Every so often a major movie star or entertainer gets into serious
trouble with the law, leaving his peers, his employers, and his fans to
deliberate about how to appropriately respond. Depending on the severity
of the crime, the celebrity may receive a measure of public rebuke
before being forgiven and welcomed back into the limelight, or in other
cases he may be banished from his profession.
These sorts of incidents happen all over the world; how they are handled can reveal much about a given society’s relationships between fame, money, and accountability to the law.
Here in America, singer-dancer Chris Brown, boxer Mike Tyson, and actor Hugh Grant all paid for their respective crimes with fines, jail time, and community service, and then worked their way back toward public acceptance, if not forgiveness. In other cases, like those of athlete O.J. Simpson and actor Robert Blake, accusations of murder—even though unconvicted—were sufficient to end their careers and drive their lives into downward spirals. Justice isn’t always applied equally, and in some cases offenders get off scot-free, but on the whole Americans like to think that no one is above the law.
India’s attitude toward such errant celebrities, at least in the case of megastar Salman Khan, appears to be ‘forgive and forget.’ Khan’s 20-year career in the celebrity spotlight has been marked by frequent alleged crimes, many of them violent. He’s alleged to have committed domestic abuse against several of his girlfriends, to have destroyed the lives of others who got in his way. But despite multiple criminal charges and several convictions with at least three prison sentences—for hunting and killing endangered species and for a DUI hit-and-run homicide—Khan has managed to keep himself out of prison, and Bollywood is clearly content to keep him busy working in front of and behind the movie cameras.
Rather than shunning him, Bollywood continues to embrace Mr. Khan for
his talents and his charismatic appeal. And his audience does too: his
latest film, Bajrangi Bhaijaan—in which he plays a self-sacrificing do-gooder—debuted this weekend to an enormous box office result of over $16 million, the 3rd
biggest opening in Indian movie history. It’s as though Khan’s criminal
history is irrelevant, that he’s a kind of movie god whose worldly
actions are beyond reproach.
Now perhaps it’s presumptuous of an American like me to question any of this, to point out a perceived inequity that’s taking place in a country for which I have only limited understanding. I certainly realize that no one’s asking me what’s to be done. On the contrary, in response to my previous post on this topic I’ve received almost nothing but vitriolic emails and tweets from fans of Khan who, to put it mildly, make it clear that I should mind my own business.
These sorts of incidents happen all over the world; how they are handled can reveal much about a given society’s relationships between fame, money, and accountability to the law.
Here in America, singer-dancer Chris Brown, boxer Mike Tyson, and actor Hugh Grant all paid for their respective crimes with fines, jail time, and community service, and then worked their way back toward public acceptance, if not forgiveness. In other cases, like those of athlete O.J. Simpson and actor Robert Blake, accusations of murder—even though unconvicted—were sufficient to end their careers and drive their lives into downward spirals. Justice isn’t always applied equally, and in some cases offenders get off scot-free, but on the whole Americans like to think that no one is above the law.
India’s attitude toward such errant celebrities, at least in the case of megastar Salman Khan, appears to be ‘forgive and forget.’ Khan’s 20-year career in the celebrity spotlight has been marked by frequent alleged crimes, many of them violent. He’s alleged to have committed domestic abuse against several of his girlfriends, to have destroyed the lives of others who got in his way. But despite multiple criminal charges and several convictions with at least three prison sentences—for hunting and killing endangered species and for a DUI hit-and-run homicide—Khan has managed to keep himself out of prison, and Bollywood is clearly content to keep him busy working in front of and behind the movie cameras.
Rather than shunning him, Bollywood continues to embrace Mr. Khan for
his talents and his charismatic appeal. And his audience does too: his
latest film, Bajrangi Bhaijaan—in which he plays a self-sacrificing do-gooder—debuted this weekend to an enormous box office result of over $16 million, the 3rd
biggest opening in Indian movie history. It’s as though Khan’s criminal
history is irrelevant, that he’s a kind of movie god whose worldly
actions are beyond reproach.Now perhaps it’s presumptuous of an American like me to question any of this, to point out a perceived inequity that’s taking place in a country for which I have only limited understanding. I certainly realize that no one’s asking me what’s to be done. On the contrary, in response to my previous post on this topic I’ve received almost nothing but vitriolic emails and tweets from fans of Khan who, to put it mildly, make it clear that I should mind my own business.
To which I respond: it is my business. Salman Khan is a global star; Bajrangi Bhaijaan is
playing in several theaters in my own Los Angeles neighborhood. When it
comes to someone as famous as Khan, we’re all affected. Many who have
written me would have us believe that Khan’s fame and fortune provide
him some sort of immunity from his actions, that India is handling
things appropriately. But I know India is better than that. It’s time
for the Indian legal authorities, the Bollywood film industry, and the
moviegoing public to make an example of Khan and finally, after all
these years, to put him behind bars.
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