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I knew film culture had officially lost the plot the moment I started drafting this very article and had to delete my opening line thirteen times because even I was scared of sounding too opinionated. Imagine being frightened of having a feeling about a movie. But that is where we are now.
There was a time when saying “It was decent” about a movie was simply that — a passing reaction, not a provocation. Today, even a measured response feels risky. A lukewarm opinion can travel faster than intended, stripped of nuance, amplified by screenshots and read as allegiance or betrayal. I will type something as innocent as “I liked it but didn’t love it,” then pause, wondering which corner of the internet will treat that sentence like I have personally cancelled cinema. Film culture hasn’t just grown louder; it has grown more emotionally charged.
What is striking is how normal this caution has become. Opinions are now padded in advance, softened with qualifiers meant to pre-empt backlash — maybe it is just me; please don’t come for me; or the classic no hate, just my view. These verbal buffers act like bubble wrap, protecting the speaker but flattening the conversation. Somewhere between the disclaimers and the damage control, the film itself slips out of focus.
So here I am, trying to write about why fandom feels so fragile right now, while also trying not to accidentally create another fandom war. The irony practically begs for a close-up. And the thing is, this fragility is not imaginary. It has been building quietly for years, little signs scattered across the landscape like clues in a mystery we did not realise we were part of.
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That shift became impossible to ignore during the Adipurush (2023) theatre incident, when a casual comment about the film’s visual effects escalated into a physical confrontation before it went viral. That moment travelled everywhere, not because it was shocking, but because it confirmed a suspicion we were already nursing. Disagreement no longer felt like conversation. It felt like provocation.
Dhurandhar (2025) walked into a similarly feverish climate. Troll accounts sharpened their knives days before the first review. Critics held their pieces a little longer because the atmosphere around the film felt less like cultural engagement and more like emotional crossfire. By the time the film officially premiered, public opinion had largely been shaped by trailers, rumours, meme edits and algorithmic momentum. The verdict, in many ways, had already been delivered.
The Algorithm Now Directs the Conversation
The most fascinating part of this shift is how the hierarchy of influence has collapsed. Critics still write, studios still promote, and stars still charm, but none of them hold the loudest mic anymore. That role belongs to the algorithm, a force with tastes as unpredictable as a moody friend who changes their preference every ten minutes and expects everyone to adjust accordingly.
Once upon a time, films were allowed a few days to settle into public consciousness. Now it gets a few hours. YouTubers rush out of theatres, cameras rolling, collecting immediate reactions that may not reflect the film’s depth, but absolutely reflect what the internet rewards: extremes. A single dramatic statement — “This ruined my night” can outrun a thoughtful 800-word review by a critic who has been writing for decades.
Bollywood studios are feeling the strain too. Several major production houses have filed police complaints against influencers accused of demanding money in exchange for positive reviews or, worse, threatening deliberately negative coverage if not paid. The fact that something like this can meaningfully affect a film’s opening weekend shows just how vulnerable and volatile the current landscape is. The industry is no longer reacting to box office performance alone. It is reacting to whatever the internet decides to feel that morning.
When Memes Eclipse the Movies
Somewhere in this noise, a new star is born every week, and that star is often not the lead, the director or even the film. It is a meme. A cropped frame. A paused expression. A background actor who blinked at an interesting angle.
It takes almost nothing for a side character to become the cultural centrepiece of a film. A throwaway line becomes a ringtone. A smirk becomes a mood. A supporting actor becomes a recurring template for jokes that travel far louder than the movie itself.
Arjun Kapoor’s resurfaced press-conference glare sums up the absurdity of this beautifully. It is now more recognisable than many scenes from the films he has starred in. He eventually turned the meme into an advertisement because resisting the internet is impossible. The meme becomes the memory.
You could see the same dynamic when Ponniyin Selvan released and instantly got swept into a fan-war with Baahubali. Instead of discussing Mani Ratnam’s craft or the film’s emotional landscape, timelines became battlegrounds of side-by-side edits comparing battle scenes, costumes and imaginary power rankings. Half the people arguing hadn’t even watched both films, yet felt deeply invested in proving that their chosen fandom possessed the superior taste. The movie was still fresh in theatres, but online it had already stopped being a film and had become an identity marker.
Why Criticism Still Matters, Even When It’s Uncomfortable
Somewhere along the way, we also forgot what criticism is actually meant to do. It isn’t a verdict or a punishment, and it definitely isn’t a personal attack disguised as opinion. At its best, criticism is a form of care. It slows the moment down in a culture that rushes from trailer to takeaway in a matter of hours. It asks what a film is reaching for, where it connects, and where it loses its grip, without demanding that the answer be universal or neat.
