Online boycott calls and posts gained momentum close to the release of Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha earlier this month and don’t seem to be ebbing.
Filmmakers are afraid these boycott calls may impact their box office collections.
“There is no insurance against these circumstances,” said a producer whose film is set to release within a month and its star is a target of boycott calls. “Even if we try to get indemnity, the premium will be too large. We have no other solution but to wait and watch and we hope this boycott wave dies down,” said the producer who requested not to be identified.
Hashtags such as BoycottBollywood, Arrogance, AliaBhatt, BoycottBrahmastra, BoycottLigerMovie, Hrithik_Roshan_Maafi_Maang, BoycottBollywoodforever and many others with abusive slurs against actors or Bollywood have been trending on Twitter.
A Twitter spokesperson said the platform is committed to showing “all sides” of the conversation.
“The conversational and real-time nature of the service creates a participatory environment for fans and celebrities. Over the years, film fans have actively shown their love and support for their favourite superstars and what’s happening in the world of entertainment,” the spokesperson said.
“Further, we want Trends to promote healthy conversations on Twitter and may not allow or temporarily prevent content from appearing in Trends if they are found to be in violation of the Twitter Rules,” the person added.
Boycott Bollywood movies and Boycott Bollywood are popular searches on Facebook.
On Instagram, the BoycottBollywood hashtag has generated over 140,000 posts. On YouTube, videos posted by content creators on the boycott Bollywood trend are garnering lakhs of views.
Meta said it had no comments to share. YouTube did not respond to an email seeking comments till press time on Tuesday.
Harish Bijoor, business and brand strategy expert and founder of Harish Bijoor Consults, said the cancel culture can manifest in two ways – firstly, through social media comments that call for cancelling or boycotting something, and secondly, through on-ground activation.
“Right now, the ‘boycott Bollywood’ conversations are at the social media level. They haven’t percolated to ground-level activation yet,” Bijoor said. “They can affect box office collections. Bollywood is worried. But Bollywood is also worried because of other reasons. Movies from the South are doing really well. All of Bollywood is waiting for that one big hit which is not coming.”
A filmmaker, who has a film releasing soon, said it is “disheartening” to see the way films are being boycotted.
