Star Gazing

THE SERIES OPENS with a ‘blind item’ about fashion designer Masaba Gupta’s marriage being on the rocks. There’s a separation that’s announced on Instagram. Karan Johar has launched yet another star kid. Farah Khan (playing herself) is casting for a film while being on a diet. And the star, played by Kiara Advani, wants match­ing outfits for her two dogs Tim Tim and Tango as well.

Masaba Masaba is a delicious glimpse of the life of Neena Gupta, actor and celebrated single mother, and her daughter, designer of the eponymous label, Masaba. For many years, Neena’s considerable talent was overlooked by her tabloid life, which was sustained by her being a single mother. The paternity was always one of those nudge-nudge, wink-wink open secrets in Mumbai high society until Pritish Nandy offered proof of it. It is a grouse that Neena Gupta bears until today against the former editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India.

As the child of master batsman Vivian Richards and Neena Gupta, Masaba’s evolution into a well-known designer was very much conducted in the public domain, with all its attendant advantages and disadvantages. So it’s no surprise when Netflix did its first scripted reality show in India, it chose the extraordinary mother-daughter. “People think we live fancy lives, sleep in golden beds, have silver doorknobs, or eat 52 dishes a day. The truth is we live just like everyone else, eat ghar ka khana, roti, sabzi, dal, and work hard,” says Neena.

And squabble with each other. As Masaba says at one point to her therapist who is forever trying to track her errant husband: “She did everything she want­ed. It’s me who has to live by the rules.” For writer and director Sonam Nair, Masaba Masaba was a way to look at Mumbai through the lens of Masaba and Neena. “They are at the intersection of film, fashion and society and their point of view is self deprecating.” So there is a fading starlet who turns to making bal­loon art and a venture capitalist whose job it is to discipline the designer; an heiress friend who runs a restaurant and an unsmiling accountant who is always predicting financial doomsday.

It is a really difficult world, as Nair says, and it’s easier to not be in it. “But we love films and we want to be on set every day. No one is forcing us to be here.” And they’re raring to make fun of stereotypes.

Celebrity culture in India has not just expanded it has also changed, with many more filters in place now between the star and the media. Now, says Sidharth Bhatia, who wrote a colourful account of Baburao Patel’s world in The Patels of Film­india: Pioneers of Film Journalism, “Celebri­tyhood is manufactured and journalists are as much part of the corporatised system as the stars, even though there are several gatekeepers between them.”

Debasree Mukherjee, Assistant Professor at Columbia University, who has studied this culture closely says the definition of celebrity itself has become quite elastic: from star babies to star pets to star bodyguards to star stylists. The journalism around it has changed too. “Earlier the film journalists refrained from making direct personal attacks at film stars, relying instead on innuendo and sarcasm. Actresses were the main commercial engine driving the early film magazines because readers craved their news and photographs and maga­zines dished out gossip about personal lives and professional deals but all in a coded manner. I’ve seen innumerable sly references to a woman’s love life, insinuations of affairs, even suggestions of queer non-conformity in the pages of a magazine like Filmindia. We have to remember that the film industry is a deeply patriarchal place, like the society that it is embedded in. The focus of most scandal narratives has always been women’s sexuality and sexual morality.”

Then, as now, she notes, film journal­ists and film stars had a complex and often mutually beneficial relationship. The journalists want the gossip and the stars need to stay visible. Producers at that time planted publicity pieces in newspapers and magazines, and today they legally stipulate film promotion work in star contracts. Doing interviews and, in later years, giving juicy ‘bytes’ steadily became part of the job descrip­tion for actors. Of course, film journalists also used their pen to get back at a star they did not like. Apart from the more serious trade and film review magazines, a parallel tabloid tradition has slowly grown in India. This arena can be com­pared to the prurient and sensationalist content in the British Sun, all driven by a paparazzi economy.

Neena Gupta references this when she says, “Even when I pass on they will call me, ‘The bold and beautiful Neena Gupta who had a child out of wedlock.’ Kaam ke bare main kuch nahin kahenge [they won’t say anything about my work].” She says this is by far the most defining aspect of her career, overwhelming her stellar work in what was called ‘parallel cinema’ in the 1970s, and her resurgence as a char­acter actor who can be more than just a long-suffering mother onscreen.
She owes her comeback to an Instagram post in 2017, where she said she was an actor who was available for work and lived in Mumbai. It was reposted by her daughter and got even greater traction. Says Neena now: “I tell Amit Sharma [director of Badhaai Ho] you changed my life. I will do anything for you.” Both mother-daughter have transformed their stardom through the use of Instagram. Explains Mukherjee: “Fans now have direct access to stars on Instagram or Twitter and expect a different level of intimacy. The nature of film celebrity itself has changed, as stars now work hard to maintain and update their social media handles with publicity content that is produced by them or their paid publicists. Running a social media account and updating it with tailor-made content such as child­hood photos, birthday videos, vacation pics, is now an integral part of the actor’s job.” A broader Page 3 culture nurtured through the 2000s has also trained wan­nabe celebrities in the techniques of personal brand development.

During the lockdown, adds Mukher­jee, such star-generated content became very valuable, not just to fans but to tabloid outlets that could simply link to a star’s official account. This phenomenon of heightened social media access has also impacted the tenor and quantity of tabloid journalism. Because so many film actors and directors have also taken to political commentary on Twitter, tabloid outlets are able to use online arguments as fodder for spinning a sensational story.

Nowhere is this illustrated better than in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death where almost every actor has spun his or her own narratives around the tragic death. Stars have clashed, directors and producers have been trolled into si­lence; and conspiracy theories have led to calls for the boycott of certain star movies.

Masaba Masaba is a much more genteel world, where these aspects of celebrity culture are mocked good naturedly rather than demonised. It’s a world Neena and Masaba signed up for and they’re seen as two individuals trying their best to make the best of it, being as vulnerable as they are fearless. It makes us feel good about our vicari­ous natures. Stars may be like us, they may also eat parathas for breakfast, take the advice of the house help on what to wear for an important appointment and haggle over the price of vegetables. But that doesn’t stop us from wanting to consume their lives.

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