dailyO
Art & Culture

Ram Gopal Varma, Salman is no Rajinikanth, can't overtake SRK

Advertisement
Vinayak Chakravorty
Vinayak ChakravortyApr 30, 2016 | 16:14

Ram Gopal Varma, Salman is no Rajinikanth, can't overtake SRK

Wow, did Ram Gopal Varma just imply Salman Khan will be Bollywood’s Rajinikanth? I don’t know if Rajini fans will take that hint as a compliment but Ramu, filmy fatale who habitually loves to kick the hornet’s nest, sure drove eyeballs to his Twitter handle this past week when he barraged a series of tweets justifying his claim. 

Ramu’s claim, for those who came in late: Salman’s box-office rival Shah Rukh Khan is behaving like Kamal Haasan lately by taking too many chances, playing a fan, a dwarf (in an upcoming film) and other such experimental characters.

Advertisement

Salman on the other hand has stuck to being himself film after film. Translated in the Tamil context, that equates Salman to Rajinikanth, who retained his trademark swagger for decades. SRK, like Kamal, is losing the plot by experimenting wildly.

rgv_043016035331.jpg
Ram Gopal Varma just imply Salman Khan will be Bollywood’s Rajinikanth?

Drawing a parallel, Ramu thus declared Salman will continue keeping his fan base happy while SRK will gradually alienate his admirers. This way, Salman will end up a bigger star than SRK.

There is a basic faux pas in Ramu’s claim. He forgets these are different times, and the audience that demands unusual content is beginning to dictate box-office trends. Plus, popularity index in the Khan era is very different from the one that Rajini and Kamal contended with in their heydays.

Bollywood’s phase of Khan wars is passé. Salman and SRK, now pushing 50, have been giving out vibes that the deal is no longer about fighting each other. Faced with inevitable onslaught of younger competition, the Khans lately seem to have taken their game to the next level.

Advertisement

Both Salman and SRK know they jointly define an era that looks set to become Bollywood’s mightiest ever. For the Khan era to be Hindi cinema’s biggest, Salman and SRK realise they must coexist.

This has been evident lately in the cordial behaviour they have accorded to each other in public and in the media. Importantly, this is the age of brand power, unlike the days when true-blue superstars Rajini and Kamal fought box-office wars.

Back then, films released in theatres, and the number of weeks they ran decided a star’s stature. So, if Rajini, more than other actors, managed to bring back fans to the halls repeating the same tricks, he would become Tamil cinema’s unquestioned god.

Kamal, in this context, does not compare to SRK. The apt parallel would be Aamir Khan, who regularly bends rules within the mainstream format to score blockbusters and has revealed filmmaking knowledge beyond being an actor.

Salman and Shah Rukh both identify with Rajini’s mass hero syndrome. Only, while Salman clicks more at a grassroot level, SRK has traditionally scored better in the urban turf.

Advertisement

A star’s success today is as much about box-office glory as it is about lucrative endorsement deals and social media clout. But these are no longer just parameters of popularity.

Well-oiled PR machinery uses these as tools to maintain the star’s aura, unlike in Rajini and Kamal’s era.

Knowing Ram Gopal Varma, he was not bothered about such details. The fact might be more than coincidental, after all, that the Ramu’s Salman-SRK tweets have trended just when he has a new film coming up.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)

Last updated: May 02, 2016 | 11:21
IN THIS STORY
Please log in
I agree with DailyO's privacy policy