From Adulation to Brick-bats: How one Statement ruins Longstanding Impressions

My favorite actor since childhood: Mr. Mukesh Khanna

STATUTORY WARNING: This article has no mention of Kangana Mohtarma because she’s hopeless. Just a matter of hours/days when another nugget of insightful, cringeworthy and unsolicited “Gyan" comes out of her mouth. To be honest, I’ve lost count.

It is no big surprise if I say I am (more like was) a big fan of JK Rowling. I have spent nights reading the Harry Potter series under my blanket in dim light and watching her movies spellbound. I idolized her as the best fiction writer, someone who took me far away from the mundane struggles of life into the marvelous world of Hogwarts. I thought I’d ever be grateful to her and literally found in her my “go to inspiration…” until this year. Until she negated the struggles of tran people, our physical and emotional journey in terms of transitioning, and our struggles of finding acceptance in quite a tone-d*af way (Apologies for the non sequitur ableism). She earned the title of a TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) and rightly so. She flatly gatekept a social construct of womanhood and limited it to cisgender women, who have their gender handed to them on their plate (you might gnarl at me but this is true). Naturally, to a non-binary individual like yours truly, this statement reeked of biological essentialism and identity invalidation which makes people mere products of their biology and their genitalia.

My biology — namely years of painful menstruation and endometriosis — has never made me feel like a woman, so I’d like to tell JK Rowling to cut it out with her biological supremacy crap already.

JK Rowling displays her caring side which doesn't register anymore

Another part of my life went into watching Shaktimaan, starring Mukesh Khanna in the lead. Like every other Indian kid growing up in a seemingly “apolotical” household, Shaktimaan was a subtle conservative indoctrination wrapped into a super hero show. I love how Shaktimaan taught us the difference between what we thought was right and wrong — all so effortlessly. In fact, I still remember, my sister and I memorized lines of one of the episodes by heart and enacted the scene 11 years back. Cringe at it, but so strong was the impact of the show, that I remember our theatrics vividly.

Today, the actor says that sexual harassment and the whole #metoo movement are a result of women wanting to be like men which are misogynistic and peddle binary gender roles.

This comes off as triggering for two reasons: the first being that I’ve been molested IN MY HOME ENVIRONS by my grand uncle (paternal grandmother’s brother) who gropped my bare back when I was asleep. My T-shirt had ridden up my back in my sleep and I was knocked out flat. This woke me up because it went on to an inappropriate extent I’d say. Everyone talks about how unsafe the world outside can be, but no one warns you about how murky it can get at home.

The second reason this is problematic is because he’s reinforcing binary stereotypes that are both misogynistic and funnily trans exclusionary.

It’s also triggering because he insults women like my mother, who’s always done equal justice to both work and family and with so much dignity. She has shown the meaning of work-life balance in action and has raised her children very well. And she fought tooth and nail for her autonomy to work, because my paternal grandmother was always disparaging of her efforts and used to fill my ears with venom against her. What’s life without saas-bahu drama ? — except that this was my mom’s claim to self agency and not a TV soap plot. I see myself walking in on my mother’s footsteps as a successful career-oriented individual. Needless to say, I see this as a huge insult to anyone that’s not the quintessential alpha cishet man — who works hard to be financially independent.

So how should I as a fan or an ex-fan react to this? Do I still enjoy and rever Shaktimaan? Do I still give him the place of my favorite super hero when some part of me wants to rip his head off? This is a popular conundrum all fans face.

Separate the art and the artist they say. Their opinions and their behavior shouldn’t take away from their work. I beg to differ. It may sound unfair to them, but I stand my ground. Lemme explain.

When someone hits the pinnacles of success, the audience that consumes news about them sees them as one entity. This means lines that separate personal from professional blur. This is the reason why public entities have no “personal" life as much as they want to. With all this limelight being showered on them, there is this added responsibility of understanding privilege and the struggles of oppressed groups and people who’ve faced systemic marginalization. (this is expected of EVERYONE irrespective of how famous they are, just that no one puts an ordinary human under so much scrutiny).

So when someone makes a highly irresponsible, misinformed, and community-exclusive/gender stereotype-reinforcing-statement like they did, try as much as we might, we can’t fathom that our favorite work of art is written/produced by someone who holds such thoughts. And there is this added sense of guilt and moral conscience in the public, that by funding them - monetarily and with our adulation - we’re directly/indirectly empowering their thoughts and doing a great disservice to those communities.

But what about our disappointment as fans? What about our confusion (still like them vs not like) and our guilt of having supported them? It makes us raise pertinent questions: is it wrong to idolize them in the first place? Is it wrong to expect sensitive opinions from them? Would it have been great if we had no opinions/expectations in the first place?

In an ideal situation, it is best not to have any expectations but sadly that’s not how fans work. Certainly not when the object of adulation becomes a part of the living room at a certain time slot every day. Worse still it hurts when people we were connected to in our childhood, become strangers as we grow. I feel I don’t know this new Mukesh Khanna or JK Rowling at all. I wouldn’t want to associate with them or their work there of.

PS: I’ve left this article open-ended because it isn’t a well-thought-out piece, but just some outpouring. I’m sure many of you can relate.