Shah Rukh Khan calls Pathaan ‘patriotic’ amid boycott calls, shares cryptic post

In an age of social media polarisation and boycotts, Shah Rukh Khan's words on cinema's purpose have special resonance.

Insights, when they are repeated for long enough, become cliches and lose their power to provide perspective. But context and creativity can rescue them. So, when Shah Rukh Khan spoke about social media being driven by a “narrowness of view” on December 15 at the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) he was, in a sense, merely rephrasing a theme social scientists have long studied. But in the current moment, his words have a larger resonance — both for the film industry of which he is a champion and society at large.

Khan is right when he says that “negativity increases social media consumption, and thereby increases its commercial value as well. Such pursuits enclose the collective narrative, making it divisive and destructive”. Divisiveness is indeed rewarded on the internet. But, unlike so many of his colleagues, Khan is not despondent nor does he give in to cliché or abdicate responsibility. “Cinema has an even more important role to play now…Cinema exposes the vulnerability of human nature”, says Khan. If only the trolls and those certain of the righteousness of their prejudice could hear him.