In the Netflix series The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, the biennial reality show on the extravagant lifestyles of spouses of famous people, one instance befits a pause. Maheep Kapoor, the wife of actor Sanjay Kapoor and one of the protagonists of the series, consults relative and actor Arjun Kapoor for advice. She is concerned about her daughter Shanaya Kapoor getting trolled on social media after an appearance at Le Bal, an exclusive fashion extravaganza in Paris for scions from affluent families. Maheep reads aloud to Arjun a mean comment that predicts Shanaya’s inevitable segue into the Hindi film industry despite attending the high-profile event. When told about the commonality of such criticism, she looks at the camera, exasperated, and asks what should her daughter do. “Should she not take advantage of her privilege? Should she sit at home? What? I don’t get it.”
This was in 2022, when the sophomore season of the series dropped; three years and another season later, Maheep’s questions continue to elide easy answers.
Where Did It All Start?
It could have been Kangana Ranaut’s pop culture zinger moment when she sat across Karan Johar in 2017 and called out the filmmaker for favouritism, or the cheeky comment by Siddhant Chaturvedi in 2019, an outsider, that undercut insider Ananya Panday’s spiel on cushy struggle. But hardly has a phenomenon garnered as much attention in recent memory as nepotism. If the ‘ism’ in the word denotes a movement of sorts, then the unabating debate around it has distilled the nuances of a conversation to the flatness of a person: nepotism has been abridged to ‘nepo baby’ (the term popularised by a tweet in 2022), and everybody has opinions about them.
The implication is straightforward. A ‘nepo baby’ refers to an offspring of a celebrity whose genetics evoke curiosity and the weighty surname offers an easy roadmap to the world. Their presence is so pervasive in movies that the New York Magazine declared 2022 as the ‘Year of the Nepo Baby’ — a long call-out; back home, no one likes them. Star kids are ubiquitous—it is only March, and already, five Hindi films have been headlined by them—and their presence has come to follow a specific pattern. The debut is anticipated with bated breath, only for their performances to be promptly dissected on social media with long threads. Multiple meme pages are dedicated to clips from their films, each raking in millions of likes. Earlier this year, the debut of Veer Pahariya, son of business magnate Sanjay Pahariya and producer Smriti Sanjay Shinde, in the aviation thriller Skyforce, was preceded and followed by a deluge of videos of his dance steps on Instagram, most deriding him.
The Awkwardness That Was Loveyapa
Before this could subside, a fresh set of videos of Junaid Khan looking visibly awkward populated social media as he went about promoting his film, Loveyapa. Junaid is actor Aamir Khan’s son, and although he made his debut last year with the period drama Maharaj, his recent turn captured attention with renewed force. Everything about his persona was perceived to be a problem. The fact that he takes autos despite being affluent triggered debate about his ‘fake’ humility, his inability to dance was a bigger issue, and his acknowledgement of privilege in an interview spurred more antagonism. What was he trying to prove?
A similar brand of apathy is directed against the current crop of nepo babies entering films—Sridevi and Boney Kapoor’s daughters, Khushi and Janhvi Kapoor; Chunky Panday’s daughter Ananya; Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh’s children Ibrahim Ali Khan and Sara Ali Khan—through biting comments about their appearances, behaviour, way of talking. If they carry the badge of being nepo babies, then they are condemned by infantilisation. And given how shielded they are in privilege, critiquing them makes one immune to criticism: with them, you are always punching up.
But beyond the outrage lies the question of origin. And therein lies another question: why now? The Hindi film industry, like any business, has fuelled nepotism for ages. Even an offhand scrutiny will reveal the cobwebs of lineage in its corridors. The genealogy of most actors can be linked to some insider. Take the reigning superstars for instance. Aamir Khan’s father was erstwhile producer Tahir Hussain, and his uncle was Nasir Hussain, the famed screenwriter and director. Salman Khan is the son of writer Salim Khan. It only gets more rife. Most of the Kapoors, Kapurs, Khans and Bachchans can be traced back to more famous Kapoors, Kapurs, Khans and Bachchans. Throw in some Deols and Roshans in the mix, and you get half of Bollywood.
Nepotism Is Not New
Star kids have almost always made their way into films with ease. Currently, most active actors were offered their debut on a platter—a birthright few are born with. Filmmaker Rakesh Roshan launched his son, Hrithik, in Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai (2000), and the film catapulted him to stardom. In 2007, Sanjay Leela Bhansali made Saawariya with Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor, both star kids, and even though the film tanked, they had already signed more projects; the following year, Aamir launched his nephew, Imran Khan, in Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, a sensation upon release. In 2012, Karan Johar made Student of the Year with three rank newcomers, except two of them—Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan—were children of famous parents. Johar’s production house, Dharma, has been the launching vehicle for most nepo babies acting today.
Entitlement such as this is unfair, but what has generated this fresh debate about fairness today? Ranaut’s comments might have been an eye-opener, but the discussion, sustained these many years, precludes any convenient origin story. A possible factor could be the nepo babies’ over-exposure on social media, where being famous has become a full-time job. And, they are thriving at it. The faraway holidays, the branded clothing and collaborations visibilise privilege with brute force; if Instagram is to be considered, then each of them is headlining their own season of ‘Fabulous Lives’.
