Every SRK Month I get a few embarrassed comments from folks saying “I truly just don’t get it, I’m sorry!” If that is you, or if you have such people among your friends and family, this post is for you!
I think there are 4 categories of non-SRK fans, one of them is objectively wrong, one of them is wrong but open minded, one is prejudiced, and one of them is just being human.
Objectively wrong: the “he’s a terrible actor spoiled rich boy got by on connections” crowd. I hate that crowd. They are so proud of themselves for being “objective” but they aren’t at all! The ones who are straight up “I only watch English movies, I know SRK is terrible because I saw one half of a film once and read an opinion piece” crowd, blurgh! Just in a general way of “blurgh”, not even as an SRK fan, but a “blurgh” of “it’s okay to just not have an opinion on something if you’ve never actually tried it or researched it for yourself”. I call them “objectively wrong” because objectively speaking, SRK is capable of really good acting, and he is an outside who got into the industry slow and steady.
Objectively Wrong But Open to Other Opinions: But then there’s others who say “I’ve watched a few of his movies and interviews, I just don’t think he’s very talented or smart”. Those people, totally fine! I say to them “if you are curious, you should check out Fan to get a sense of his acting abilities. There’s also some really good interviews where he gets extremely philosophical. But I understand if you don’t have the time/interest to check these out, and I totally agree that his acting isn’t very impressive in those movies you have seen”. They have their opinion based on their current sample size, I can offer them other options but I can’t force them to watch something they don’t want to watch. At least now they know there is an alternative view out there and usually I get a response of “oh interesting! Thanks for letting me know.” And if they do actually watch Fan/Chak De/whatever, most of the time they come back to me and say “hey, you were right, he is a good actor”.
Prejudiced: The yucky folks, the ones who by into the nepotism/Muslim/evil celebrity storylines. There are loads of rumors available online to support some crazy theories about him, but I’m gonna straight up say that they only reason you would believe something like “his marriage is dead and he seduces young fangirls all the time” or “he is secretly married to Priyanka in a Muslim ceremony” is because you are pre-prejudiced against him.
Just Being Human: Not everyone is for everyone! There are loads of people in the world, some of them my best friends, who are able to say “I think he is capable of being a good actor, I think he is intelligent, I think he is generally a good guy, but I just don’t feel that connection with him that you seem to feel”. Hey, that’s how I feel about Aamir, Hrithik, sometimes Salman, loads of people! I admire them in some ways personally, I enjoy their work professionally, I can even get a little dreamy feeling about their characters in certain films. But for whatever reason, they just don’t hit me in the same way SRK does.
You know the TV show Bake Off? It’s come up in a few seasons that the judge Paul Hollywood doesn’t like the taste of Matcha. That’s fine! He judges things, he says “I just don’t like Matcha” but then says “the texture is good, it’s well baked, etc. etc.” This is a professional cook and judge person, and even he doesn’t like every flavor in the world! It’s not his fault, it’s not Matcha’s fault, it’s certainly not the fault of the bakers who use that flavor. It’s just a thing that is true because not everyone likes everything the same way, and that’s a thing to acknowledge and work with.
That’s how I feel about non-SRK fans on DCIB (all of whom are category 4, the Just Human one). I believe you, makes total sense, no reason to try to change your mind if the flavor just isn’t for you. But on the other hand, no reason to remove him from my DCIB because I like him, and I know a lot of other people do to. We can all just get along and celebrate difference.