Spoilers Ahead by Rajeev Masand: A few foreign fumbles

India’s attitude to Hollywood celebrities is a weird mix of reverence and revulsion. Surely we can work out a healthier mix?

If all the paparazzi videos from last month’s Ambani shindig are any indication, the celebrities who descended on Mumbai must have had a lot to talk about on the charter flight back to Los Angeles. From the complete mutilation of poor Zendaya’s name on the red carpet (“Aye Jhandeya, turn left, turn right, look centre”) to Gigi Hadid’s sheer horror at being roughhoused by Varun Dhawan on stage (which she later clarified was planned)…surely the Americans had earned their pay-day for the visit.

From Zendaya to Gigi Hadid (above), the foreign celebrities who visited Mumbai last month got more than they bargained for from the Indian paparazzi. (Shutterstock)

I hate to sound like a cynic, or as someone embarrassed by my people, but you’ve got to admit that our behaviour around White folks is frequently cringey. The post-colonial hangover tends to manifest itself in one of two ways: Utter contempt for the foreigner, or as a desperate need to fit in. I’m guilty of it myself. I don’t know how the accent creeps in anytime I’m interviewing a Hollywood actor – I like to say (and I believe) that it’s an involuntary inclusion mechanism that it comes from a place of wanting to be understood by people who don’t speak like us. But there’s no denying that it’s all kinds of ugh. I’ve read the “He’s such a wannabe” comments below the YouTube videos. I have no defence.

Fans went nuts over a photograph of Shah Rukh Khan with Zendaya and Tom Holland, but they mistakenly tagged the English author and historian also named Tom Holland on Twitter.

When Will Smith visited Mumbai several years ago, I remember the MC asking him to repeat a bunch of phrases in Hindi. The room was amused, both because of his American accent and because he was made to say silly lines that he’d never have uttered if he knew what they meant. When Tom Cruise left India after attending the premiere of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation in 2011, he probably went back with a heavy heart after a prominent newspaper ran a story that the host studio hired 200 ‘extras’ to pose as screaming fans to create a frenzy around the arrival of the global superstar. The notion of having to pay people to turn up to cheer for Cruise sounds outrageous, no doubt, but shockingly it’s also a reflection of the sheer ignorance of his appeal.

We Indians may be easily overwhelmed, but we know how to return the feeling. Soon after a photograph emerged of Shah Rukh Khan posing with Spider-Man star Tom Holland from the Ambani event, SRK fans went nuts messaging and tagging the 26-year-old actor on social media…or so they thought. English author and historian Tom Holland took to Twitter, begging: “Please make it stop”. Turns out fans had tagged the wrong Tom Holland, who complained: “It seems like I have the whole of India in my timeline!”