Remember Love Story 2050?
But, bad actors have always existed. If Sara chews on her dialogues, then in the early 2000s, Zayed Khan, son of actor Sanjay Khan, spoke Hindi like it was his fourth language. Pahariya’s ability to hop on one leg might be the biggest draw on his actor résumé, but one also shouldn’t forget Harman Baweja’s blind conviction in the wildly popular songs of Love Story 2050 (2008), an awful film directed by his father Harry Baweja. If Khushi makes dialogue delivery a guessing game, then Faisal Khan’s—Aamir’s brother—enunciation in Mela (2000) is a mystery. Little of what exists today has not existed earlier. Incompetent actors have had their moment in the sun till they are weeded out; water always finds its level.
But the breathless obsession to hate on nepo babies is a first. One can call it overcompensation, but engaging with their every post, every interview and every gesture is inadvertently aiding their career at a time when attention is currency. Their films and shows, most of which strategically drop on streaming sites to avoid box office comparisons, are immediately ‘hate-watched’ and clips of flaring nostrils (most of them do that) and stilted diction do rounds on social media with witty captions. Everyone agrees about their questionable acting skills, but everyone watches it all the same to dress their opinion as jokes, each trying to be funnier than the other. This sequence gets repeated with every star kid debut.
What Do We Really Want From Nepo Babies?
Just like Maheep’s bewilderment, the audience, too, is perhaps unsure about what exactly it wants from these nepo babies. Acting credibility is not the priority. In January this year, Vikramaditya Motwane’s sprawling thriller, Black Warrant, dropped on Netflix to encouraging reviews. All the actors were praised, including Zahan Kapoor, a descendant of the illustrious Kapoor clan. But the response to him, though enthused, was muted. He was discussed with a kind of restraint that garnered none of the otherwise committed reactions online. Approval of his craft sounded like an afterthought, a correction almost, like, ‘he is good despite being born into a famous family’. Like he was not ‘supposed’ to be.
This attitude sets a dangerous precedent for how anti-art all this is proving to be. If streaming sites feed on engagement, then every view is a good view. If they are stimulated by reactions, then any conversation, even the meanest of memes, will satiate. If the widespread dissing of nepo babies generates interest, it suffices as acceptance in the algorithm-designed world we have come to inhabit. The upshot of such intense involvement is a self-defeatist exercise of quality control, where good films are being overlooked in lieu of attacking bad films. And the attack—’viewership’ in streaming lingo—is spawning similar work.
Watching Nadaaniyan, Voluntarily
Last week, Nadaaniyan dropped on Netflix. Backed by Dharma, the film featured Khushi Kapoor and Ibrahim Ali Khan (it was his debut) and was unanimously panned by critics. But the reviews were just the start. Over the weekend, social media was flush with opinions. Instagram stories dissecting every frame of the actors were shared, many with a ‘pray for me’ caption. As if these viewers were held at gunpoint. But here’s the thing: no one was forced to watch the film, least of all at a time when Reema Kagti’s Superboys of Malegaon, a fictionalised take on Faiza Ahmad Khan’s documentary Supermen of Malegaon (2012), about the kinship of cinema and movie-watching, released in theatres the week before. Kagti’s charming film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2024 and comprised outsiders—a badge of honour, if you will, in the current times. Yet, at the time of writing this, Nadaaniyan is ranking at No. 2 on Netflix, while Superboys of Malegaon has barely any shows.
While watching Nadaaniyan, a film so bad that it is puzzling how it got made, a conspiracy theory came to this writer’s mind. What if all this is deliberate? The dialogues that sounded as if they were written by AI, the abysmal dubbing, and a cast of actors who clearly spend more time in the gym than with scripts. The suspicion was reinforced when I watched Kunal Kohli’s Bobby Aur Rishi Ki Love Story, another streaming release this year, that stars Shekhar Kapur and Suchitra Krishnamoorthi’s daughter, Kaveri Kapur, and Amrish Puri’s grandson, Vardhan Puri. Everything about the film was unbelievable, most of all its existence. The premise is akin to Before Sunrise (1995), imbued with fortuitous and chance meetings, but the leads could barely talk—any language, really—and looked as disinterested in each other as with the setting.
Is This A Bait?
Kohli has been a filmmaker for two decades, the same time Johar has been working as a producer. It is hard to believe that they did not know better and decided that these were films they wanted to be associated with. What were their compulsions, and when did we reach here? I have no answers, but the depravity makes me wonder whether the collective curiosity about nepo babies is motivating makers to make subpar films only to kindle public discourse. Is the vicious cycle of miserable craft and fervent spite crafting an ‘engagement’ nexus that has made viewers, too, complicit in the downfall of Hindi films? Are—are—the nepo babies unwittingly part of an arrangement where they are the joke and the punchline? What if, in a radical subversion, they are now the underdogs?
Can the nepo baby speak up, please?
(Ishita Sengupta is an independent film critic and culture writer from India. Her writing is informed by gender and pop culture and has appeared in The Indian Express, Hyperallergic, New Lines Magazine, etc.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
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