I often come across this question that when nepotism exists in every damn field, why make a big deal out of it when you see it in Bollywood and Politics.
So first of all, “two wrongs don’t make one right”. 2nd, except politics, which I am keeping out of purview of this post, nepotism is not an actual problem, or not a major problem. Nepotism is just a fancy word people are using to basically point out the other bigger issue, which is no entry for outsiders in Bollywood or any other industry for that matter. So let’s see why we only single out the Bollywood.
Any industry is a market, but companies are a private businesses. Likewise Bollywood is an Industry but Directors, Producers, Labels and Production companies are private businesses.
So when any private business is started with personal risk and grow into a notable entity, that risk gives the business owners the right to practically run their business on their own terms. So a director or producer should be free to cast or work with anyone. And that’s fair.
But when a company becomes so big that it could be a threat to consumers and other small businesses by monopolizing the market, CCI (competition commission of India) and other government establish authorities exist to regularize the market.
So in industrial terms basically, Bollywood lack that CCI which is a regulatory body to oversees that no big brands eat up the opportunities of small companies and then dictate terms to the consumers. And that’s the actual problem with Bollywood, not nepotism. That establish directors, production companies try to push their own products to market by eventually robbing off the opportunities from others.
Obviously the nepotism too is a problem, relatively small though, but in a free market, you can not actually dictate terms to someone about whom to work with or whom to give opportunities to.
Then there are people argue why do others envy of star kids. They just got lucky to be born to privileged parents. So what then?
I agree that privilege is luck, but then using this privilege for making it difficult to enter for an outsider to make his / her place is the problem. Privilege is luck, but when you use that privilege to make a barter deal with other privileged ass (not the curse word, actual ass), it closes the door for any third person surviving on its own.
Instead of defending this ‘luck of privilege’ which otherwise should have been an ‘open market’, we should be coming out in support to disrupting such practices. Just keep your privilege at home, let the people compete fairly in the open market. If you try to kill the competition with your money and power, it’s not privilege anymore, it’s a crime.