How fan wars are diluting the essence of cinema

We, unfortunately, live in a time where war, global or local, is not an uncommon phenomenon. In this context, there is an upsurge in a local-scoped war in the Kannada film industry — fan wars.

Fan wars or Stan wars as they may be referred to in the urban lingo are a global phenomenon but usually with a local impact. Although it’s not a post-internet phenomenon, social media certainly has amplified it both in terms of activity and impact.

Recently, a wilfully-extracted excerpt of a superstar’s interview where he talks about the fan following of another superstar was made viral for the wrong reasons. Just a few months ago, an upcoming hero was cornered and attacked just a couple of days after his film’s release.

This is not all. About a year ago, a senior actor was hounded by the fans of a superstar at his shoot location. A couple of years ago, a superstar’s film was brought down by the piracy efforts of the opposite camp fans, allegedly. A superstar has been getting flak from a couple of individuals for endorsing a game that involves gambling. This, over the years, has been scrumptious fodder for online fan groups. And the list of online and offline attacks goes on.

Even worse, we hear that there have been times where such wars were funded by the stars themselves. While it may take some undeserving effort to prove that, it’s safe to say that the stars must certainly be privy to the activities of their fans or miscreants masquerading as fans.

If these stars try to place the blame on some fans or fan groups, it would be like the pot calling the kettle black because we have several examples of them taunting the opposite camps or providing the spark required to light up the social media jungle, through some of their film dialogues and lyrics.

Although it is basic human pettiness and insecurities that source these wars, the impact nevertheless is grave. Such fan wars have the might to bring down films and thus directly impact the industry at large.

The people involved in scheming and executing these wars are mostly in the age group of 15-25 and they are aimlessly wiling away their youth because of this addiction. Stars must shoulder the responsibility of setting the right example, especially for their fans because it is believed that ‘Yatha Raja Tatha Praja’.

These wars cause collateral damage as well. Family members are impacted, bystanders with an opinion are attacked and harassed, on the whole making the entire space full of undying hate and undeterred animosity.

Social media platforms wouldn’t mind these wars at all as we are all just numbers, in the end. As the saying goes, in a fight between two people, the third person benefits.

It must be mentioned that there have been umpteen occasions where fans have been the reason for many on-the-ground social service activities. However, on social media, while the discussion should have been around art and its appreciation, sadly it’s mostly about BOSSes and box office collections. We hardly focus on healthy discussion on cinema because we are obsessed with numbers.

Cinema has the power to shape culture and nothing around it can be taken lightly. Like Gandhiji said, “A man learns more from his critics than his followers”, perhaps our stars take a cue from this.

As for the fans, they may be better off following art over the artist, personality over the person. Because being an atheist doesn’t lessen the joy of admiring a rainbow.

(The author is a freelancer, who writes on films and entertainment.)