Good criticism gives shape to reactions that don’t fit neatly into praise or dismissal. It offers language for unease, delight, confusion, or quiet admiration that might otherwise get flattened into star ratings or reaction clips. More importantly, it creates memory. Long after opening weekend moods fade, criticism becomes part of how films are revisited and understood over time. Without it, cinema doesn’t become protected. It becomes reduced to numbers, noise, and momentary consensus. Criticism doesn’t weaken films. It gives them a life beyond the timeline.
When Criticism Feels Like Conflict
The escalation around recent releases has been significant enough that the Film Critics’ Guild of India issued a public statement condemning harassment directed at reviewers, a rare intervention that reflects how criticism itself has become a flashpoint rather than a conversation starter.
Filmmakers are cracking under this new emotional climate as well. Yami Gautam’s public pushback against a critic wasn’t about a single review but about how exposed actors feel in a landscape where opinions frequently become personal attacks. Directors quietly complain about reviewers who seem to review the conversation around a film more than the film itself. Critics privately admit that writing an honest sentence sometimes feels like signing up for a comment-section brawl.
There was a time when criticism and fandom could coexist without collapsing into each other. Now they sit in the same cramped room, staring suspiciously across the table. A three-star review is read as shade. A thoughtful critique is interpreted as ego. A joke becomes “hatred” and everyone reads between the lines even when the lines have nothing hidden inside them.
Why Our Feelings About Films Feel So Much Bigger Than the Films Themselves
If you zoom out for a minute and look at this cultural mood through a psychological lens, the intensity suddenly makes perfect sense. People aren’t just reacting to films; they’re reacting to everything films represent for them in a moment where identity feels shaky, community feels scattered and certainty feels like a luxury. Movies have become emotional shorthand, and the responses around them are shaped by some very real psychological patterns we rarely acknowledge.
One of the strongest forces at play is something researchers call identity fusion, a phenomenon where people start to see a cultural object as part of their own selfhood. It’s not just that you like a film; it’s that the film becomes a small extension of who you are. So a critique doesn’t register as “This movie could’ve been better.” It lands more like “You’ve misunderstood me.” In a world where personal identity is increasingly curated, displayed and debated online, this fusion becomes more intense and more fragile.
There’s also parasocial attachment, the bond audiences form with celebrities and creators they’ve never met. The internet accelerates this by giving us unprecedented intimacy: actors posting from their bedrooms, directors sharing drafts, musicians sharing insecurities. That closeness creates the illusion of mutual relationship, which is why people rush to defend stars with the same urgency they’d defend a friend.
Another layer is moral contagion, a theory that explains why emotionally charged content spreads faster than neutral opinions. Outrage, humour, exaggeration and shock move quickly because they activate the same reward centres in the brain as winning an argument or experiencing validation. This is why a dramatic reel from a teenager calling a film “unwatchable” may reach millions, while a thoughtful, balanced review sits quietly in a corner of the internet. Speed rewards intensity, not accuracy.
And then there’s social proof, the subtle psychological pressure that nudges us into agreeing with the loudest voices around us. If the timeline insists a movie is a masterpiece or a disaster, it can feel almost embarrassing to have a more moderate or personal take. People end up echoing the dominant sentiment because harmony feels safer than honesty.
Under all of this sits a collective sense of instability. For the past few years, life has been marked by uncertainty : pandemics, layoffs, political tension, rising loneliness. In times like these, people lean harder on cultural objects. Films become safe rooms where they can project versions of themselves they aren’t able to hold in real life. So when someone critiques that film, they’re not just challenging your taste. They’re tugging at the one stable thing you’ve claimed in a shaky world.
This is why Indian film fandom feels more emotionally explosive today. It isn’t simply about cinema. It’s about people trying to make meaning, find belonging, protect identity and negotiate a world that often feels too fast and too loud. Movies are just the stage. The psychology behind it is the real story.
A Small Note From Someone Who Misses Watching Movies Without an Audience
Cinema once allowed pauses. You watched a film, sat with it, maybe argued about it days later. Now reactions are time-stamped, archived, and searchable, turning first impressions into permanent records. No wonder everyone is tense. Films today are also no longer allowed to be imperfect companions. They must either be life-changing or worthless, culturally “important” or aggressively defended. But most movies have always lived in the middle. They were uneven, enjoyable in parts, forgettable in others, and we didn’t demand they represent our intelligence or moral alignment online.
What feels radical now is not demanding more from cinema, but less. Allowing a film to be uneven. Letting it disappoint without turning it into discourse. Letting it surprise without rushing to crown it culturally significant.
Because sometimes, the most meaningful relationship you can have with art is the one that never makes it to the timeline. Letting a film be a film. Letting yourself be a person who watched it, thought about it, and carried on with their life.
Also read:
Between Canvas And Content: How Artists Navigate The Age Of Algorithms
