Ranveer Singh-starrer Dhurandhar has faced its fair share of troubles even before the release of the film from Kantara controversy to legal petitions. Now a day ahead of the movie’s release, actress Yami Gautam, wife of Dhurandhar director Aditya Dhar, took to social media to criticise the culture of paid film PR.
In the long note that she posted to both her X (formerly Twitter) handle and Instagram page, the actress made several hard-hitting points about the industry and urged her industry colleagues to stand with her.
“This monster of a ‘trend’ is eventually going to bite everyone. “
The Haq actress expressed her clear frustration at the trend of hyping a movie up only when paid and otherwise fabricating negativity against it and making sure it got bad press. Gautam seemed to be alluding to the recent controversies which bogged down Dhurandhar and created a sort of “cancel culture” around it. She wrote:
“There is something iv been wanting to express since really long, I feel today is that day & I must .
This so called trend of giving money, in the disguise of marketing a film, to ensure good ‘hype’ for a film is created or else ‘they’ will continuously write negative things (even before the film is released), until you pay ‘them’ money feels nothing but kind of extortion. Just because this arrangement is accessible to anyone- whether to ‘hype’ a film or spread negativity against another actor/a film is a plague that is going to affect the future of our industry in a big way.
Unfortunately if anyone feels- it’s harmless & let’s do it because it’s the new ‘normal’, is mistaken. This monster of a ‘trend’ is eventually going to bite everyone.
If truth is exposed about a million things under the garb of who & what ‘success’ is over the past 5 years esp , unfortunately it’s not going to be a pretty picture for many.
In South no one can dare do such things because the industry stands united on lot of fronts. I urge our esteemed producers, directors & actors to come together in order to arrest this termite of a culture at this stage itself & discourage it . I say this as a wife of an extremely honest man who has given everything to this film with his undying hard-work, vision & grit along with his team to create something that I know India shall be proud of. I say this as a deeply concerned member of the fraternity who, like many other industry professionals, wishes to see Indian cinema blossom with its best potential & not the other way around.
Lets not kill the joy of film making & presenting it to the world & letting the audience decide what they feel. We need to protect our industry environment.”
She voiced her concerns about the future of the film industry and referred to this phenomena as a monster of a trend. She also wrote at length about how the South Indian film industry was united and urged the Bollywood fraternity to stand up against this practice. Gautam posted this note across her social media handles.
Reactions to the posts
The post immediately caught the attention of Gautam’s followers on X who took to the comments section to write messages of support. Currently her post on X has over 500,000 views with 10,000 likes, 1,600 retweets and 500 comments. On Instagram, the same has over 39,000 likes and 641 comments. Bollywood actors Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan liked the post on Instagram while others offered words of support.
“More than anything, the golden thing that gets lost and leaves them and all of us impoverished is the journalists true voice, a chance for them to inform all the creative forces behind a movie what they felt, thought, what they applaud and criticise. Only true opinions have the potential where feedback helps us evolve. Their own right to freedom gets unknowingly usurped and so does our chance of growth. Without freedom of expression, without the truth helping us evolve, what job satisfaction can they or any of us hope for ?” remarked Hrithik Roshan contemplatively as he added to Gautam’s post. She affirmatively replied with a “Absolutely true!”