In a town notorious for its ultra-thin skins and eggshell-fragile egos, suddenly it’s uber cool to become the willing butt of all jokes – laugh at yourself and apparently the world has no choice but stand up and applaud.
Look at Alia Bhatt. One moment, the nation was hooting with laughter at her dismal GK displayed over ‘Koffee With Karan’ – she had famously confused the Chief Minister
of Maharashtra with the President of India. But Alia didn’t go crying to her daddy. Instead she got together with the guys at AIB, took all of the memes and nasty jokes and put them into a hilariously self-deprecating video called Genius Of The Year. The video promptly went viral and Miss Bhatt had the last laugh. Anyone still poking fun at her supposed low IQ is looked at with the scorn reserved for moldy leftovers in a corner of the refrigerator. Clever Miss Bhatt! She must really have gone to the ‘Mental Gym’ after all!
Maybe she had a lesson or two from her mentor, Karan Johar. He has become something of a veteran at deflecting all curiosity about his sexuality. “It doesn’t bother me when people talk about my bisexual orientation. Why
should I say I am not gay or I am not bisexual or trisexual?” he had shot off on national TV to Simi Garewal. ‘Trisexual’? We loved that! But that was then. On the infamous AIB roast, he daintily stepped out of the closet with a volley of self-directed homosexual jokes – and with his mommy sitting in the front row! Who would’ve ever imagined KJo to take a look at Ranveer kneeling tantalisingly on the floor to offer himself up for a role and drawl, “That’s my position, Ranveer”!
The mood for self-mockery continued with Anurag Kashyap, fresh from the debacle of his Rs.84-crore BOMBAY VELVET, partaking in a spoof on himself, ‘100 crore Ka Qtiyapa’. The video, in which the filmmaker plays himself, saw Anurag take ownership of his penchant for dark edgy cinema and invited the world to laugh along. We’re sold!
