Opening up on netizens’ latest wish to boycott season 2 of the hit Amazon Prime series ‘Mirzapur’, Ali Fazal says art can’t be held captive to social media trends.
Ali plays a character called Govind ‘Guddu’ Pandit in the series whose 2nd season is all set to stream from the 23rd of October.
The reason for the trend, it appears, is Ali and series maker Farhan’s opposition to the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The trailer of the second part had been released just this Tuesday and netizens are already trending its boycott. Speaking to Times Now, Ali dismisses the backlash as he questions if they were at the mercy of a social media trend.
He says, “We have to decide what is the bar we are setting. Are we at the mercy of a trend? No! I don’t look at art in that way. Are we at the mercy of one app that decides who will watch our show and who will not? No, I think this has really gone down. I mean if you are really talking about trends, I never saw any trends related to farmers – there have been protests everywhere across our country. But I wouldn’t say that it’s not an important story, it’s the most important story. Pandemic suddenly has become the last story on everybody’s mind. It’s not trending anymore but it’s still supposed to be the biggest problem that we are facing. I hope the people rise above that.”
“We are trying to create something nice. We are trying to also level with international work that is out there on those very platforms. We don’t want to be regressed by certain factions of society,” Fazal concludes.