Filmmaker-producer Karan Johar is back in the limelight for his least favourite topic: nepotism.
Social media was not kind to Johar on a day he released the first look of the three protagonists of Student Of The Year 2, a sequel to his 2012 hit Student Of The Year.
From the time actress Kangana Ranaut cheekily accused the Dharma Productions’ head honcho of nepotism on his own television chat show, Koffee With Karan, Johar has been regularly skewered on social media for favouring star kids.
Johar had launched filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt’s daughter Alia and David Dhawan’s son Varun in Student Of The Year (2012).
In Student Of The Year 2, he is launching Chunkey Pandey’s daughter Ananya. Tiger Shroff, who has been around for a couple of years, is the son of senior actor Jackie Shroff. The third actress is Tara Sutaria, with no filmi family background.
The nepotism allegations take a serious hue when seen against the backdrop of an interview of actress Patralekhaa where she rued the lack of opportunities despite her worthy performance in her debut film, Citylights (2014), with Rajkummar Rao.
Speaking to film journalist Rajeev Masand, Patralekhaa said, "Citylights got great reviews, I got so much love, but the work never happened. I barely got few scripts, at least at that point of time, I didn’t want to do. For six months, I was just sitting at home. It was my make-or-break moment. I knew in my head, if this works, there will be work. But nothing came."
Patralekhaa’s ordeal is a grim reminder that it is an uphill task to break into Hindi cinema, especially for artistes with no family connections with filmdom.
Johar can hope his 'students' perform well, before the nepotism debate comes back to haunt his class.
Below are some of the tweets that lashed out at Johar and his SOTY 2 cast members:
Check out the video below to find out what Cinestaan.com made of the nepotism row last year.