Avery happy Deanne Panday flew out of Mumbai this week.
All over the city were large format billboards piercing the skyline as son Ahaan Panday’s premium brand campaign went up on high visibility sites. The first male celebrity to endorse this Ambani brand of personal products, Ahaan has been so strategically positioned that after Saiyaara, the actor who talks little, boasts never and smiles like a heartthrob has attended only a couple of awards functions and talks to his audience through ad campaigns where the paycheck is huge and the exposure is in tantalising trickles.
Whisper has it that even while Ahaan workshops for his action film that Abbas Ali Zafar will direct, he is facing the cameras regularly — for the half-dozen high-end ad campaigns he’s signed.
Patience and perseverance have paid the Pandays a handsome premium. On a drive from Bandra to Juhu, Chunky’s daughter Ananya will look down from the hoardings of a range of beauty products while Ahaan’s new campaign is not just one big billboard at strategic sites but a cluster of large close-ups of him at every turn.
In the video of this new campaign, there’s also a shot of his favourite girl — sis Alanna who’s having her own moment in LA. As influencers and content creators, Alanna and hubby Ivor have done themselves proud by buying a swank new house in LA. Deanne, who was in Mumbai long enough to gaze gratifyingly at Ahaan’s billboards, flew across continents to help Alanna move into a house “of her own”.
This is a success story that has written itself noiselessly but not effortlessly. The endurance tests that Ahaan has been through will also come out in trickles someday. But for now, brand value is the best gauge of celebrity status and this 5’ 11” actor has dwarfed most others around him.
Meanwhile, the industry is still to accept that the hard knocks coming its way require introspection and course correction. Instead, Taapsee Pannu points fingers at the whimsicality of the audience that she claims is rejecting women-centric films. Shahid Kapoor’s O Romeo, packed with song, dance, love, fight and intensity, is still not going to recover its investment. Blame the gender, the audience or faulty storytelling?
Taapsee is the Punjabi kudi who did a spate of films in the south before getting noticed in well-made, well-received Hindi films like Pink (2016) and Mulk (2018). She has earned herself a niche where, however flawed a Taapsee film may be in other departments, one is sure she will be more than just a decorative piece in it. But Rashmi Rocket (2021), on gender testing of a sportswoman diagnosed with hyperandrogenism, didn’t take off. Shabaash Mithu (2022), a biopic on cricketer Mithali Raj, got bowled out. Sci-fi mystery Dobaaraa (2022) wasn’t watched even once by most, and her own production Blurr (2022) was a clear loser. Even Dunki put a speedbreaker on SRK’s hopes of a hattrick in 2023 as it wasn’t Raju Hirani at his best.
The promo of Taapsee’s Thappad (2020) had delivered great expectations. But with meandering scripting, it failed to be convincing while one resounding slap from Gul Panag to cop-husband Jaideep Ahlawat on an OTT show like Paatal Lok had packed a better impact.
If Thappad failed, as did Anubhav’s next film Anek on the Northeast, it wasn’t because of wrong messaging or gender rejection but because the filmmaker got waylaid by wanting to say too many things. It’s therefore not the audience that has lost its plot as Taapsee has been insinuating while promoting her latest film Assi.
Rape is a monster four-letter word and any film like Assi that talks about it will find support. But an interesting film has to go beyond noble intent. If Assi goes the Thappad way, it’ll be solely on Taapsee and Anubhav.
Go back to the drawing board and script an engaging film. Guilt-tripping the audience is not the answer.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author
