I’ve always been a Bollywood award ceremony junkie; the stars, the performances and the clothes. In the past, I’ve always viewed most of the ceremonies as fair or fair enough. Yes, there is a fan lurking around in me and so when one of my favorites doesn’t win, I will admit, I do get a tad bit upset. But credit is due where credit is earned. So when Filmfare bestows Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol with top accolade ala Best Actor and Actress in Leading Roles for 2010, I found myself saying words that cannot be printed. How on earth Filmfare comes out with such results is beyond me. As if the publication didn’t kiss up enough to stars which in turn would lure them into appearing on the front cover and gives the magazine exclusive interviews, that they had to go ahead to become the ultimate award ceremony which kissed @$$ and how. In fact, many major stars chose to stay away from award ceremonies this season. Kareena Kapoor chose to stay home with a pizza while Salman Khan decided to turn up and advertise his charity, Being Human before calling it a night even though he landed up winning the Best Actor award for his performance in Dabangg.
Let’s be honest; there is a certain amount of bias to particular stars depending on the ceremony association. For example, because The Filmfare Awards are hosted regularly at Yash Raj Studios, the likes of Karan Johar and Shah Rukh Khan are felicitated. Why? Because the duo are pretty much family to the Yash Raj clan. Er, technically that hardly makes the award ceremony critical and democratic. What irks most viewers (myself included) is the mere fact that actors who performed outstandingly this year were simply ignored. Aishwarya Rai, who performed par excellence in Guzaarish was simply ignored as was Hrithik Roshan‘s phenomenal enactment of Ethan for the same film. Realizing that every other award ceremony was giving Vidya Balan an award for Ishqiya, Filmfare decided that the so-called Critics Award for Best Actress had to be thrown her way. Right. This definitely makes sense. Please sense the sarcasm.
Films like Udaan were given some idhar-udhar awards, which seemed like they were doing the film a favor. Ditto for Dabangg, which in actuality really helped the industry and told producers simply to rid themselves of pseudo ideas and keep it Indian. When will the likes of Filmfare realize that audiences are not stupid? Granted the biggest stars tend to attend and so TRPs are rocking high but when it comes to genuineness, Filmfare has a lot to learn. From the looks of it, Filmfare does nothing but advertise major stars in the industry; the SRK’s, Bachchans, Chopras and so on. Why seriously talented actors are ignored, is simply beyond me.
On an ending note, all I want to say is when Hrithik Roshan realizes the show and awards are clearly a sham, he decides the smartest thing to do is exit. And when his wife, Suzzanne tweets, “Just came back from filmfare sometimes in life we get what we don’t deserve..makes it ruff to understand what’s the logic in all this..”, then all we can say is one word: Ditto.
