Aryan Khan’s multi-starrer series dives headlong into Bollywood’s greatest love affair — itself. Through the timeless ‘film-within-a-film’ device, The B***ds of Bollywood pays homage to India’s love for cinema
The opening mise-en-scène of The B***ds Of Bollywood, Aryan Khan’s multi-starrer series currently streaming on Netflix, immediately declares its subject: the movies. The show opens in a single-screen theatre — a cinematic rarity in itself — with the audience sitting on the edge of their seats, as the hero beats up the bad guys with exaggerated punches and the perfect one-liner.
The show’s protagonist — the actor whose on-screen image is being lauded — is sitting among the audience, relishing the effect his act has on the crowd. It becomes a frenzy the minute the audience realises their hero is amidst them; they rush at him, literally yearning for just a touch of their demigod.
While many walk away with pieces of his clothing, some will just brag that they touched him, or felt his hair! This intense, demigod-like worshipping for the on-screen hero is the very cultural foundation upon which the massive edifice of the Bollywood film industry was built. And it continues to thrive with the same rigour.
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This universal passion for filmmaking is undeniable. It’s a love that emanates from the entire spectrum: from the tailor in the bylanes of a Mumbai suburb, who perhaps sowed the curtains used on a film set, whose connection with celluloid is as alive and pulsating as that of the A-lister producer who invests a lot more than money in the project, to the daily-wage labourer who watches the films from the front rows of a dark and grimy theatre.
This relationship between a film and its audience is uniquely pure, a powerful cultural phenomenon often touched with a divinity of sorts. The films often morph into the word of gospel for many!
One for the price of two!
The ‘film-within-a-film’ narrative style, a wholesome storytelling device in its own right, is often used by filmmakers to celebrate this very unique relationship between the audience and celluloid. Yet, while the glitz, glamour, and attraction of cinema and films might have seemingly dimmed in the last couple of years — if the dwindling box-office numbers are any example — The B***ds Of Bollywood challenges this disconnect to its very core.
While the narrative and the performances are what ultimately resonate with the audience, it is often the ‘how’ they are made that truly satiates our curiosity. This is precisely why the ‘film-within-a-film’ genre has always been so popular. The B***ds of Bollywood is not the first story to capture the complexities of this process with such ease. These projects — beyond being compelling stories in their own right — take us behind the scenes, allow us to sneak behind the curtain, and let us know what really happens once the director says ‘Cut’.
A lasting legacy
And it’s a style that rarely disappoints. Hindi films have masterfully leveraged the film-within-the-film technique to tell powerful stories.
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In Guddi (1971), actor Jaya Bachchan is obsessed with the screen actor Dharmendra (played by the actor himself). When she meets him in the film and sees him being friendly with Pran, popular screen villain, she warns him to stay away. Ample evidence, how the lines, for an innocent consumer of Hindi cinema, are often blurred, and the reel and real often co-exist for them.
A still from Rangeela, which gave us a sneak peek into the many aspirations fathered by Bollywood
Later came Rangeela (1995) which not just introduced AR Rahman to the Hindi film industry; it also gave us a sneak peek into the many aspirations fathered by Bollywood. The film’s core plot revolves around the industry, featuring Aamir Khan as Munna, a black-market ticket seller; Urmila Matondkar as Mili, an extra who makes it big; and Jackie Shroff as Raj, the superstar. While we see the charms and lure of the film industry, our heart soars when Mili chooses her love for Munna over the appeal of Raj, proving that all’s well that ends well.
Om Shanti Om (2007) launched the Farah Khan school of filmmaking — a template which Aryan Khan seems to have learned a fair bit from ù which inherently nurtured and appealed to the audience’s nostalgia and love for all things Bollywood. Luck By Chance (2009) delved into the grittier side of Hindi cinema. Zoya Akhtar’s directorial debut, the film showed us the world she grew up in — full of studio meetings, red carpets, and gruelling auditions. It offered a rare glimpse behind the curtain, and this was all before the word ‘nepotism’ had clawed its way into public consciousness. It was as ‘realistic’ as Bollywood could get, and made a crucial point: that not all endings are happy.
The latest explorations of this style, like Jubilee (2023), the Amazon Prime Video show, have even ventured into serious themes, examining how cultural narratives can be shaped by historical events like Partition and religious bigotry. However, Bollywood is not the only space which plays with this meta-cinematic tradition.
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Hollywood, too, has a celebrated cinematic range of 'film-within-a-film’ examples, from the celebrated musical Singin’ in the Rain (1952), which observed the industry’s transition to sound, to the much newer, Quentin Tarantino’s directed Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), and even the latest Emmy-winning show The Studio (2025). All of these projects reiterate and feed the borderline obsession that the audience has with cinema’s own origin story.
To the movies, with love
The success of The B***ds Of Bollywood is a love letter to cinema and showbusiness if nothing else. We love the movies and everything to do with them. The ‘film-within-a-film’ device is not just a sharp cinematic device, it’s a clever trap to lure the audience in, and hook them in, even deeper. In today’s world of over-saturated content, where streaming platforms are now the new studios incarnate, and things are decided by the almighty ‘algorithm’ — the audience deserves to be let in on the process even more.
By being part of the ‘process’ and seeing it all — the auditions, the technical mishaps, the brutal politics — filmmakers aren’t breaking the illusion for the audience; they are ironically strengthening it. They shapeshift the celebrity into someone very relatable. The real story that works, isn’t the one playing on the screen, but the endlessly bewitching narrative of how that story came to be.
