Selective Outrage: India's got Tolerance?

"That guy should be hanged"- My uncle.

In 2015, AIB organised their own version of the “Roast of”. This time, it was about two actors. Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor, with Karan Johar as the host. Roasting was a genre, that existed for a long time, but had reached a peak in the 2010s, due to sites like 4Chan and Reddit as well as youtubers like RiceGum and Pyrocynical. But Celebrity Roast, albeit different from taking potshots at random creators, was another ball game of it’s own. A few months ago, the Justin Bieber Roast had taken place. And it worked really well, helping him rejuvenate a second leg in his career.

However, India was clearly not ready for this. Note, this would not be the last controversy Tanmay Bhat would get involved in. The Right wing didn’t like it, they filed FIRs and some in the fraternity (Aamir Khan was one of them). Nevertheless, it didn’t stop roasting from not being popular in India. It needed a likely troll, a 12th school dropout, who did video game live streams impersonating Sunny Deol to make it mainstream.

It is funny when you think about how both roasting and standup comedy grew together as a genre. For a period of time, it was localised mainly in Delhi and Bombay before, it became a mainstream thing. Today’s comics are equivalent to influencers and are able to earn lots of money through these gigs and shows. Of course, the youth has accepted them as one of them.

Well, if you were a guy who was into this era of stand up comedy (EIC, SnG, AIB), like its infancy, there was this one show called Comicstaan. Netflix and Amazon had just arrived in India. And while people ignored Netflix ( besides maybe Sacred Games), it was Amazon who was red hot off the bad. The amount of shows (Mirzapur, Inside Edge and The Family Man) plus the comedy specials of Azeem Banatwala, Sapan Verma and Sahil Shah (yeah I loved EIC mostly), and the fact that it’s introductory price was cheaper than Netflix, and it also gave you free delivery, made it a must buy.

Comicstaan was that show (along with the more celebrity-oriented One Mic Stand) that was about stand-up comedy. Think of Comicstaan as the Idol of stand-up comedy. The show had an entire panel of stand-up comedians from that era and also introduced us to the likes of Rahul Dua and Samay Raina.

Oh wait, we need to talk about Samay Raina.

Samay Raina was the winner of Season 2 of Comicstaan. Now, stand-up comedy as a field felt like roasting (except you spent your eleventh and twelfth studying for JEE, then for CAT, and then, when you had more time on your hands, you realized what we all realize, and that inspired you to become a comic). Samay Raina was a printing engineering (yes, that exists) student who didn’t know why he was doing it, and stand-up comedy became his Plan B.

Of course, he was a good one, and as much as people can call him overrated, anyone with his level of fame is always going to be criticized. Samay is also a centrist who famously called “the leftist mentality the reason why” stand-up comedians in our country can’t make risky jokes. (Oh boy, that’s going to hit very hard in the next few months.)

Well, just like AIB adapted Comedy Central’s Celebrity Roast, Samay adapted Kill Tony, a show inspired by America’s Got Talent, to create India’s Got Latent.

And let’s be honest, I have never seen this show. I don’t even know what it’s about. But I am aware of the people involved—Samay Raina, a comedian so big right now that it’s cool to dislike him; BeerBiceps, a government-recognized influencer whose podcast (India’s Joe Rogan) sells some pseudoscientific stuff; and the minor one, Apurva Mukherjia, aka Rebel Kid (who gets hated because she drinks, she smokes, she has fun, and many don’t like that—so I guess she is the Rebel Kid, but what a cringey name).

Anyways, why did these guys riled up politicians, got an FIR on them? Well, because of this.

“Would you rather watch your parents have sex everyday for the rest of how life, or join in once to make it stop?

Spelling* your”- u/osu_beavs, circa 2016

If you can go further, our friendly neighborhood MSRITian Kanan Gill asked the same question to Jackky Bhagnani and Lauren Gottlieb. How old is this? My man’s got a dad bod that’s how old this is.

But then, BeerBiceps—a man who won the “Disruptor of the Year” award from none other than Sri Narendra Modi himself, a man whose content is endorsed by many Indians (and since it’s India, RW, BJP supporters), a man whose image is very much sanitized—saying this makes it even worse.

Well, our opinion of people is built around what they usually do. For instance, there’s a reason why CarryMinati probably never tries to explain his content to the media—because, well, his genre of roasting, which made him a superstar, isn’t exactly easy to justify from a moral perspective. It’s all about image. Carry is a troll; Karan Johar produced Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham—they are not the same people.

So when someone, who probably introduced you to the Buddhist Methods of healing, makes a joke about incest, that’s not gonna digest well. This aspect is what made this thing so controversial. People had mixed feelings about the show. A lot of people found the show over the top. And anyways, you had to pay to watch this show. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter to anyone and anybody.

But this must make us ask a question. What is Freedom of Speech?

Straight from the Article 19 (1) of the Indian Constitution. BUT.

Freedom of Speech in India is not absolute. The truth is, you could still get into trouble. The problem is, when?

Recently, Gautami of Slayy Point was victim to a mass hate/deepfake scandal where some cronies of Elvish Yadav, decided to target her due to a comedy sketch that my man Elvish didn’t like. Of course, Elvish did this by using the “MATASHREE” card for this ( cuz for hardline RW Youth, woman are just mere objects unless its your own sister or mother).

Of course, this was a case where the teams decided to not go ahead with legal issues, but in a fair world, this warranted an arrest. Convincing your fans to go against the modesty of a woman is considered illegal under, Section 67A: If the derogatory material is sexually explicit, the offender faces up to 5 years imprisonment and a fine, and Section 509, 503, 504 and 500. It is probably due to the fact that Elvish’s fandom didn’t want to drag their boss to the court.

But in this case, why are we dragging these three guys into the NCW over one shitty Below the belt joke. Something, that has been uttered in various cycles, on the internet, in drunk/stoned conversations in hostels all across India? It was a crude joke.

You got the likes of Munawar Faruqui getting arrested for a joke he never made, meanwhile the likes of Kangana Ranaut, Surleen Kaur and in some cases, our own honourable Prime Minister making statements that could incide audiences or is simply hatred against minorities. What are we as a nation setting an example towards?

Ask yourself? Is this even worth the Outrage?

Written by Manna for the Normie Crowd circa 2022

I need to start proofreading my stuff.