Star Kids Ruling The Telugu Film Industry — Is It A Myth Or A Fact?
To be successful in life, one should be talented, skillful, hardworking and should ample amount of resilience and perseverance. This philosophy is imbibed into our lives from conventional parenting, success stories of great personalities, and of course from the quotes of social media too. Of course this theory is valid and holds true for any career in any industry.
When it comes to movies, the theories are often myth-ified by people, but in reality, the cardinal rule remains the same. The myth is — ‘ Do only star kids make it big in the industry’.
Actually , there is a speculated theory that people have at their understanding convenience and being propagated the naysayers that only star kids make it big in movie industry. Since being successful in movies is a mammoth endeavor, a theory like this ,makes it easy to not dream big by dismissing it so. Well, it is agreeable that star kids have an edge over the incomers to be successful in the industry, but that edge is a fugitive effect, maybe till a couple of movies or so, because at the end of the day audience are the ones who decide the fate of an actor and they are not backed by any magic or mystical power.
To make a mark and prove themselves, actors have to really toil hard as not many chances are given to the actors by the insiders and audiences and to make it worse the chances keep dwindling with subsequent failures. The movies should either showcase the actor’s mettle or become a successful movie commercially. (If the movies do not do well, they at least earn a reputation of being called as good actors from the audience if their acting skills are demonstrated).
Allu Arjun, Mahesh Babu, and NTR became star heroes because they had the credentials to become so and not because they hail from a cinema background. Allu Arjun is nephew of Megastar Chiranjeevi, so is Allu Sirish. NTR is the grandson of legendary NTR, so is Tarakarathna. Mahesh Babu is the son of Superstar Krishna, so is Ramesh Babu. So, you got the point !
When Gangothri, Ninnu Choodalani & Rajakumarudu released, little did the actors knew that they are going to become stars, neither did the audience knew it. They were put into acting because they had an unfair advantage over others, being from a star family, but they eventually proved themselves as actors after going through the exhaustive process of learning from failures.
Allu Arjun was trolled for looks and acting in Gangothri. Post-Gangothri, he underwent a drastic makeover for Arya which tells how serious an actor he is. Neither in looks nor acting, Gangothri was a match for Arya. From then, he kept on working on his looks, honing his acting skills, nurturing his dance skills, toning his body and stylizing his attire with every movie.
Mahesh Babu also, like Allu Arjun, was trolled for his looks and acting. Mahesh Babu admitted that till Takkari Donga, he did not know how to emote. As a child actor, he just did what the directors asked him to do without really getting under the skin of the character. Okkadu and Nijam showed an actor in him, and since then, he started facing the camera and interacting with it without apprehensions. Instead of just maintaining his looks, he puts a strenuous effort to look younger than before, something his fans refer to as a phrase ‘ageing in reverse‘.
NTR too was trolled for his stout appearance. He molded his looks, learnt nuances of acting( earlier he used to act melodramatically going overboard with emotions) and went on to become a star.
There are sons, nephews, cousins, brothers whose careers could not flourish despite having a star background. Then there are stars who came from nowhere and went to become the biggest stars of their generation in the industry like NTR and Chiranjeevi. Another ideal example of non-star background actor is Ravi Teja, who started his career as a junior artiste and became ‘Mass Maharaj’ today. I would not jump and quote Nani as an example because he is a mid-range actor and yet to reach the market value of the top league stars but at the same time, I would not turn down his potential as an actor or his star image. He deserves his due credit.
So, the point is that cinema being an integral part of entertainment in people’s lives and the glamour industry being constantly under the media glare , the myths are glorified with lines something like ‘Do only star kids become stars’? The theories are ultimately a fallacy and serve merely as an item of gossip among the netizens & movie fans while actually nothing works like magic, and one has to really struggle before they are called stars.
