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Dissecting The Ba***ds of Bollywood: Bastards, Bollywood, and the meta joke we’re all in on!

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Sakshi Sharma
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The Ba***ds of Bollywood

As Aryan Khan roasts the industry and himself with satire, we get India’s very own The Studio, a child birthed from Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance and Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om.

Martin Scorsese, one of cinema’s greatest godfathers, once advised young filmmakers to “make what you know.” Create art from what you’ve lived, what you’ve seen, what you understand. Few Indian filmmakers have taken that advice to heart quite like Zoya Akhtar. For her directorial debut Luck By Chance (2009), she turned the camera toward the world she grew up in - the Hindi film industry itself. Born into it as the daughter of Javed Akhtar and sister of Farhan Akhtar, she didn’t have the option to look at Bollywood from the outside. Instead, she filtered it through the eyes of outsiders trying to break in. Her film dissected the hierarchy, the unspoken politics, and the compromises behind the glitz. A Delhi boy desperate to become a star, who quickly learns that in this world opportunities aren’t handed out but manufactured, and a small-town girl from Kanpur, who realizes that success isn’t about what the world says but how you choose to define it. It became an entry into the “behind the scenes” of it all, where cameos of stars were staged as if they were part of the fiction we were once in awe of, while the fictional story had an ensemble cast. Ironically, two nepo kids - Farhan Akhtar and Konkona Sen Sharma were cast to highlight the outsider’s struggle and the cost of making it big in an industry where producers and older actors dictate whether you become a star or not.

If Akhtar’s exploration of outsiders came with a more indie and poetic take, her cousin Farah Khan went for a more unserious dramatic one. Om Shanti Om also explored the idea of making a film about filmmaking, but as a tribute to the old-school melodramatic Bollywood we grew up with. A junior artist’s love story with a reigning actress unfolds through punar janam (rebirth). As reincarnation becomes the witness to their undying love story and the eventual justice for Shanti Priya, the film becomes a fun-loving letter to cinema complete with villainous producers killing off heroines, torrid affairs, paid award shows, and an undying love for drama. Farah highlighted the industry’s double standards and backstage politics while celebrating the dramatic heart of Hindi cinema that thrives on excess.

Also Read: Why does The Ba***ds of Bollywood feel like the 2025 version of Farah Khan’s brainrot humor?

Both films represented what happens parde ke piche(behind the curtain), wrapped in two-and-a-half-hour ballads of what happens on screen, making Indian go to for the “film within a film” genre. But times have changed, and so has the perception of the Hindi film industry. So it was inevitable for something new to pave the way. Something that TheBa***ds of Bollywood feels like as once again an outsider from Delhi tries to craft his space in the filmy heart of Mumbai! With the realism backdrop of Luck By Chance and loud parody humour of Om Shanti Om, Aryan Khan's directorial debut reigns in what Seth Rogen's The Studio did in the west. How? Let's find out! 

Stardom flickers very much like Hindi films that struggle to charm audiences the way they once did, our obsession with celebrities has only intensified and Aryan Khan taps right into that absurdity. He knows we live in times where life itself feels like a comedy than a dooming tragedy, hence cinema feels more like a joke than an escape. Where parasocial fandom thrives on every subreddit tea spilled and Instagram DMs blur the line between stars and spectators. That’s why TheBa**ds of Bollywood's satirical takefeels like a subtle commentary as if to say the industry is laughing at itself alongside an audience busy ridiculing it while still being obsessed with it - giving rise to the meta, where real life merges with the fictional. Hence every cameo from Emraan Hashmi and Arshad Warsi to Karan Johar, Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, and the three Khans - Aamir, Salman, Shah Rukh becomesa sly nod, parodying and paying tribute all at once.

Aryan spares no one; from taking a dig at himself with the obvious nod to drugs, Rajeev Masand’s roundtable to gangsters’ grip on the industry and endless easter eggs - he keeps us on our toes. Almost making us question whether the fictional moments are also derived from real life! Turning subtext into text as his storytelling method. It almost made me wonder if Shaumik, Karishma’s younger brother, who mocks his film family as much as he benefits from its privilege is Aryan’s alter ego, reflecting what he himself might be trying to say. And that’s the thing, Aryan knows he’s Shah Rukh Khan’s son and understands that it’s hard to separate from the privilege he is born into. So he makes this his armor making the show feel like gospel truth - because it comes from the son of an outsider who is now the ultimate insider. In doing so, he also pays tribute to his father’s journey, from recreations of his old movie scenes to following a Delhi boy's journey who dreamed of becoming theBadshah; a man the world once called arrogant and overreaching, who knew what he was doing and ultimately became king.

And since it's hard to seperate son from the father, it made me wonder if Aryan is extending SRK’s trademark wit into his own storytelling technique? SRK has long turned jokes into marketing strategies laced with truth. Aryan seems to be carrying that forward. After all, it was SRK who once joked on Koffee With Karan season 2 episode 24 about"Whose kid is whose, I don’t know anymore.” That line becomes the series’ ending complete with a twist and a Shiney Ahuja-style reveal of Shaumik being in love with the maid. Suddenly, the title Bastards of Bollywoodmakes sense. It's a double edged sword as the series is about the so-called 'bad bastards' pulling strings behind the scenes but also about the “bastards” star kids, the ultimate joke of the tragic debate of oustdier-insider! 

It reminds me of the Emmy-winning show Seth Rogen's The Studio, an all-revealing behind-the-scenes series that look at Hollywood while balancing cinephilia (single takes, shooting on film) with politics (award-show egos, studio rivalries) dressed in humorus take. As Aryan here too touches on production houses and their decline, but TheBastards of Bollywood is far more about the unapologetic drama and silly gossip around films. From fiery chemistry sparked by nepotism debates to a father-figure hero turning villain because of his past, the show couldn’t be more Bollywood in tone. And maybe that’s the point - look at us Bollywood fanatics, gobbling up everything, obsessing over old songs, and crazily drawing connections to real life. 

Aryan’s idea of turning strivers into main leads, whose love story with cinema is interrupted by villain-like movie mafias and channeling Anurag Kashyap’s rage at the industry by filtering it through a wittier lens of a story 'jismein action, drama, romance, tragedy, comedy, aur emotions hai' pays off. Kashyap has always been as vocally frustrated with this industry as he is deeply in love with it, and coincidentally, he too has brought his own love letter to Hindi cinema with Nishaanchi - two tributes to Hindi cinema all at the same time. Aryan Khan, with a breakthrough debut that carves out his voice as a filmmaker, and Anurag Kashyap, returning to the raw form that made him a brand once. One made my cinephile heart grow fonder of hopeful cinema’s magic, the other made my Bollywood-loving heart dance with joy. And if that’s not real life being cinema itself, what is?

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