Why Kangana Ranaut is Bollywood's rebel queen

Ouch, she might have stepped on some extremely sensitive, egotistically bloated toes over there. Earlier this week, Kangana Ranaut grandly declared that all the B-Town people who refused to give her work when she was down were “dumb”.

To quote her exact words: “I know there are people for who big names matter, but I am not of that thinking, it doesn’t matter to me. When I was at rockbottom, people refused to work with me. And I thought they are so dumb (sic).”

Sheer spunk, fans felt, but a lot of the cyberworld has been spewing malice at what they termed was Kangana’s arrogance. The combined fan power of the “people” she talks of could be staggering if you consider that those who did not work with her belong to the league of the Khans, Kumars and Kapoors.

Kangana has possibly acquired the guts to talk blunt because, after Queen and the National Award in 2015, this year saw her giving Bollywood its biggest heroine-oriented hit ever with Tanu Weds Manu Returns. The film proved all a girl needs to rake in a 100 crore stash are a right role and packaging, and not a second fiddle presence to some cocky superstar (“big names”, as she calls them) who may accord her a bit more space than the bikini-clad background dancers by the pool.

There is something more. If Kangana was always deemed a rebel within the industry, she has forever savoured playing up that image. More than ever before, she is probably happy living it up while she is at the top rather than get over it.

She is happy being Bollywood’s girl who played with fire because no other top heroine is chasing that sort of an image at the moment.

Kangana, in this context, is clearly doing more than just tear into the echelon of top heroes. While she is at it, she is also going after the other top girls. From Deepika Padukone to Katrina Kaif to Kareena Kapoor to Priyanka Chopra, every other female superstar in the film industry chooses to mix their crossover bursts with hero-centric blockbusters.

For every top actress, one big commercial release a year, if not more, has been a tradition of sorts. Trivial as the roles these films may offer, they help the actresses stay in the Top 10 list of grossers, global as well as domestic. What goes unsaid of course is that producers and directors who avoided Kangana in her “rock-bottom” phase will have to face the heat now (in showbiz parlance that translates to: all such people can forget expecting fee cuts from her if they approach her with future projects while she is at the top). Heroes, heroines and filmmakers — Kangana’s panga plan, it would seem, involves all, smartly shining through in a single, three-sentence utterance.

She needs to be careful, though. She must know that the industry has a way of closing ranks, especially on anyone who may badmouth its folks openly. Kangana perhaps need not bother about as much at the moment, what with the hits pouring in. One major dud, and her plot of attitude could get an unsavoury twist.