In the latest celebrity talk show to hit the (small) screen, Two Much with Kajol and Twinkle, stars are once again on the kind of couch they seem to like best: A cosy one hosted by one of their own. Salman Khan and Aamir Khan opened the season, followed by Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan, and then came Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan. None of them were seemingly promoting a film or a show, often the reason why celebrities do interviews nowadays, and would generally be unlikely to appear together unless it was a favour to industry insiders like the hosts are. The format is crafted to feel casual and airbrushed and as the promos promised, there are frivolous games and loud laughter.
Twinkle and Kajol are riding the same wave that Karan Johar made so popular years ago on Koffee With Karan: Celebrities seemingly indulging in drawing room banter with their peers, served as entertainment for audiences like us. Many have been doing it for a while with some success, among them Neha Dhupia, Arbaaz Khan, Kareena Kapoor and more recently, Farah Khan. Where Fun with Farah Khan stands out because she uses food and family recipes as a warm lens to dip into celebrity lives and their fancy homes, helped ably by her cook Dilip, Soha Ali Khan’s All About Her explores wellness and womanhood with well-known personalities from across fields.
A truly good interview can be a joy to watch, especially when film artistes offer intriguing insights into their craft and reveal how scenes come together through a chaotic process to create magic. But today, much like their curated social-media profiles, celebrity interviews have become increasingly fixated on glamour and glitz, with diminishing access for journalists outside the PR machinery or for seasoned film critics capable of asking hard, relevant, and probing questions. As a keen observer of film interviews, and someone who has conducted her fair share as a journalist, it is disheartening to witness this clear shift in how stars are framed in the media.
Once upon a time, film interviews by default revolved around the craft, choice of film, and star opinions on pressing issues within and outside the film industry. Controversies around their personal lives, too, were up for discussion. These could, oftentimes, be fixed by texting the celebrity directly, or through a personal manager. But in a PR-driven culture, where everything is artificially managed, the focus is on surface-level bytes, curated glimpses of their lavish homes, and the premium they command. As the cameras follow them into their living rooms, the spotlight drifts away from their work and towards material success.
Segments involving games, personal anecdotes, or fashion choices create a sense of “spilling the tea” while remaining firmly in the realm of spectacle. Audiences are offered a version of the star’s personality, but it is carefully edited and staged to fit the industry’s desired narrative. In effect, these talk shows blur the line between publicity and entertainment, passing off performance as genuine conversation.
Fewer stars are willing to speak candidly to journalists, where offhand comments or critical questions could become viral controversies. Instead, talk shows and influencer-led interviews act as controlled spaces where celebrities can present a polished persona, promote upcoming films, and where fawning hosts often frame questions in an overtly friendly manner, allowing stars to maintain authority over the conversation.
It’s just a handful of serious film critics, journalists or industry veterans who continue to probe deeper. It is also just handful of stars, such as senior female actors, directors and writers of meaningful cinema, who appear authentic and allow vulnerability to seep in. They feel like a breath of fresh air in a climate all too shiny with the glimmer of stardom, an endless thirst for money and fame, designed to make audiences envious without leaving them any wiser about cinema.
Serious questions about the Hindi film industry’s many challenges — declining work, inflated star fees, bloated entourages, waning creative power, formula-driven flops, endless star-kid launch vehicles, gender parity, glaring age gaps between male and female actors —are left for the occasional interview or round-table. (Although Kajol and Twinkle did attempt to question Aamir and Salman on the glaring age-gap between them and their female co-actors, the Khans swiftly sidestepped the issue).
Bollywood’s growing desire to control its offscreen narrative through paid-for platforms may prove to be its undoing. If the sole aim is to generate tabloid headlines to be more visible and rake in the bucks, reinforcing the personas they want the public to buy into, while leaving the deeper, more pressing questions unasked and unanswered, the result is a landscape where stars are rarely understood, and where meaningful engagement with their craft or the industry’s challenges is all but invisible.
Bhatt is an author and independent journalist who reports on gender, public health, policy and culture
