Things That Happen Only In Bollywood

Being awarded for style and social media, the blind item, and other practices that are unique to the Hindi film industry
Things That Happen Only In Bollywood

One of the funnier tweets I've seen recently came from Karan Johar. On March 11th, he posted: Was about to land! Wore a new jacket! Product in hair! Big sun glasses were put on! New bag pack positioned for capture! And then….the worse thing happened!!!!! The paps Were NOT there!!!!! Shattered! Will now repeat this look and pray!

I love that Karan buys into the 'airport look' but can also laugh at it. The idea is ridiculous. After all, who cares about who is boarding a flight when and what they are wearing when they do it. Apparently, a lot of people do.
I also wondered, is the airport look a singularly Bollywood phenomenon? Paps or the paparazzi came to us much after the West (the word comes from Federico Fellini's 1960 classic La Dolce Vita, which featured a news photographer named Paparazzo). But we seem to be evolving our own version of what situation is pap-worthy. Apart from airports, the gym look is also a best-seller. I constantly see pictures of actors exiting and entering gyms.

Apparently, it's now important to be stylish even as you sweat – a leading daily newspaper recently filled a page with how to get your gym look on point. Which further made me think about some of the other things that seem to be Bollywood specials – that is, things that happen only in Bollywood. Here's my list – please add what
you think I've missed.

1) Superstars celebrating their birthdays with the media

2) The blind item

3) The obviously fake gushing tweet about a colleague's upcoming film.

4) The public bragging of social media numbers – i. e. actors celebrating their own milestones of 3 million on Twitter and 4 million on Instagram.

5) Multiple brand endorsements – Hindi cinema's biggest actors like Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan sell half a dozen brands each – this includes a fairness cream, Navratna ayurvedic oil and window blinds.

6) The standard practice of buying press – is any other film industry as dependent on advertorial for marketing? Here, it's often hard to distinguish between artists being written about because they are talented and artists being written about because they are backed by a marketing budget.

7) Style awards – do film artists anywhere else in the world get applauded for dressing well?

8) Bizarre award categories – Here are a few of my favorites:
I Am More Than You Can See Award – Lux Golden Rose Awards – 2017 Winner: Kareena
Kapoor Khan
Nothing To Hide – Star Screen Awards – 2018 Winner: Kriti Sanon and Shahid Kapoor
Woman of Essence – Lux Golden Rose Awards – 2017 Winner: Anushka Sharma
Most Beautiful Man of the Decade: Vogue Beauty Awards – 2017 Winner: Akshay Kumar

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