New Delhi: Actor Imran Khan has criticised Indian films where protagonists behave like emotionally immature “manchildren” but are repeatedly justified by the narrative of the film.
“There has been a pretty clear pattern across Indian cinema of managing and kind of coddling these emotionally immature manchild characters,” Khan said in an interview with Brut India.
The central plot of these movies, Khan said, is about the male protagonist’s misery after a breakup.
“And the film will kind of wallow in the emotional misery of this one character, generally motivated by romantic rejection,” he said.
Khan argued that the character’s hurt then becomes an excuse for increasingly toxic behaviour.
“What then follows is a 1.5 to 2-hour tantrum where any manner of misbehaviour is somehow validated, coddled, and justified because of the grief faced by rejection,” he said. “That’s not a depiction of any kind of an emotionally healthy, mature individual.”
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The pattern is normalised
Khan said the audience is bored of men throwing tantrums but these patterns have now been normalised through many such films. This thought, he said, has also shaped the kinds of male characters he was willing to play in Bollywood.
“This is why I have chosen the films that I have chosen, and why I have passed on others where I found myself unable to emotionally or psychologically align with the viewpoint… Stuff that just felt wrong,” he said.
Khan recalled films that he has previously worked in like Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na (2008), Break Ke Baad (2010) and Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu (2012). But he feels the label of a ‘romantic comedy’ oversimplifies what he was trying to explore. For him, these films were about human emotions and the situations that a young couple goes through.
That same philosophy now extends to the filmmaking environment itself. Khan shares he no longer wants to be part of sets where money and scale come at the cost of people enjoying the process.
“This is the way that films should be made, in my opinion. I want to work with people with good vibes,” he said.
(Edited by Stela Dey)