Filmmaker Karan Johar has been very vocal about getting the gender politics wrong in his debut film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. In a recent interaction, the filmmaker admitted that he wasn’t thinking about the social impact of the film at the time and was solely focused on delivering a blockbuster for his father, filmmaker Yash Johar, who had suffered five back-to-back flops and was struggling with low morale.
Speaking to Lilly Singh on her podcast, Karan said, “I just wanted to make a very big hit. I was 24 years old when I wrote Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and as a producer’s son, I grew up understanding box office business and how our country has a varied audience.”
Talking about his father’s string of failures, he revealed that his primary motivation was making a hit for prestige reasons. He said, “My father was a very loved man, but he was also a producer who had made a series of unsuccessful films—five back-to-back failures. I just wanted to make a big, monstrous hit for my dad.. I wasn’t thinking of contributing to society or to make a film that would make a difference, or a politically correct thing that would be impressionable. And I wanted to do this not for material reason but for prestige reason and my father to get his moral back.”
Karan admitted that he cringes when watching certain moments in the film. “When I look back at my first film, I’m very proud of all the love it has received, but I also question the gender politics, some of the dialogues, and the cringe moments. When I see them now, I think, ‘What was I thinking?’ I was young and new to cinema. I am allowed to make my mistakes,” he said. He recalled how veteran actress Shabana Azmi called him after watching Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and reprimanded him for getting the gender politics wrong.
Calling the character of Rahul (played by Shah Rukh Khan) a ‘hypocrite,’ Karan reflected, “That character came from me because I was writing the dialogues. He fell for the hot girl, and then when the girl he didn’t like became hot, he fell in love with her. Was he just chasing surface-level good looks? That was all my writing. I didn’t realize at the time that I was feeding a certain school of thought. I just wanted to make a blockbuster.”
Karan admitted that while everyone desires a mega-blockbuster, he now strives to add meaning to his films. Citing his last directorial, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, he explained how he infused his ideologies into the film. “Over the years, you evolve into the person you want to be, and your thoughts and ideologies should reflect in your work, especially if your film is about characters living in today’s world. I had so much I wanted to say, and I expressed it through Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani.”