Nepotism is a Cultural Problem and a Business Decision.

 

"Nepotism Debate" is in vogue in Indian Entertainment news (Also called News) I have heard about it .... way more than I needed to. Result? A Blog. 

Nepotism - The practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs.

Philosophically I will like to remove the negative connotation of the word by removing the corruption part of it a little bit. Eastern cultures from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, India.... are similar. In this part of the world for good or bad, Nepotism is cultural and less of a corruption problem. 

If I jog my memory I am hard pressed to find someone in India who's kid is doing something relatively different than what he/she is doing. If I do a similar exercise in US, I am hard pressed to find someone in US who's kid is doing something similar to what he/she is doing. It is just a cultural thing, nothing more. 

This is the reason I am surprised the discussion is happening in India. Now I understand it has come out of hate and jealousy but let's keep that away to keep this a philosophical exploration. Culturally in India It is more likely for some one to say - Parents are smart so the kids are smart, Parents are doctors so kids are doctors. Actually it works both ways - if a kid has a misstep it will be correlated to parent's negative traits or history. Everything is genetic, the belief is strong both in nature and in nurture everything is related to lineage, family name and parents. Heck, this is the country which invented caste system for god's sake. If you are not doing what your parents did you are doing something wrong. 

Let's go to the "Business" angle. It seems like Nepotism is mostly a good Business decision. Business of Films is - 

• A Risky investment with very low success rate (I had read 90% films don't make it or fail).
• Getting finance is everything, getting an Opening of a film is huge. 
• It mostly works like a cottage industry with very few traditional financing options. Though things may be changing.

In an industry where you need to sell the product before you make it, it is important to get finance lined up before you make a movie. Finance won't come easy unless you attach your product to some known names. People who are putting money in a risky proposition, are they making a huge mistake by just putting money on unskilled employee who has nothing except being a friend's kid? No one does that for a casual friend's kids, yea it is possible to put that money and waste it for your own kid, if you are a bad business man. But doing it for entire industry's parents? That is dumb. So why will they do it? They do it because it makes a lot of business sense to caste a known 'name' in India. Actually if it was some other place it would be a colossal mistake but in the culture like India they are making the correct decision. 

Another problem is - Where do you find other deserving people? To give a cricket analogy There is no Ranji players, or deodhar trophy. There are no local leagues where you spot a talent! There is theater but not at a level that is needed. 

Now giving Job to a less deserving person in any other industry is less risky and happens a lot, and people are not mad at that. In corporate world, if you hire a friend's kid as an engineer even though you think another engineer came across smarter. This helps you keep a friend's goodwill and it doesn't affect the business as much. But in the industry where you will sell your product on that face, it is a huge risk unless you understand it is not.

Culturally we look at lineage and family name, and are obsessed with it. It makes lot of sense to add a 'non skilled' person with a last name that will make your project viable, than use a non entity with lot of skill. Now ask the people who are most furious about nepotism, what are they most likely to be excited about? SRK's son coming into movies? Or an accomplished actor who has bunch of accolades in theater making his debut? Who you want to put your money on, which project you want to bet your hard earned money?

When this is the culture, why is it that people are only mad at just the Film Industry and only the 'Actors'? Simple answer is - Actors are visible and the attention they get is secretly craved by everyone. If you get on Screen somehow people think it's pinnacle of what a human was made to become. They can't digest how the 'dream job' has no entry bar. But actually 'Actor' is one of the rare high visibility profession which does not require any skill. You don't need to be accomplished actor to get movie financed, you need to be a 'known' face to bankroll the project. 

Someone won't be given a role of a "Director" because that involves understanding many crafts and the bar is high to be a Director. For other professions like Engineers and Doctors, you need a degree, which is very easy to get for Rich kids and Kids with parents who already know how to get there. So they have it easy too, but it still has a barrier. For being an actor you don't - you just need to be having the right connections. You can argue that for longevity of a career you need to learn the craft at some point but does not need any skill to get in! 

The hardest field to get in where only your skill can get you in is - Sports / Atheletics. If you don't jump as high or have magically better performance than competition you can never make it. Even in that field, India is filled with stories of how certain people are preferred and more skilled people are removed. That is an area India should spend their energy on criticizing the system. Because that is corruption, and it hurts the business. 

So in all - Nepotism is a culture which is not unique to Films in India. It also makes good business sense for the Film Industry. It is magnified by 'Actor' being a profession that has no barrier to bag a movie.