How About A Code Of Conduct For Indian Celebrities?
Earlier this month, China banned all celebrities from endorsing a range of products and banned those with “lapsed morals” from endorsing anything, as part of an ongoing drive to align society with the country’s “core socialist values”.
The regulations, announced by state regulators barred Chinese celebrities from publicly endorsing or advertising health, education and financial commodities, including e-cigarettes and baby formula. Regulators went on record to say that the push was to ensure China’s society was “guided by Premier Xi Jinping’s thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era”, referring to the sweeping ideology underpinning the rule of the Xi-led Communist party. “Celebrities should consciously practise socialist core values in their advertising endorsement activities, and endorsement activities should conform to social morals and traditional virtues,” the new regulations specifically stated.
While the new regulations may just have kicked in, China has been active in disciplining celebrities for quite a while now. In 2021, the actor Zheng Shuang was fined nearly 300m RMB ($46m) for tax evasion and banned from being invited on to entertainment programmes of any kind. Around the same time, Fendi brand ambassador Zhao Wei had her name removed from all works on major entertainment platforms for unknown reasons. Several companies or celebrities were also punished for their endorsements of bad or fraudulent products. Last year, the standup comedian Li Dan was fined about $134,000 over a women’s underwear ad that was deemed insulting to women. In September 2021, Chinese authorities banned some reality TV talent shows and ordered broadcasters not to promote what it derogatorily referred to as “sissy” men. A two-month regulatory operation also banned the ranking of celebrities and cultural products in an effort to rein in the “chaos” and monetisation of online fandom.
The rules also enforced a ban on companies from hiring celebrities found to have “lapsed morals” or engaged in illegal behaviour including tax evasion, drunkenness, drug addiction and fraud, and from using images of Communist party leaders, revolutionary leaders and heroes in their advertising. Pretty drastic, the Western world would surely say – but China would have it no other way.
Last year China banned its celebrities from showing off their wealth on social media. The Cyberspace Administration of China announced that celebrities in the country would not be allowed to “show off wealth” or “extravagant pleasure” on social media.
The rules also prevented celebrities from publishing false or private information, provoking fans against other fan groups and from spreading rumours. The authorities also ordered that social media accounts of both celebrities and fans would be required to adhere to “public order and good customs, adhere to correct public opinion orientation and value orientation, promote socialist core values, and maintain a healthy style and taste”. Celebrities were warned that they must “oppose the decadent ideas of money worship, hedonism and extreme individualism” and help foster higher morality in society.
As if this was not enough, a list of “misbehaving celebrities” who were allegedly blacklisted by Beijing was circulated on social media. Chinese-Canadian pop star Kris Wu, who was arrested on suspicion of rape was on that list. Media reports also said that Beijing planned on banning video games that featured gay relationships and “effeminate males”. The reports also emphasized that authorities would not allow players the choice of being good or evil.
In India much of the China model would be soon to be draconian. But is demanding good morals from celebrities really such a bad idea? A friend of mine who was Commissioner of Police Mumbai some years back purged the popular annual cultural Bollywood extravaganza Umang by politely asking for the likes of Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt not to attend the police show. But I don’t think his successors in later years chose to exercise any such discretion.
Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Shah Rukh Khan, Ranveer Singh, Saif Ali Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Anushka Sharma and others have at different times endorsed pan masalas and surrogate tobacco products. Some like Mr. Bachchan and Akshay Kumar have backtracked but a lot of it seemed like an effort to stave off negative publicity rather than any real regret or atonement. The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 (COPTA) is an Act of Parliament but it has really not deterred celebrities from endorsing tobacco related products. Many like Akshay Kumar did put themselves on a high moral pedestal for quite some time but were eventually “persuaded” by the lure of lucre to dump their much avowed morals.
There was a lot of pressure on advertisers to take Shah Rukh Khan off air when his son Aryan got embroiled in a highly publicized drugs case. But the hiatus for King Khan was but temporary. Similarly, Shilpa Shetty’s spouse has consistently got into trouble in a match-fixing and betting scandal, and then in a porn racket too, but her public persona seems not to have got hit in any which way. Jacqueline Fernandes is currently under the scanner of the authorities for her involvement with conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar but one is really not sure whether that will lead to any kind of black-listing within Bollywood.
In India, despite the provisions of the new consumer act, celebrities generally tend not to care. The large sums of monies on offer, more so for supporting negative categories, are much too much an attraction – and difficult to refuse. Mahesh Babu, the South Indian actor was terribly trolled for endorsing Pan Bahar “Elaichi” – he just kept a stoney silence and just let the controversy fizzle out over time. That is the tried-and-tested modus operandi for most celebrities: endure a few days of heat, lie low, and then get back to business as usual, as if nothing ever happened.
The China model cannot and will not work in India. The government is putting guidelines in place, even making laws stricter, but no real hi-profile prosecution or conviction has really happened as a visible deterrent. Social media back lash is hardly enough to discipline celebrities who pocket crores for lending their fame to negative products. With vast sums of monies at stake, the attitude really is, “I give a damn”.
The author is a PhD in the study of celebrities. He is Managing Director of ad agency, Rediffusion
