Satyam on Shahrukh Khan and his contemporaries

the comment was originally in the box office thread, some discussion followed

On SRK while those who don’t like him can get a bit too dismissive those who like him are also often as divorced from reality. I’ll recap things a bit:

There’s a difference between a declining top star and a much smaller one. A declining top star can still count on his history with the audiences. Moreso in certain genres. Beyond this a declining star can, especially in this day and age of the Hollywood-like production, put together subjects in different genres that excite a large part of his audience or at least an important cross-section of it. A top star even in decline can also start poaching on other dominant genres of the day and get some traction that way. All of this is possible because the star has built up enough cultural capital over time. Even rapidly declining top stars don’t suddenly fade. Or this really happened only once on Bollywood. This was Rajesh Khanna’s dramatic decline (to match his meteoric, really seminal rise) but here he lost out to an even greater force called Amitabh Bachchan. Then there were other historical factors in play as well. But this is hardly the norm. Usually top stars can hang around for a while. Hey, even less than top stars can extend their life quite a bit!

In some sense (I’ve been saying this for long) the last time one could say SRK was truly on top was 2004. He had MHN and VZ that year, Swades was a critical success if not a commercial one. In 2005 Paheli didn’t work, the big grossers were BnB and No Entry. In 2006 KANK fizzled out after a big start, Don was always tepid, meanwhile Aamir had Fanaa and RDB,Hhrithik had Krrish and D2. In ’07 SRK nonetheless had a very strong year with OSO and CDI. Unfortunately he couldn’t build on it. In 2008 RNBDJ was fine but completely swamped by Ghajini in every sense imaginable. After this everyone knows the history. Every single film SRK did in every conceivable kind of genre, at every conceivable end of the production spectrum either failed or completely underperformed. From Don2 to JTHJ to HNY to Ra One to MNIK to Dilwale to Raees to Fan to DZ. One can’t say he hasn’t tried! Even counting from 2007 that’s a decade! The only important exception of course is CE. That was 4 years ago and he’s had several releases since.

But in one sense this history isn’t strange when it comes to SRK. Because this is the way he was even his peak years. Then too he tried other stuff but beyond Yashraj/Johar almost nothing ever worked (though a couple of rom-coms here and there did decently enough). In other words even at his peak he was never the Salman kind of star let alone the Aamir kind. Where most of your films work one way or the other and even when you underperform you get to a very high gross. Put differently Salman can have a Jai Ho here, a Tubelight there (though of course this is a huge failure, much moreso than Jai Ho) as long as he mostly has films like Sultan or Bajrangi or Kick etc and where even a failure like the Barjatya film does 200. If Salman suddenly started producing Tubelight-like results 50% of the time he would still probably be doing better than everyone else (barring Aamir) but he would be in decline. In any case SRK has struggled after the age of 40. It’s his bad luck that his two most immediate peers have had their best careers in the same period.

Decline doesn’t mean that people stop showing up for a star. That’s absurd. But it starts affecting your standing. So even as he was failing SRK could mostly get good or strong (and sometimes outstanding) initials. Ironically his romance initials have been relatively weak for some time. RNBDJ’s initial was nothing extraordinary, all factors considered. JTHJ was always lukewarm, now looks like the current film will be the same or worse. CE again is the only exception but this with a director who was getting hits with everyone and with an actress who was going through her hottest phase. Still there are some very strong opening day numbers in there from Ra 1 to HNY. But in all the recent releases I’d say that even the initial has been affected. Dilwale had a weak one, JHMS will almost certainly have it. Raees, Fan hardly his strongest initials. Ultimately we can play games and talk about competition and screen counts and what not. When something happens for such a long period of time the pattern becomes obvious. For the fans though it’s always about the ‘next one’. But notice how hard it becomes to get that ‘next one’. Since 2004 he’s had top grossers twice. Once 10 years ago, once 4 years ago and neither one was the top grosser in any defining sense (either not the topmost grosser in that general period or so because of inflation and soon overtaken by a huge margin). Even this would be acceptable if he could do it regularly. He’s had many high profile releases, he’s marketed them to death and he’s not had the desired results. Even his overseas dominance was completely lost in this period.

Is he still an important star? Sure! I’m not one of those who thinks Akshay is getting ahead of him. That’s never going to happen. All of Akshay’s hits prove this. However staying ahead of Akshay could hardly be the only game for SRK given all of his ‘royal’ claims in the past. And if he keeps this up he could still fall further. Akshay has at least stabilized himself. In any case a top star’s competition is with his past history and certainly with his immediate peers. It’s not about ‘hey at least I’m still better than most of the other stars’!

