It’s finally out and how. With all the pomp and flair expected from a debut of this market value, The Ba***ds of Bollywood is finally with the audience — opening the floodgates to more reviews, more discussions, more interview appearances, and even more memes. A mish-mash of genres, a never-ending flow of starry cameos, slapstick deprecation, and some good old, slow-mo Bollywood style drama – The Bastards of Bollywood (as we now know) is likely to be a crowd favourite. For his directorial debut, Aryan Khan has chosen to take a dig at his own silver spoon, whilst still glorifying it, ridiculing it, and delivering it to the audience packaged in exactly the tropes we love to watch and hate.
The seven-episode series follows the overdramatised life of a young debutante actor, an industry ‘outsider’ Aasman Singh, played by Lakshya Lalwani, who finds himself facing just about every stereotype there is about Bollywood and then some, plus what he learns about the star-studded underbelly of ‘Bollywood’.
Bollywood on Bollywood: A recurring theme
This is not the first time though that Bollywood has taken it upon itself to make films about Bollywood. The Hindi film industry has in the past, too, shown various aspects of the profession and workplace circumstances — be it in satire, drama, documentary or comedy formats. While the ‘faces’ and spaces of Bollywood have changed and reshaped themselves with time, it continues to be among the most aspirational and expensive industries in the country.
Films, filmmaking, and those in the industry have for years been a carved corner of society that seems to constantly be inspiring curiosity, envy and ambition in equal parts. Therefore, any glimpse that the audience could get into the world of films, even if through films, has always been greeted with excitement from viewers. Shows like Koffee with Karan were huge hits just because they gave a voyeuristic peep into the lives of film stars. Bollywood, on its part, has also been giving audiences enough glimpses of how life is in the industry. Let’s look at movie titles that serve as short windows into the ‘fabulous lives’ of Bollywood stars.
A look back: Films that held up a mirror
Starting from the 50s, Kagaz ke Phool, directed by Guru Dutt in 1959, was among the first Hindi films on a topic like this. This film was set partly in the film industry, telling the story of a film director who fell in love with a young girl of modest means and transformed her into a movie star, and the tribulations of the director’s family life as a result. The 2001 release Bollywood Calling was a comedy on the other hand, directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, about an American director who came to India seeking to make a film and endured a series of comedic roadblocks and characters.
Cult favourites like Om Shanti Om and Luck by Chance also feature in this list — movies that gave the audience a look into the glitzy yet unfair world of Bollywood, particular for newcomers, as has so elaborately been hammered into the audience with The Ba***ds of Bollywood.
Most recently, Zoya Akhtar’s 2024 release Superboys of Malegaon is a heartwarming reminder of those with little to no means, who dream to make it in regional and world cinema. Others include The Dirty Picture, which created quite a stir with Vidya Balan portraying Silk Smitha in 2011, Filmistaan in Madhur Bhandarkar’s Heroine starring Kareena Kapoor in 2012, followed by Bombay Talkies in 2013. Shah Rukh Khan‘s Fan and Ayushman Khhurana’s An Action Hero also fit the bill, as both were set against the backdrop of the popularity and larger-than-life nature of a Bollywood star’s life.
Lesser known films with similar themes and timeless stories are Foto, released in 2016 starring Naseeruddin Shah, which explored a child’s interactions with a travelling film crew, and 2009 release
Harishchandrachi Factory, which tells the true story of Dadasaheb Phalke and his journey of making the first Indian feature film, Raja Harishchandra.
Bollywood isn’t the only Indian cinema industry that has created films centred around the film industry. Bengali, Gujarati and south Indian films like Iti Mrinalini in Bengali and Chhelo Show in Gujarati, and documentary style films like The Cinema Travellers, or The Celluloid Man, based on a travelling group of movie screeners, and celebrated film archivist and historian PK Nair, have also been made, although not as vigorously marketed as mainstream Bollywood releases.