Mahesh Bhatt on fading stardom: Can superstars survive within the age of scrolling? |

Stardom just isn’t constructed on floor dazzle alone. True stars—those that linger in our hearts lengthy after the lights dim—are those who emotionally interact us. Consider Allu Arjun in Pushpa—his uncooked depth, his swagger, his emotional depth. Ranbir Kapoor in Animal—a efficiency so ferocious and weak that it seared into the viewers’s reminiscence. Alia Bhatt in Gangubai Kathiawadi and Raazi—she didn’t simply play characters; she grew to become them. Shah Rukh Khan didn’t change into the king of Bollywood as a result of he danced in chiffon-laden romances—he grew to become Shah Rukh Khan as a result of he made you are feeling the ache of longing, the push of affection, the hearth of rise up. Even Salman, Aamir, Ajay, Akshay, and Emraan, whose personas may appear bigger than life, constructed their stardom on one thing deeper than spectacle. They mattered as a result of they moved you.
However right now, we dwell in occasions which are more and more averse to emotional engagement. The battle is now not simply between movies; it’s between movies and every part else. The trendy viewers is beneath siege—a multi-pronged assault on consideration. A single scroll on a smartphone bombards them with dopamine hits: a viral meme, a surprising information headline, a 15-second clip designed to entertain and evaporate in the identical breath. The youthful era, raised on infinite distractions, finds it tougher and tougher to untether themselves from their screens, to sit down with feelings, to have interaction deeply.

Cinema, at its greatest, is an immersive expertise—one which requires endurance, give up, and a willingness to really feel. However in a world that prioritizes fast over deep, quick over lasting, and fleeting over timeless, the very basis of stardom is in danger. Stars are now not found; they’re manufactured by algorithms. And when the algorithm strikes on, so does the viewers.

So the query is now not who would be the subsequent famous person. The actual query is—can there be one other famous person in a world the place consideration itself is a diminishing useful resource? Time poverty has change into the bane of the leisure trade worldwide.