Rahul said all the wrong things: Karan Johar admits ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ was problematic

Director shared that he’s grown and realises the mistakes he made in his first film

Bollywood director Karan Johar has some things to admit about his directorial debut, 1998 film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Although loved even today, the Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Rani Mukerji starrer stands politically incorrect for its gender portrayals, as per Johar himself.

While promoting his upcoming film Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani, Johar used his first directorial as an example to show how far he has come and grown. Admitting that Kuch Kuch Hota Hai “propagated wrong gender politics,” he said, “I feel like I have grown as an individual. I firmly believe that the gender politics of my first film was all wrong. It propagates incorrect gender politics, there is a lot of surfacesness in that film,” as quoted by Indian Express.

He further added that he wouldn’t want any boy looking upto Khan’s character Rahul to say the kind of things he did in the film. “Of course, there is nostalgia so you love it, but you don’t scratch the surface of the film and see that what Rahul is doing is actually not what I would want all the Rahuls in the audience, or all the boys in general, to do,” he said.

“Rahul was saying all kinds of wrong things. He said, ‘Hum ek bar pyaar karte hai (We fall in love once)’, but he fell in love twice. He said, ‘Hum ek bar shaadi karte hai (We marry once),’ he got married twice. He was contradicting himself throughout the film.”

On the work front, Johar is currently gearing up for the release of his directorial movie Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani. The film stars Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt in the lead and marks Johar’s comeback as a director after over a decade. The romantic drama will hit theatres on July 28.

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