#BoycottBollywood trend: Arjun Kapoor gives his two cents; gets trolled
The hashtag #BoycottBollywood has been trending on social media for quite some time. Aamir Khan's Laal Singh Chaddha faced a lot of flak because of the #BoycottLaalSinghChaddha campaign. Akshay Kumar's Raksha Bandhan and even yet-to-be-released films like Shah Rukh Khan's Pathaan and Hrithik Roshan's Vikram Vedha are seeing the same fate. Arjun Kapoor has weighed in on the boycott trend, and here's what happened.
Why does this story matter?
Kapoor's latest outing Ek Villain Returns with co-stars Disha Patani, John Abraham, and Tara Sutaria, turned out to be a box office dud. In fact, many recent Bollywood releases, including Laal Singh Chaddha and Raksha Bandhan, have failed to pull the crowd. So, Kapoor, in an interview with Bollywood Hungama, addressed the boycott trend, but his opinions didn't go down well with netizens.
'I think we made a mistake by being silent'
Kapoor talked about the movie boycott campaigns on social media and said, "I think we made a mistake by being silent about it and that was our decency but people have started taking advantage of that." "I think we made a mistake by thinking that 'our work will speak for ourselves,'" he said and added that people have made such campaigns a "habit."
Kapoor opined the industry should 'come together'
Kapoor also mentioned that entire Bollywood needs to come together to stop the boycott trend. "We need to come together and do something about it because what people write about us or the hashtags that trend, are far away from reality." He also said that people like actors when a movie performs well and "not because of our surnames but because of the film."
'The shine of the industry is coming down'
"On Friday morning, the spark in people, the euphoria for a new film, the excitement in people, and the shine of the industry is coming down," Kapoor expressed during the interview. He also used a shiny car as a metaphor for Bollywood actors and said that if people constantly keep throwing dirt on a car, even a new car will lose its shine.
'We have turned a blind eye' on the constant trolling
Speaking about the film industry and its shine, Kapoor further said, "Humne toh kaafi keechad jhel liya hai pichle kuch saalon mein (We have faced a lot of muck tossed at us in the past few years)... We have turned a blind eye on it (sic)." "We think that people's perception will change after the film's release," he added.
Netizens slam Kapoor over his remarks
Kapoor is being trolled online following his remarks on the boycott trend and Bollywood making a mistake by "being silent." Netizens have been targetting him with remarks on his career and flops. A Twitter user wrote: "Arjun Kapoor ki movies ko kaise Boycott kare jab Pehle se hi itni flop hoti hai iski movies (How can we boycott Kapoor's films when they already flop?)."
