Bollywood and the infamous case of paid reviews

If you have still not heard of the infamous ‘Ajay Devgn-KRK-Karan Johar’ scandal, you must be living under the rocks. To jog your memory and refresh your grey cells, we’ll just go over it again. Few days ago, Ajay Devgn shared an audio clip, in which his producer of ‘Shivaay’ is allegedly speaking to the self-proclaimed critic, Kamaal R Khan, where latter confessed to have been paid an amount of INR 25 lakhs by Karan Johar, to promote the teaser of his upcoming film ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’. Ever since, there has been a chaos of statements coming in from the respective parties, denying and accepting facts, making this one mess of a situation.

We must say, the whole incident has quite shaken us, for this has brought out a very dark side of Bollywood, one which might have existed, but in whispers. The existence of paid reviews has come out as a reality so stark that now we quite do not know what to believe and what not.

Come to think of it, all the trailers, promotions, merchandise, interviews, but how many of us actually go and watch the movie’s first show on day one? Very few and those are either die-hard fans, or the critics. However, a majority are dependent on the word of mouth and reviews that come the next day in various forms of media. Imagine if you get to know that the same thing you trust your decision with, is actually bribed for and not genuine.

Paid movie reviews have always been there, just that we have never come to know what goes behind the curtains, and by the time we realize, we have already spent a moolah on movie tickets. Trusting the review, we have already contributed to the earnings of the movie, even though we know it was not as great as the review suggested.

No matter how much KRK tries to retract his statements, the fact is that the cat is already out of the bag, and if we might say, is pooping all over the place. The news might be done and dusted with after a while, but it has already sowed the seed of doubts in the minds of those who have been waiting with bated breath for both ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ and ‘Shivaay’ this Diwali.

Another angle to the story can be that this whole thing might be pre-planned thing, to garner publicity for the respective movies. Even if that is the case, this is one dirty business, as cases like these divide the audience, who innocently take sides and fight it out on social media, unaware of the fact that these biggies might be having a laugh at their expense.

We do not what is the reality of the whole web of circus that this case has become, but for sure, there is no denying the fact that the voice in recording belonged to KRK. If everything holds true, then there are some serious allegations that both Karan Johar and Ajay Devgn might have to face from their fans.

Also Read: Equal pay for actors and actresses in Bollywood: A dream too distant?

Kadambari Srivastava

Grammar Nazi, word weaver, dreamer, bibliophile, technophile, caffeine addict, foodie, shuttling shopaholic! Mash it in a Bollywood recipe and voila! Pushpa, you’ve got her!