Naseeruddin Shah

• Naseeruddin Shah argued that Hindi cinema has been using stereotypes to portray communities and make fun of others.
• When it comes to laughing at ourselves, people get sensitive.
• Twitter users agreed with his assessment.

Naseeruddin Shah expressed his thoughts on how stereotypes have been employed repeatedly in Hindi film to depict communities and mock others. The seasoned actor believed that while movies have encouraged people to mock groups like the Sikhs or the Parsis, people become sensitive when it comes to laughing at ourselves. Together with his wife, actor Ratna Pathak Shah, he participated in a panel discussion at a cultural event in New Delhi in December where he discussed the generalization of humor.

Naseeruddin elaborated on how Hindi films have been following a pattern of stereotyping since the early days of cinema in a video of the actors speaking at the panel. He perceived little to no change since then. Many Twitter users concurred with the seasoned actor’s analysis. One admirer said, “Naseer ji described it very well! It is relevant to our culture, possibly to all of us…” One person remarked, “That is accurate, Sahi Hai na. The conversation at this session, where we were present, was entirely pragmatic and inward-looking.”

“It is our national custom to laugh at others’ miseries. We can’t laugh at ourselves.”
-Naseeruddin Shah

Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/KGmMpMxeLO

— Som Shekhar (@somshekharsom) February 24, 2023

In December 2022, the actor and his wife went to the Jashn-e-Rekhta celebration. Naseeruddin had said, while speaking on a panel, “No society has been left unaffected by Hindi cinema; whose community have they spared? They are experts at using stereotypes. The Muslim was always the unselfish friend, who used to lose his life sparing the hero’s life at the last end. Sikhs, Parsis, and Christians were all made fun of. Yet he did frequently pass away.”

Ratna further mentioned how humor in Hindi movies is often created by using broad physical stereotypes like a big woman, a thin man, or a drunken man. She claimed that the only alternatives for humor in movies were those two.

Naseeruddin continued, “A national tradition is to laugh at the suffering of others. We lack the humor to make fun of ourselves. We feel horrible if someone makes fun of us. While making fun of others, we don’t hesitate. This has been purposefully and repeatedly endorsed in our films. Nobody claims that we are still producing the same films from a century ago despite the fact that we have been creating movies for a century. This history of making fun of various communities and doing various things dates back 100 years.”

Ratna, who most recently appeared in the Netflix series Trial By Fire, just made her Gujarati cinema debut with Kutch Express. In the upcoming episode of the Zee5 series Taj-Divided By Blood, Naseeruddin will play Emperor Akbar. He most recently appeared with actors Tabu, Arjun Kapoor, Radhika Madan, Konkona Sensharma, Kumud Mishra, and Shardul Bhardwaj in Aasmaan Bhardwaj’s directorial debut Kuttey.

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