Karan Johar admits focusing on making a blockbuster with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai for his father led to overlooking the film’s gender politics. Reflecting, he cringes at some moments.
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai released in 1998.
Karan Johar has never shied away from admitting his past missteps, especially when it comes to the gender politics of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Looking back, the filmmaker confessed that at the time, he wasn’t thinking about the film’s social impact — his only goal was to deliver a blockbuster for his father, Yash Johar, who was struggling with a series of flops.
Opening up to Lilly Singh on her podcast, Karan shared, “I just wanted to make a very big hit. I was 24 years old when I wrote Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and as a producer’s son, I grew up understanding box office business and how our country has a varied audience.”
Reflecting on his father’s setbacks, Karan revealed that his main motivation was restoring their production house’s prestige with a surefire hit. He said, “My father was a very loved man, but he was also a producer who had made a series of unsuccessful films—five back-to-back failures. I just wanted to make a big, monstrous hit for my dad.. I wasn’t thinking of contributing to society or to make a film that would make a difference, or a politically correct thing that would be impressionable. And I wanted to do this not for material reason but for prestige reason and my father to get his moral back.”
Karan Johar has admitted that when he looks back at Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, he cringes at certain moments in the film, despite its box-office outing. “When I look back at my first film, I’m very proud of all the love it has received, but I also question the gender politics, some of the dialogues, and the cringe moments. When I see them now, I think, ‘What was I thinking?’ I was young and new to cinema. I am allowed to make my mistakes,” he said.
Looking back at the character of Rahul, played by Shah Rukh Khan, he now sees him as a ‘hypocrite.’ He admitted, “That character came from me because I was writing the dialogues. He fell for the hot girl, and then when the girl he didn’t like became hot, he fell in love with her. Was he just chasing surface-level good looks? That was all my writing. I didn’t realize at the time that I was feeding a certain school of thought. I just wanted to make a blockbuster.”
