Pathaan helmed by Siddhant Anand was touted to be King Khan’s biggest comeback in 2023. However, instead of receiving loving welcome from fans, celebrated actor Shah Rukh Khan and his co-star Deepika Padukone landed in hot water for “tacky” choreography and “skimpy” clothing in viral song, Besharam Rang.

Adding to flak, Indian minister Madhya Pradesh also expressed his displeasure over romantic track, leading to series of protests across country. Finally, fed up with criticism, Khan voiced his concerns for emerging trend of negativity and trolling on social media at inaugural ceremony of 28th Kolkata International Film Festival, reported Times of India.

Without directly addressing controversies related to Pathaan and Besharam Rang, Khan said, “I’m really proud of everyone standing in solidarity with me. Support proves that no matter what world throws at us, we will always remain positive and alive.”

He then pointed out how negativity on social platforms only leads to more destruction in real life. “Social media is often driven by certain narrowness of view that limits human nature to its baser self. I read somewhere that negativity increases social media consumption, and thereby increases its commercial value as well. Such pursuits enclose collective narrative, making it divisive and destructive.”

Moving on, Zero actor also stated that cinema is bound to be affected by increasing pessimism online. He said, “Collective narrative of our times is shaped by social media and contrary to belief, spread of social media will affect cinema negatively.”

Khan went on to defend cinema by dubbing it as vehicle “For people of different colours, castes and religions to better understand each other.” He also urged people to pay more respect to films. “Cinema is best place to sustain counter-narrative that speaks to larger nature of humankind,” he added.

Despite receiving requests for film to be boycotted, Khan commended KIFF for ushering in new era of optimism in country and congratulated people of Kolkata. “Through endeavours like KIFF, we are able build new platforms to break existing prejudices. Let’s come together and build better world for our future generation through medium of cinema,” he concluded.–Agencies

Published in The Daily National Courier, December, 17 2022

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