Making fun of Netflix India is like shooting fish in a barrel. The controversy-ridden Indian division of the streaming platform has fumbled more times than arguably any of their rivals. As such, they are reportedly the least successful streaming platform in India.
From producing questionable fare like the deeply insensitive Bad Boy Billionaires, a docu-series that glorifies India’s modern day criminal feudal lords like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi who devastated the lives of millions of Indians, to not doing a thing to quell the huge backlash Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl generated, Netflix India’s business practices and decisions have always been called into question.
To make matters worse, some nincompoop down in Marketing thought it was a nifty idea to create a YouTube show that makes people hate Netflix India and Bollywood even more than they already do! The show in question, Behensplaining (like mansplaining, get it? So woke, bhai), sees two talentless, visibly insecure female comediennes, Kusha Kapila and Srishti Dixit do what everyone in India does on the daily – make fun of Bollywood films and actors. Except the difference between everyday civilians and these two ladies is that the general public is not trying to sell Indian content to others which Netflix India supposedly is.
So why is Netflix India shooting itself in the foot? Why the self-sabotage? What’s the reasoning here? I seriously doubt they have the intelligence to launch a thoughtful campaign like Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign.
My thought is this – Netflix India is tapping into and monetizing the seething rage and hatred middle class India has right now towards Bollywood even at their own expense. After the passing of Sushant Singh Rajput, which broke the hearts of millions across the world, many people irrationally, without any evidence, directed their anger at Bollywood resulting in the disgusting witch hunts of Rhea Chakraboty, Arjun Rampal, Huma Qureshi and any one with the last name of Kapoor or Khan. Sadak 2’s trailer became the second most disliked video in YouTube history due to Aditya Roy Kapur and Alia Bhatt (“nepo kids”) starring in it and 64 year old grandmother, Soni Razdan, had to disable the comments section on her Instagram account because she was being called a “bitch” every single day.
It’s safe to say that the level of animosity unleashed onto Bollywood in 2020 was unprecedented. And rather than look at the concrete evidence at hand, such as the fact that Sushant Singh Rajput was diagnosed with bipolar disorder years ago (a mental illness which causes many of its sufferers to have suicidal thoughts), many of those grieving Sushant Singh Rajput’s death instead decided to focus their negative energy at India’s softest target – Bollywood.
How does Netflix India’s Behensplaining respond to this? They dangerously feed their anger albeit in a really cutesy, incredibly disturbing way.
Kusha and Shrishti crack try-hard jokes at everything and everyone with the exception of highly original “gora” content like Stranger Things of course. It’s not as though I don’t agree with them. I actually do most of the time. I also find movies like Love Aaj Kal 2, Dostana (Dixit and Kapila roped in a transsexual for their reaction video to that film to garner extra woke points) and K3G problematic and straight-up stupid. And their criticisms of certain Bollywood actors’ thespian skills aren’t without merit. However, as the old adage goes, “there’s a time and place for everything”.
In a time when so many innocent Bollywood stars are facing daily death threats from hordes of online sociopaths – just for the sake of being Bollywood stars – and the Indian authorities are playing actors like marionettes by constantly terrifying them and charging them for non-criminal offenses, it is imperative for those of us who have a shred of human decency to remain sensible; to not fan the flames; to not think that just because actors are richer than us that means that that they can and should take it. In other words, at this point in time, we should refrain from being morally depraved bullies like Behensplaining.
Who the hell told you that sushant was suffering from something like bipolar , don’t cover the muder fact by your false narrative of him being bipolar , hell you know what’s it is ! Nd person like sushant who did so much performed every single time hes been with!
And about his murder, that is being sufficiently told by people who did postmortem in mortuary that he’s been brutally beaten and stabbed to death until he tried to survive in order to protect himself from culprit’s ….
Secondly , the failure of sadak was due to poor direction and un-dedicated performance of actors!
It has nothing to with the late actor !