Koffee with Kangana: When Bollywood & Karan Johar were guerrilla attacked from within

The one before this one

Karan called her fashion act 'very interesting', grilled her about dating Shekhar Suman's son Adhyayan and asked her if she had gotten any plastic surgery done. She then sat patiently beside Dutt and Kapoor as the Rapid Fire round started.

Sanjay Dutt was asked what he would do if he woke up as Kangana one morning, he said he would wear a salwar kameez. Anil Kapoor was asked which woman he could leave his wife for – Kangana Ranaut, pat came the reply.

Of course, the winner of the Rapid Fire was decided between Anil Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt, Kangana was just a promo-prop.

She sat there struggling with her English, fiddling with her hair and there was an unnatural amount of uncomfortable giggling to cover up the jokes Anil and Sanjay cracked at her expense – the Kangana now might have called them out for it. That was the end of Kangana on Koffee with Karan, she never made it back on the show till this season, and that too as a proper guest, not a third wheel.

It probably took two back-to-back National Award wins for Kangana to make the 'cut'. Also, this would be an excellent time to realise that actors of far lesser acting calibre have made it to every season of Karan's show so far.

Why though? There's an exceedingly simple answer to all this. For starters because Bollywood is nothing but a very large coterie of sycophants with inner circles inside inner circles. You are either someone's kid, or are married to someone of impressive influence in Bollywood, or you have managed to make just the right friends. It is hard to beak through if you aren't invited. And of course, they don't take kindly to outsiders.

Especially a nobody from Himachal Pradesh whose English was rather weak and her accent a little jarring to the ear. 

Privileged or out

In this nexus of nepotism, of course, outsiders are not welcome either. And then there is the question of privilege. You either are it, or you are out.

Thus when Kangana sat across from Karan, calling him out, almost sentence by sentence, on these very two factors – nepotism and privilege, there was very little the heavyweight filmmaker could do except smile politely, react with feigned embarrassment and apologise.

“Karan, you've been the driving force of my life. If it wasn't for all the rejections and the mocking, I wouldn't have made it,” Kangana said.

Just a few moments before that Karan admitted that he had written Kangana off when her career started. Much like he had apparently written Anushka Sharma off – but well, now, of course, he feels very differently about both these actors.

While Anushka gets to star in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Kangana finally gets invited to his show as a proper guest.

“If there’s a biopic on me, Karan will play the stereotypical Bollywood biggie who is very snooty and completely intolerant of outsiders. The flag bearer of nepotism, the movie mafia. You will have big part,” Kangana said smiling.

“As per your experience, who has given you more unnecessary attitude in the film industry- male or female co-stars?” Karan asked Kangana

“I think you, Karan.”

“Who, according to you has verbal diarrhoea?”

Kangana pointed at Karan.

Karan then asked her if she'd rather be poor and in love, or rich and without love.

“Your idea of poverty is very different from my idea of poverty...”

Karan probably needed a little pond of aloe for those burns. As the show wrapped up, Kangana's agenda had been dealt with – with 'vindictive satisfaction'. 

Breaking it from within

From being an actor Dharma Productions would not touch with a barge pole, the power dynamics had altered over the last couple of years and now Karan HAD to invite her to his show. Kangana knew that, and frankly, we don't blame her for gloating.

To call out one of the biggest directors in Bollywood in an interview or a tweet is one thing, to be invited to his show and do it there with a smile on your face is going ninja.

If you want to beat power structures (like Bollywood) in their own game – this is how you do it. And the fact that Kangana has always been the one to punch above her weight when it comes to taking on Bollywood biggies (Sanjay Dutt and Ajay Devgn, Adhyayan Suman, and Hrithik Roshan) just added more weight to this whole 'brouhaha'.

Kangana seems to have taken the system on, not only by making her little space in the system and rising to a level of significance that could no longer be ignored by the likes of Karan, but also by sitting in the sanctum sanctorum of Bollywood approval and holding up the proverbial mirror to the system.

Beating the ISA

The Bollywood ruling class (The Karans, the Kapoors, the Khans...) controls the industry by an apparatus French philosopher Louis Althusser called the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) –

“ISA belong to the private domain of society – to churches, schools, families, etc. Instead of expressing and imposing order, through repression, the Ideological State Apparatuses reinforce the rule of the dominant class, principally through ideology; people submit out of fear of social ridicule, rather than fear of legal prosecution or police violence.”

Unlike the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA), the ISA does not use coercion (violent or non-violent) to repress the subordinate classes. The who's who of Bollywood do not need to use coercion to control the power dynamics, those who want in submit.

“...However, in the course of class struggle, dominance of the ISA enables the subordinate class to counter the ruling class, by using the inherent ideologic contradictions of the apparatus of state ideology.”

And that is exactly where the likes of Kangana slip in.

The subordinate class of the outsiders in Bollywood, making the most of the the fact that 'hatt ke' films like Queen, Haramkhor etc are being made and getting immense appreciation from a sizable section of the audience who have broadened their minds by feeding into movie festival fare, are those token counters in this class struggle.

The 'hatt ke' films are the ideologic contradictions that have created these industry loopholes, little spaces of subversion that allow a Kangana and (if rumours are to be believed) a Kapil Sharma to sit on that coveted couch. And not for the same reason why Rakhi Sawant got to be a part of the chat-fest in Season 2.

Kangana and Kapil Sharma are now taken 'seriously' by Karan, while the TRPs definitely matter, so does half-'intellectual' content.

TL/DR?

Kangana relentlessly attacked Karan. While the former kept upping the ante, the latter kept his suit crinkle-free and played gracious. So much so that at a point all that poise made Kagana's barbs seem relentless and also, a little crass. It was almost like – “Now, that you are a part of the clique, can you not be so 'basic'?”

But Kangana was not on Koffee with Karan to play nice. Sitting opposite a man who is almost the perfect face for Bollywood nepotism and privilege, Kangana was having none of it. And we must give credit where it is due. Also, Kangana knows that she will never REALLY be a part of the clique.

It is commendable for an actor to say that she does not want to work with the Khans. The repercussions of that statement might have already started coming in, again if SLB-SRK rumours are to be believed.

Karan's grace-under-fire act, however, seemed short lived as he tweeted during his #karananswers spree:

Not entirely! She made an impact with her sweeping statements! That was fun...for her! And the show.... https://t.co/ih43hK58S7

— Karan Johar (@karanjohar) February 25, 2017

#askkangana https://t.co/CsLpkMqV7d

— Karan Johar (@karanjohar) February 25, 2017

The politics of Kangana Ranaut, of being Kangana Ranaut, of her being on the boat, but not in the race are exceedingly problematic, as is our (the audiences') voyeuristic joy of having witnessed a Bollywood heavyweight being cut to size – the fact that she got under Karan's skin, and perhaps as an extension, under Bollywood's skin – is something we have to applaud.