parties, in our living rooms, or by pieces which care to lead that conversation forward. Then follows the trolling, online, and offline, often of women, to discredit these criticisms. You’re devaluing art, they say.

But why can’t “art be art”?

To unpack the complexity that is ‘art’ in cinema, let’s first acknowledge that this criticism isn’t limited to India. The world-at large seems to weakly express the problem in ‘over-correcting’ entertainment. Isn’t entertainment for pure joy? Isn’t it a tool of creative expression? Can we, in our right conscience, really criticize an artist’s freedom to express through their art? Or can we, as individuals, also have the freedom to dissent, and create an open space for art criticism — definitely not a path-breaking thought.

Because when French actor from the highly acclaimed film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Adèle Haenel, walked out of the French Film Academy’s César Awards as Roman Polanski was announced the Best Director, the audience chose their sides.

French star Adèle Haenel, walking out of the French Film Academy’s César Awards

A quick recap: In 1977, Polanski was convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl, but left the United States before his sentencing and moved to France. Haenel drew her boundaries, between the art, and the artist.

Huffington Post, too, put forth a simple question: “Do actors have a moral responsibility in choosing the roles they portray?” In the article, it discussed South Indian actor Parvathy, who at Film Companion’s Performance of the Decade roundtable voiced her opinion on how problematic messaging, or glorification of violence, and sexism can carry real-life consequences, specifically referring to 2019’s most controversial, and popular film— Kabir Singh.

Parvathy said, “When a man is being misogynistic and abusive and you show that in a way that incites applause in the audience, then that’s glorification. At the same time, (if) you make the audience think (about) whether he’s done the right thing or not, then you’re collaborating with the audience. Then there is cinema, there is dialogue. But the other one is almost spoon feeding you that this is okay.”

Her messaging was clear. If you choose to do damaging work, take the bloody ownership.

A good example of that would be the deeply disturbing yet entertaining Netflix show, You.

A story that follows an obsessive stalker, and a psychopath killer, played by Penn Badley.

But take one look at Badley’s promotions for the show, and you’ll see him repeatedly reiterate his stance on the obviously problematic character; engaging with his fans on Twitter to set the distinction — he doesn’t condone his character or revel in its unhinged portrayal. He too, draws the line between the art, and the artist.

Something that majority of our mainstream Indian actors refuse to engage with. It’s simple — they want to steer clear of their personal stance, choices, and the freedom to creatively pursue whatever that is they want to do. It’s business, they say.

However, it’s in these spaces that it is hard to distinguish between Kartik Aaryan, the actor with ambitions, and Kartik Aaryan, the person. Though none of Aaryan’s films bother to give him any redeeming arch, or whether that’s even a point of contention, it is understandably trickier to call out the actor basis the content. After all, he isn’t the writer. He’s a performing actor, one believes, who wants to do cinema for the audience, free of any censorship.

We shan’t, and can’t muzzle voices. Instead, we choose the voices that we muzzle. His and Luv Ranjan’s voices aren’t those.

But Aaryan agrees to carry on the world written, and directed by men who weave the sad, victimised man-child narratives against the evil, and overbearing women.

So can we, as the audience, then at least discuss the possibility of conveying to the industry that these films do matter in the context of society, and have always mattered? That, no, in 2020, the cliche man child versus a domineering women isn’t in good taste. Or can we, simply, wash our hands off it to get our buckets of buttered popcorn out, ready to meme-fy douchey dialogues.

Interestingly, Bollywood films do carry their tokenism of “we see what’s happening” tropes. No, not the cop films celebrating police that refuse to acknowledge police brutality in India, or worldwide. Nor the ones erasing, and rewriting India’s Mughal history.

But take a closer look, and you’ll find bits, and pieces thrown in. The problem isn’t in those pieces. It’s in the intent.

Because using a protest song to drive the narrative of a film without acknowledging its history is as much of an empty tokenism as crediting the female actor before her male co-star.

And seeing Karthik’s choices so far, it gives us an apparent picture — he’s here to stay, and entertain.

Or Kabir Singh wouldn’t have made 377 crores worldwide, becoming the 11th highest grossing film worldwide.