Bollywood’s Fading Fortune: Selling Glamour Without Substance and Misery Without Solution

From the outside, Bollywood looks less like a vibrant film industry and more like a hereditary cartel, a self-perpetuating machine that churns out overpriced mediocrity while relentlessly inflating its own legend. The Bachchans, Kapoors, and Khans do not simply dominate the landscape; they replicate themselves across generations, transforming what should be a merit-driven creative field into a closed trust fund where entry is determined at birth. 

Aaradhya Bachchan, still navigating school corridors, already commands paparazzi attention with the poise of a seasoned professional. Sara Ali Khan, Saif Ali Khan’s daughter through Amrita Singh, arrived amid a storm of orchestrated fanfare and has since delivered a series of performances that rarely rise above forgettable. Her brother Ibrahim glides in next, his debut treated less as a gamble than as an inevitable rite of passage. Agastya Nanda, Amitabh Bachchan’s grandson via Shweta, slips into the frame with the quiet assurance of someone who knows the doors were never locked for him. Suhana Khan, Aryan, Nirvaan, Junaid, Farhan Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar, Nysa Devgn, Ananya Panday: each name represents another pre-approved entry visa stamped with family approval rather than proven skill. 

Formulaic Waste

This seamless succession extends far beyond individual launches. It shapes the entire ecosystem. Big banners such as Yash Raj Films, Dharma Productions, and Red Chillies Entertainment deploy astronomical budgets, A-list stars, and marketing blitzkriegs, only to produce glossy, formulaic waste that collapses under its own weight. Salman Khan’s endless parade of shirtless action spectacles, Akshay Kumar’s rapid-fire patriotic sermons, Hrithik Roshan’s high-octane aerial sequences, Varun Dhawan’s recycled romantic comedies: hundreds of crores evaporate into predictable sludge that offers neither surprise nor substance. 

Box-office collections are routinely faked with the brazen confidence of a street hawker rigging his scale. Trade analysts, often in the pocket of producers, declare outright disasters as resounding triumphs. Fighter limps to barely breaking even yet earns the coveted “hit” label. Bhediya quietly hemorrhages funds but is spun into a narrative of optical success. Producers absorb the losses with a shrug, banners recycle the same faces, and the cycle begins anew. The question hangs in the air: who is still paying full price to watch Akshay Kumar lecture on nationalism for the 47th iteration? Who endures Salman Khan’s invincible heroism beyond the opening weekend frenzy? Perhaps, a dwindling diaspora clings out of nostalgia or habit, but the broader audience has long since migrated elsewhere.

Public denial from within the fortress only deepens the absurdity. Kareena Kapoor Khan, Saif’s wife and a Kapoor by birth, recently declared in interviews that nepotism does not exist in Bollywood. The statement lands with the hollow ring of a lead balloon dropped in an empty auditorium. She utters it from a vantage point constructed entirely on lineage, surrounded by generations of inherited privilege, dismissing a structural truth that is glaringly obvious to anyone standing beyond the bubble. Tone-deaf? Brain-dead? The evidence suggests both. Such pronouncements reveal not ignorance but a calculated insulation from reality, a refusal to acknowledge the velvet rope that keeps the gates firmly shut.

Trends in Cinema in the Global South

Contrast this bloated, self-congratulatory machine with the cinemas of the global south, where craft often triumphs over capital and fresh voices emerge without dynastic crutches. Indonesia produces taut, gripping thrillers on modest budgets that resonate deeply with local audiences and occasionally travel abroad on merit alone. Thailand blends horror, humor, and social commentary with surgical precision, no star surnames required to secure distribution. The Philippines nurtures a vibrant indie scene that consistently delivers authentic voices without the need for billion-rupee marketing campaigns. Iran, despite censorship and sanctions, crafts poetic masterpieces like Asghar Farhadi’s films that dissect human morality with universal acuity, earning Oscars on storytelling alone. South Korea has built a global empire on genre innovation and directorial vision, from Bong Joon-ho’s razor-sharp satires to Park Chan-wook’s visceral thrillers, all fueled by meritocratic systems that reward risk over relation. Brazil churns out city symphonies and favela epics like “City of God” sequels or Kleber Mendonça Filho’s political allegories, made on fractions of Bollywood budgets yet packing international punch through raw energy and cultural truth. These industries earn respect through storytelling discipline and cultural specificity, not through dynastic decree or fabricated triumph.

India’s own festival circuit, meanwhile, offers a parallel but equally problematic export: poverty packaged as profundity. Films screened at Berlin, Cannes, or Toronto invariably showcase filth, destitution, systemic corruption, and unremitting hopelessness. Slum children scavenging amid garbage heaps, broken families trapped in bureaucratic nightmares, entire communities drowning in despair. The underclass depicted gains nothing tangible from this exposure, no policy shift, no uplift, no voice. Instead, white festival elites applaud the “raw authenticity,” sip artisanal wine, and return to their comfortable lives, momentarily moved but ultimately untouched. The portrayed remain invisible in real terms, their suffering reduced to an aesthetic experience for foreign consumption. Bollywood’s commercial churn and the arthouse poverty spectacle thus become two sides of the same escapist coin: one sells glamour without substance, the other sells misery without solution.

See Also

Alia Bhatt’s Commanding Performance Elevates ‘Jigra,” Making it a Decent Cinematic Experience 

Talk shows crystallize the entire farce in microcosm, a ridiculous spectacle of nepo interviewing nepo in a closed loop of mutual admiration that would be comical if it were not so insular. The pinnacle of this self-congratulatory echo chamber is Two Much, the joint talk show hosted by Twinkle Khanna and Kajol, where two women born into film royalty trade breezy anecdotes and life lessons with guests who share the same silver-spoon pedigree. Twinkle, daughter of Rajesh Khanna and wife of Akshay Kumar, and Kajol, scion of the Mukherjee-Samarth dynasty, dispense wisdom on resilience and hustle from vantage points that have never known struggle, all while quizzing invitees on industry hurdles they themselves sidestepped. 

 Trifecta of Delusion

Zoya Akhtar took the absurdity to cinematic lengths with “The Archies,” stuffing her retro comic adaptation with a full nepo lineup: Suhana Khan, Agastya Nanda, Khushi Kapoor, all fumbling through Archie comics dialogue like trust-fund kids at a costume party. The film landed as a tone-deaf joke, panned for its privilege masquerading as nostalgia. Aryan Khan’s much-hyped “debut” in his own directorial venture feels equally farcical, another insider project greenlit by surname rather than script. Janhvi Kapoor starring in “Homebound” as a marginalized domestic worker completes the trifecta of delusion, Sridevi’s daughter emoting about invisible labor from a life of visible luxury. These are not genuine exchanges; they are coronation ceremonies thinly disguised as casual chat, where mediocrity is not merely accepted but elevated to the status of relatable charm. The hosts and guests linger on familiar surnames and rehearsed smiles. It is an echo chamber so perfectly sealed that even the laughter feels inherited.

Beyond the tightly sealed desi enclaves, Dubai duty-free shops, New Jersey community centers, London curry-house televisions, this entire output registers precisely zero on the global cultural radar. The world streams sharper narratives from Seoul, Bangkok, or Lagos, stories that arrive with craft, surprise, and universal resonance. Bollywood survives, for now, on a toxic blend of domestic delusion, doctored data, and diaspora loyalty. The velvet rope remains knotted tight with surnames. The nursery continues to expand unchecked. The mirage shimmers on, sustained by a collective refusal to confront its own emptiness.

Vikram Zutshi is an American journalist and filmmaker specializing in religion, art, history, politics and culture.