At some point in the last decade, Bollywood stopped needing film critics and entertainment journalists. Twitter and Instagram accounts assumed their roles: every scandal, every “star kid” launch vehicle, and each wild-eyed Reddit theory about drugs, the underworld, and secret children born out of wedlock found its audience online. Fans with smartphones turned paparazzi for every small movement of the actors they loved with the passion of a Bengali film bro for Jean-Luc Godard, and sometimes, even more so, for those they hated. With his directorial debut, The Ba***ds of Bollywood, Aryan Khan has effectively tapped into the comment section, given it a Red Chillies polish, and put it on Netflix for all to see.
The Ba***ds is what happens when someone in the know looks at the wildest threads of r/bollywood and decides to join the fun. From callbacks and cameos to satirising the now infamous NCB raids that landed Aryan Khan in jail for 22 days, the seven-episode series stands out as both a meta-commentary on Bollywood and a dramatised collection of social media spoofs and exposés taken to the extreme. “Did you know Bollywood is run by the mafia?” Check. “Insiders are gate-keeping outsider talent!” Double check. “Everyone in Bollywood is related to everyone else!” Triple check. Shahrukh Khan plays a version of himself in his self-deprecating best, Emraan Hashmi appears as an intimacy coach, Karan Johar slips comfortably into the role of the “movie mafia” — and you realise the writers are taking the piss out of trolls and shitposters.
And here lies the meta brilliance of The Ba***ds. Aryan Khan appears to have understood that the most persistent narratives about Bollywood no longer come from filmmakers, but from anonymous “insiders” on gossip forums and angry not-so-young men on X (formerly Twitter). The Ba***ds of Bollywood turn the social media fodder into “content”, satirising an industry that is forever accused of being a family business that takes itself too seriously. The best moments of The Ba***ds come when the show abandons all sense of self-seriousness and leans into the many myths of Bollywood — in moments when Aamir Khan self-parodies his perfectionism and Salman Khan comments on his seemingly eternal bachelorhood with a straight face.
Sure, the writing sometimes meanders and there are misfires that reach for so-bad-it’s-good territory, but that’s almost the point: this isn’t a prestige drama about the pitfalls of the Hindi film industry, it’s Bollywood looking at a carnival mirror and laughing at its own reflection. By the time the final nepotism twist arrives — an absurd nod to the idea that everyone in Bollywood is indeed related to everyone else that almost defies the suspension of disbelief — the younger Khan seems to be saying: fine, here’s your worst fears, memes, and rants, scripted, cast, stage-directed and binge-ready.
The Ba***ds of Bollywood is currently streaming on Netflix.
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