Disclaimer: This is not a trailer review, I’m not a critic. This is not a complaint letter, I don’t want to write one. This is an opinion, open to interpretations and contestations.
A Karan Johar movie involving student life is your cheese burger with chocolate and cream on top: rich but doesn’t make sense. This synesthesia has been applied to help you perceive the new trailer of Student of the Year 2 because my sense of sight feels violated and means of articulation, clogged.
No, it’s not the prospectus for the Jio Institute (may be, but I’m not sure). If you have watched the trailer, congratulations, you’re scarred. If you haven’t, why in the world would you click on this thumbnail?
We all had ideas about high school before we got into one and we owe a lot of it to the media we are exposed to and the books we read. Student of the Year 2 brings with it a sense of disbelief that even my eight year old niece who still believes in Santa won’t buy. St. Teresa’s is not a school – it’s what Kunal Kamra has theorized as “vertical vikaas” in the field of education that even Finland couldn’t reach.
However, before we go any further with the KJo bashing let’s get this straight that the movie is not directed by him but Punit Malhotra, the guy behind the incredible ‘I Hate Love Stories’ fiasco.
If one sits down to trace the lineage of the protagonists starring in the film and the director, one can very well guess the guy who would bring together such a wonderful cast and crew of all the rich people in town, because you got to give them audience something if you can’t give them a good movie. It’s, in the words of Kangana Ranaut, “the flag bearer of nepotism,” our beloved KJo.
Student of the Year 2 is a sequel to Student of the Year, a movie that taught us, more than anything else, the trick to scoring well in the MCQs of life. Y’all, give it up for… the jai mata di ninja technique.
I will divide the trailer into six parts to present to you in my colloquial terms this Bollywood grandeur.
Firstly, the elongated introduction of the male protagonist because, well, he is the male protagonist. A kinda hot guy does a bunch of sporty stuff, back flips off a few roofs, says a couple very normal lines in a real intense tone to make them sound like impactful dialogues, at which he miserably fails.
Then, second, you have the female co star with a comparatively shorter time frame because, well, she is a female co-star. A kinda girl has to smile a lot and deliver her dialogues while simultaneously smiling. A lot.
Thirdly, you have another female co-star with almost the same screen time as the first, who comes up driving a really cool car (yes! Woman drivers! #BollyFeminism) but then paints the kinda hot guy’s bicycle pink and goes on to call him a “princess” to attack his ‘masculinity,’ which becomes well established with the explosion of toxic masculinity that follows (#BollyFeminismDoubleStandards).
In the fourth part of the trailer, the transition is done through a Bollywood song and the former two protagonists are going to a costume party where (obviously) they meet the stereotypical funny Punjabi guy who cracks a joke at which people with a retarded sense of humour laugh and now, within ten seconds, there are flashes of parties, football and what appears like a breakup.
Next up, the kinda hot guy is suddenly expelled from school and has enemies from school who beat him up and then he sets out on his journey to avenge himself. Yes, now he beats them up.
And lastly, it ends (I can feel your tears as you read these words, it finally ends) with more dancing and Kabaddi all for the one trophy: student of the year.
Now that I’ve provided what the trailer entails (if you thought reading this was painful, imagine writing it!) let’s assess it. It’s a movie about high school students with rock hard abs and swimsuit bodies who probably have never heard of board exams (this is indeed a utopia). These movies are markers of the lives of a certain class of the Indian society dreams which are sold to the middle class by introduction of unrealistic characters like the kinda hot guy.
In doing so, they build and perpetuate stereotypical notions through characters (like the always funny Punjabi guy or the sweet and smiling pretty girl, or the rich spoilt brat who, as it turns out later, has feelings). The trailer does not promise anything new than what you can already anticipate. The views however, have been framed strictly on the basis of the trailer and there is a thin possibility that you may just like the movie.
But the most important thing: why is Samir Soni dressed up as Arjun Kapoor again?