From ’88 (when he returned from a two year break) to ’92 Bachchan (when he left again for 5 years) was easily the top star in terms of initials. There was no one else even close. Similarly some of the final grosses were still remarkable on the failures or underperformers. Often among the top ones of the year. But it was clear that Bachchan was in decline. And we’re talking about Hindi cinema’s greatest star here! Again the fans would wait for the ‘next one’. Over time a pattern emerged. Bachchan too had important hits in this period. The Hum initial bordered on hysteria (I doubt there has been a stronger initial in Bombay cinema since, pound for pound), Aaj Ka Arjun was a big hit at the height of the Rath Yatra riots. Nonetheless there were a lot more underperformers and failures. Because Bachchan’s standard was an altogether different one. SRK was never in that sort of position but the logic is the same. A top star can keep doing high profile stuff for a while and put up numbers that flatter to deceive. Along the way there will also be a success or two but the tide will have turned against such a star. What’s happening to SRK isn’t even historically odd. What is odd though is Aamir’s extraordinary run and Salman’s sudden resurgence this late in his career. In most other cases those two would also be in the same boat.

I also wouldn’t blame SRK too much for his choices. He’s selected lousy scripts or poor directors or whatever but in fairness all stars do this. Aamir is the exception even by historical standards. Most stars don’t have any out of the ordinary script sense. When they’re successful they get the best productions, they do them, it’s not rocket science. When they need to reinvent themselves they don’t have the judgment because they’ve never had it. Consider the kinds of films Bachchan did (even in the 80s when these worked big time for him, most of the films aren’t a patch on his great 70s stuff, yes he got great success being the one man industry but that’s a testament to his gifts as an actor and a star not to his judgment, otherwise those gifts could have been put to better use in better films)! This is so for every other star too. Barring exceptions here and there. Aamir’s uncanny sense is truly unique. For any industry.

SRK too has wasted his stardom for at least a decade. He could have done way better in romance, way better on the masala-action terrain and so on. But again it always looks easier than it is. When a star is in decline he depends on an older loyal audience. But the strength genres don’t remain fashionable. The older audience is most invested in these. The star gets older, the genres become stale, the older audience cannot enjoy these efforts in the same way. Meanwhile the newer audience has never been on board for the older genres. The star then attempts newer genres but he’s not as convincing in them because he doesn’t have the same history with them. So newer audiences are still not persuaded and older ones still wait for KKHH2! This is why reinvention is always difficult. The star always falls between two stools.

Despite all this the media has throughout his career been rather kind to him. At his peak they never called him out for his failures and now for a decade they’ve just pretended he’s one of the ‘Khans’. Aamir was accepted as the biggest very late after he’d been delivering hit after hit for years and then the very biggest grossers. Salman too after extraordinary success. They never got this kind of pass earlier on!

Now it’s foolish to say ‘it’s over’ for SRK. But it’s equally foolish to say ‘he’s fine because he isn’t finished’. The two sides feed off each other’s exaggerations. I’ve felt for a while that SRK is in trouble. Again in that same relative sense. Those who don’t like him think JHMS proves everything. But those who are fans would have thought there were no problems at all if the film had done 200. One battles the other side’s fantasy with one’s own! I do believe JHMS, if it really does as badly as looks to be the case right now, does mark an important point. He now needs total reinvention. Certainly compared with Aamir or Salman the gulf is now wide. Incidentally I don’t really think playing the dwarf is going to save him.

All other discussions about his ‘intelligence’ (this too has been a selling point in the media and among the fans) are beside the point. He’s ‘so intelligent’ that he can’t manage his career better when he most needs to. This is his #1 job right? All his ‘marketing genius’ cannot get him films as acclaimed as Aamir’s nor even successes at the same level. We must stop disseminating these fairy tales. Finally about his being rich or richer than many other stars (admittedly Z insists on this the most), again I’m not sure what this has to do with his career (even assuming this is true and I personally think this is another fantasy). Being rich is a not a consolation prize for failing at the box office!

It’s still not too late for SRK but you don’t develop judgment all of a sudden or this late in the day. It’s true that all his younger peers aren’t doing any better. But the ‘I am the king’ spiel is now reduced to ‘hey I’m at least #3’! I doubt SRK is satisfied with this consolation prize either. Again to be clear SRK has enough history to keep going forward for a while. But being a defining star is something else. I don’t mean this only in the box office sense. With age stars can become defining in other ways. SRK has yet to make any such transition. And the stakes are simply rising all the time.