Opinion Salman Khan on OTT censorship: Why Bhai at 58 sounds like an ignored patriarch
His make-believe invincibility needs more than triple flips in the air to ground him to the basic truth: OTT is the hot-seller
Speaking at an event, Salman Khan said OTT platforms overdid nudity, vulgarity and profanities and were corrupting impressionable 15 and 16-year olds. (File Photo/AP) 
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Since his legal troubles began — the black buck case and the hit and run case — Salman Khan has sought to recast his image as the “bad boy” with the “wild ways”. He has done this through his Being Human foundation or as an onscreen superhero sworn to his commitment to the common man, becoming everybody’s big brother or “Bhai”. However, “appearing” to be right doesn’t entitle him to the righteousness of the kind he displayed at a recent press conference.
Speaking at the event, Khan openly advocated censorship for OTT platforms, saying they overdid nudity, vulgarity and profanities and were corrupting impressionable 15 and 16-year olds with content that is culturally alien to a family value-conscious “Hindustan.”
Can somebody tell Bhai that the Indian teenager is quite evolved, despite the unpoliced democracy of the internet, and has found more things of value in surfing multiverses than not? Or that teens are exposed to more nudity and so-called vulgarity on the social media profiles of Bollywood celebrities, than some shows on OTT?
Khan at 58 sounds like an ignored patriarch. He forgets that his entire screen persona has been built on the shirtless look, which compelled even peers like Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan to become ab-conscious. Should we forget the songs with double entendres that he has done over the years? Or ignore his on-screen roles as married protagonists seeking out relationships with other women (No Entry, Biwi No 1) all in the name of comedy?
Khan carried his moral policing to the extreme by calling out actors who did intimate scenes, saying they were risking their own security as their “watchmen” consumed these explicit clips on their phones, the assumption being that his class IV staff had never watched “item numbers”, some of which he has endorsed in his films. If these can be rationalised as massy entertainment, OTT shows, offering personalised and curated entertainment, are hardly more troubling. Here mature adults choose what they want to watch on their devices as a private pursuit, not as part of “family hour”.
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One wonders if Khan had similar qualms as the host of India’s most popular reality show, Bigg Boss, where he has presided benevolently over all the things that he has accused OTT shows of. Season after season we have been privy to a toxic cocktail of negative emotions in prime time. There have been expletives, street fights, cheating, theft, ugly gossip, bullying, fake marriages, body-shaming, name-calling, etc, with the worst act to date being contestant Swami Om throwing urine on co-contestants Bani J and Rohan Mehra. Of course, the show, being a high revenue grosser, is hardly seen as an attack on Indian sanskriti.
And since this show is where he has major equity as a star, Khan has kept silent on its content, deriving vicarious pleasure from watching people squabble in an enclosed space and looking up to him for arbitration. Or is it that whatever he legitimises as a superbrand is above reproach?
Perhaps, the real problem is the fading mystique of stardom among the masses that once adored him. The OTT revolution has not only served up rich content, realism, talent and storytelling, but it has also mainstreamed the fringes and been a cultural leveller, one where a Shah Rukh Khan chat show may not work as well as his film Pathaan and where comedian Kapil Sharma’s show finds greater resonance. OTT stars have their own cult followings and many of them have got what Bollywood denied them: A breakthrough and market value. And at a time when mainstream media is hemmed in, OTT, through its many genres and formats, has given voices to the unheard. Most significantly, internet connectivity in villages and small towns means that Chulbul Pandey’s hold even over mofussil towns and villages is waning and that of The Family Man, streaming on an OTT platform, is increasing. The woman soldier, vigilante and law keeper, a rarity in mainstream cinema, is the real hero driving seasons and people who don’t fit in the gender binary have broken stereotypes. So where does Khan fit in?
There was a time when ticket windows in far-flung towns sold out on the first day of a Salman Khan film. One cannot deny that much of Khan’s onscreen championship of the unwashed and dispossessed reflected on his offscreen persona and suffused him with an ochre glow. Not anymore. The OTT has changed this plot and, therefore, become Khan’s biggest enemy.
His make-believe invincibility needs more than triple flips in the air to ground him to the basic truth: OTT is the hot-seller. Perhaps, that’s why he is speaking like a politician. But there are already too many of them.
rinku.ghosh@expressindia.com
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