What’s the difference between a satire, parody or spoof, and a farce? Yes, they all show us an exaggerated mirror, but that’s where the similarities end.
Satire is when you show how ridiculous Bollywood is. It’s a critique. Spoof or parody is when you make a film called Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Cash to roast another film. A caricature. And farce? A farce goes beyond critique and caricature to capture the chaos of the entire system through observational, exaggerated comedy that spares no one, including the creator.
Case in point, Aryan Khan’s unapologetic true-blue farceThe Bads of Bollywood— most likely to be misunderstood if we look at it literally, disregarding its farcical tone and genre.
Aryan Khan did not give any interviews before the release and said he would rather let his work speak. The Bads of Bollywood, now streaming on Netflix, speaks loud enough — capturing the complexities of his relationship with Bollywood as an insider — and happy to report that his heart beats for the outsiders, the underdogs, the dinosaurs, the has-beens, the outcasts, the background dancers, or the fatherless strugglers in the city of dreams.
Bobby Deol as Ajay Talvar in ‘The BA***DS of Bollywood’
| Photo Credit:
Netflix
It’s a show getting polarised reviews, mostly for the offensive adult content, but let’s take a closer look at what it is really saying by letting a farce play out.
While Aryan’s The Bads of Bollywood draws inspiration for drama and comedy from Farah Khan’s musical Om Shanti Om and Akshat Verma’s Delhi Belly for language and tone — finding the middle ground to pitch this farce — some stretches that are in the Borat zone (wicked, crass, dark, subversive, politically incorrect, offensive humour) will not go well with the easily triggered or offended.
The most offensive stretch to unpack the politics and meaning comes in the second episode, where an argument between an obnoxious, power-crazed producer and a woke woman production designer escalates because she’s painted the hero’s room wall pink and not blue as demanded — because, as she says: gender norms are passé.
After he calls her “Fatty,” she quits, shoves him a few times, and he kicks her. The kick is straight out of a cartoon. And the shocked sidekick asks: “How can you kick a woman? How can you kick a woman, sir?” and he says: “Because I would never raise a hand on a woman.”
The gag continues till the hero knocks him down, and just as he is about to punch him, he stops and says: “You are lucky — even I would never hit a woman.” The joke could mean that the hero doesn’t think the producer is a real man. Or, if we want to be offended, we can choose to read it as him using the word woman to mean the weaker sex.
Manish Chaudhari as Freddy in ‘The BA***DS of Bollywood’
| Photo Credit:
Netflix
But let’s not forget that in a farce, the joke is on everyone — including the hero and the creator himself. Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat talks about keeping his wife in a cage, and often says in Kazakhstan, it’s not a mistake to beat your wife — it’s encouraged. The subject of the joke is the guy who says the most incorrect things. He’s the buffoon, the clown, not to be taken seriously.
Aryan is happy playing the clown — in seven episodes, there are two moments where the “Directed by Aryan Khan” card appears as the punch line. One at the end of the first episode, when a character says “Say no to drugs,” and another at the end of the 6th when an entitled star kid pleasures himself, oblivious to the chaos of Bollywood unravelling around him.
Aryan roasts himself on more than one occasion, his own father, and pretty much every cameo — though some, like Salman Khan, are thoroughly wasted.
But what’s surprising about the show is that it manages to hide that it’s a full-blown farce till the big reveal and twist in the final episode that reminds us that everything we saw happen — including the rom-com clichés of life imitating film — was the big joke. A punch line so good because it was hidden in plain sight, just masked by special characters.
The moments where it hides the farce — like establishing the bromance and the emotional beats of loss and heartbreak — are scenes that have a lot of heart, making us forget we are watching a farce. Early on in the show, the hero, in response to “a star is born,” says: “Born nahin sir, made.” Aryan knows stars need to be made, not born.
Shah Rukh Khan in ‘The BA***DS of Bollywood’
| Photo Credit:
Netflix
Another scene that introduces the heroine in slow motion with her hair flying around ends with her saying, “Bhaiyya, pankha bandh kijiye.” There are a lot of finely observed potshots on privilege — like monitors being quickly moved to where the superstar sits, and another where a billionaire family reacts to a scandalous clip of their future daughter-in-law on TV.
The girl’s mom defends: “It’s fake news.”
The billionaire shoots back: “It’s my channel.”
The son-in-law wonders: “We have a channel?”
The girl’s brother: “Dad, where’s my channel?”
This show knows how to stack up the jokes.
There are some finely observed modern-day WTF moments like: “The intimacy coach cancelled — he’s going through a divorce.” Or the fact that people get cast because the “rude, arrogant and pompous” get the audience interested. And normal is boring, and only sensation sells.
Aryan knows the nature of sensation. A good writer is unafraid to share his vulnerabilities — even in a farce; a character says, “I’m not strong enough to face that kind of failure, so I can’t fail.”
With help from fellow creators and writers Bilal Siddique and Manav Chauhan, Aryan has put together a terrific motley crew of characters who all get to shine, including a secondary character who, when left out of the car heading to the climax, screams to register his protest: “I’m not a f***in’ side character.”
This wild ride through the Bollywood circus is refreshingly anti-cliché, though it makes Shah Rukh Khan say, “What a cliché. I love clichés.”
It marks the arrival of a smart, funny, uncompromising, assured new voice — one that loves and hates Bollywood clichés, roasts and romanticises the dream factory in equal measure, full of zingers and twists. Creator-director Aryan Khan shifts gears effortlessly between comedy and drama, ending most of the scenes and episodes with a punch line, where nobody — including the revered mother figure — is sacred.
Mona Singh as Neeta in ‘The BA***DS of Bollywood’
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy of Netflix
The political incorrectness, irreverence, and adult humour may make family viewing tricky, but this show is destined for cult status with its laugh-out-loud moments and the brave choices of its final episode.
A show unafraid. A star is made. Congratulations, Aryan Khan.
