Janhvi Kapoor has expressed her concern regarding the voyeuristic nature of media culture, observing that it can lead to the dehumanization of even death, a phenomenon she experienced personally after the passing of her mother and more recently in relation to the veteran actor Dharmendra.
Speaking at the We The Women 2025 event on Sunday, Janhvi expressed her view that media, particularly social media, has single-handedly contributed to the complete derailment of human morality.
She said, “The voyeuristic nature of journalism, of media culture, of social media today, has single handedly contributed to the complete derailment of human morality, and I’m seeing it more and more every day.”
Adding on to the point, she mentioned, “It was horrible when I lost my mom. I don’t know if you all can imagine what it’s like to lose someone that close to you and see it become a meme. I don’t even know how to compute or explain it, but it’s just gotten worse.”
Janhvi mentioned that she avoids discussing her late mother, Sridevi’s passing in public, due to concerns that it might be seen as an attempt to sensationalize the matter. Sridevi passed away on February 24, 2018, at the age of 54. She shared, “I think the feeling and the phase that I went through during that time is something I’ll never be able to verbalise. And I think that it was such an individual experience that even if I told you all everything about it… I don’t know if any of you all would ever be able to relate to it, and I’m always conscious about sounding like I’m saying things to get you all to feel bad for me.”
She added, “And so I always refrain a little bit because I know everyone is opportunistic in nature, and everyone just wants a headline. And I would hate if I ever sounded like I was using such a painful part of my life and my relationship with my mother for a headline, so I think that always holds me back.”
She also mentioned the false media reports about the passing of veteran actor Dharmendra on November 11. The Sholay star passed away on November 24 at the age of 89.
Janhvi stated that celebrities share equal responsibility for the issue, adding, “We saw what happened with Dharamji and it’s happened repeatedly before that. I’m sure it will only get worse. I think we are part of the problem. I think every time we give videos, headlines or narratives… like views, comments, likes, every time we look for something like that, we are incentivising this culture.”
Janhvi expressed that human morality is in shambles and found it to be nothing but depressing. “I think earlier we had a consciousness in us that stopped us from seeing certain things, saying certain things, indulging in certain practices, but that’s out of the window, and it’s disgusting. This is the modern-day crisis that we’ve lost our morality as a result of how voyeuristic everything has become. Someone dies somewhere, some horrible attack somewhere, you kind of want to see the things that you shouldn’t see, and it gives you the strange feeling of… I guess it’s that same horrible feeling of satisfaction that sometimes you get when you gossip, but it’s been encouraged so much through social media.”
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