Arrey yaar, hype ki bhi hadd hoti hai! Disney-Hotstar claims Laxmii is their biggest opener ever.Biggest, where?How? How do they know how big it is on the OTT platform whre no boxoffice yardstick is available?
Now we have Akshay coming forward to claim glory for the disgraceful film.
He says, “I know a lot of critics don’t like my films, and I understand it. But my focus is on my audience. I am told it’s the biggest opening of my career. The film achieves something pivotal. Having a transgender protagonist normalises and reinforces the rights of the LGBTQ community. Be it with PadMan or Toilet: Ek Prem Katha or Mission Mangal, the idea is to do more than just entertain or deliver a box-office success. I want to make a difference.”
It is fine to try and entertain your fans in any way that the actor thinks appropriate. But to claim to have done a social service through a film as bereft of logic,aesthetics and relevance as Laxmii is to add insult to injury.
The film does nothing for humanity, and that includes the transgender community which Akshay claims to have “normalized” by playing a transgender in Laxmii. No doubt Akshay is a fine actor. But if he really wants to see actors normalize the transgender community then he must watch Eddy Redmayne in The Danish Girl, Vijay Sethupati in Super Deluxe and Riddhi Sen in Nagarkirtan.
When Riddhi played a transgender on Nagarkirtan and won the National award for his performance he told me, “I studied the mannerisms and graces of my mother , who is my greatest influence, and my girlfriend.I imbibed their personality and made sure I didn’t mimic them.I never thought of the impact that the character would make or that I’d win a National award for it. One doesn’t do a role after assessing its influence. One does it because it’s there waiting to be brought alive.”
Whom did Akshay observe before playing the third sex? Whom do you have the time to observe when you do 3-4 films per year?
If the transgender community is really happy with how it has been portrayed by Akshay, why has the celebrity transgender Laxmi Narayan Tripathi who was so vocal about the film before its release, gone quiet after what she must have seen when the film began streaming?
Breaking all records, sure. Of decency, good taste and sensitivity.