{"id":6179,"date":"2016-05-31T22:38:29","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T17:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=6179"},"modified":"2016-05-31T22:38:29","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T17:08:29","slug":"in-what-the-love-karan-johar-proves-that-he-has-no-idea-about-love-or-millennials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=6179","title":{"rendered":"In \u201cWhat the Love!\u201d Karan Johar Proves that He Has No Idea about Love or Millennials"},"content":{"rendered":"\nA<\/span> few minutes into What the Love!<\/em>, Netflix India\u2019s sorry excuse for a dating reality series, Karan Johar<\/a> \u2013 its creator, host, and self-appointed \u201ccupid\u201d \u2013 calls himself a millennial. Johar is 47 years old, an age by when one should have ideally stopped trying to appear cool by pretending that they\u2019re not as old as their birth certificate claims they are. But Netflix India isn\u2019t Narnia and Johar is famously allergic to self-awareness. The result is a seven-episode show, where a director reputed for inventing unrealistic expectations of romance, believes that he has the answers to finding love \u2013 even for people who can\u2019t afford chiffon or have Manish Malhotra on speed-dial.\n\nPart-Queer Eye<\/a><\/em>, part-Splitsvilla<\/em> and complete trainwreck, the premise of What The Love!<\/em>, hinges on Johar selecting six \u201csingletons\u201d and making them \u201cready for love\u201d by forcing makeovers and setting them up on dates. Johar\u2019s makeover kit includes several steps: First, contestants go on a prep date with famous celebrities (appearances include Arjun Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Ali Fazal, and Sunny Leone). Then they go through a \u201cmental makeover\u201d where TV personalities not qualified to offer therapy (Mallika Dua, RJ Mallishka, Shibani Dandekar, and Cyrus Sahukar) give TED talks that magically erase life-long repressed issues. And finally end their journey with a physical transformation<\/a> shepherded by stylist Maneka Harisinghania and hair and makeup artist, Shaan Muttathil, both of whom bring a profound dullness to every episode. A more apt title for the show would have been \u201cI Have Celebrity Friends and I Cannot Lie\u201d given that Johar treats it as nothing but yet another opportunity to brag about the list of famous people whose numbers he has saved on his phone.\n\nJohar selects the six contestants \u2013 three women, two straight men, and a token gay representative \u2013 in a cringe-fest of an opening episode titled \u201cSingles Party.\u201d It\u2019s less of a party and more of a dark room made up of what looks like an assortment of Lokhandwala<\/a> citizens who don\u2019t have the personality for Splitsvilla<\/em> or the \u201cmind games\u201d for Roadies<\/em>. Johar picks the chosen six based on nothing but their ability to reinforce a stereotype. So there\u2019s a chubby girl (labelled an \u201cunsuitable bride\u201d), a dull guy, a jet-setting commitment-phobe, a heartbroken girl, a serial monogamist, and a girl battling severe low-esteem issues. As is expected, the insecurities projected by the women are all related to their physical appearances, while the flaws of the men are related to their personalities: Either they\u2019re stunted socially or are too over-eager for their own good. It\u2019s not only a gross generalisation, but also ensures that the show trivialises serious impediments, like the entitlement that most Indian men are conditioned to internalise and the unseemly archetype of a \u201cdutiful wife<\/a>\u201d that they still harbour. On the other hand, the show manages to glean very little about how the needs of single Indian women may have transformed in the age of dating apps and never-ending hookups.\n\n

Karan Johar picks the chosen six contestants based on nothing but their ability to reinforce a stereotype.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nMuch of the show\u2019s failure to maintain an enjoyable tone \u2013 it\u2019s too hesitant to be frivolous and too vapid to be not \u2013 is down to Johar\u2019s disconnect with the realities of falling in love<\/a> in India. In an age of increasing debts, stressful lifestyles, and the curse of too many options, love has more to do with convenience and less to do with emotion. Neither Karan Johar who calls himself \u201cthe light at the end of the deep dark tunnel called love\u201d nor the show get any close to realising that. Even worse is how rehearsed the show\u2019s scriptedness comes across at times. In the second episode, Johar makes one of the contestants needlessly repeat an unpleasant story about a potential prospector bringing a weighing scale to check her weight. He comes across more surprised that women face the brunt of discrimination at the hands of a judgemental society, with every rendition. The shock feels dishonest not only because it comes from a filmmaker who has continuously perpetuated and profited off projecting a certain body-type as the ideal in his films. But also because he uses such scenarios \u2013 moments that could have revealed the double-standards that exist in Indian society \u2013 to make self-serving statements like, \u201cI want to throw up at the patriarchy<\/a> of our society.\u201d\n\nIt\u2019s not that What the Love!<\/em> is a disappointment because it is unwatchable. The problem is deeper: it is so hollow that it has nothing to say. Even its progressiveness is an act.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part-Queer Eye, part-Splitsvilla, and complete trainwreck, Netflix\u2019s Indian dating reality show What The Love! is little more than another opportunity for Karan Johar to brag about the list of famous people whose numbers he has saved on his phone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":6180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[505,1698,240,224,1245,5159,10206],"class_list":["post-6179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-dating","tag-dating-disasters","tag-karan-johar","tag-love","tag-millennials","tag-modern-dating","tag-what-the-love"],"yoast_head":"\nIn \u201cWhat the Love!\u201d Karan Johar Proves that He Has No Idea about Love or Millennials<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Part-Queer Eye, part-Splitsvilla, and complete trainwreck, Netflix\u2019s Indian dating reality show What The Love! is little more than another opportunity for Karan Johar to brag about the list of famous people whose numbers he has saved on his phone.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=6179\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In \u201cWhat the Love!\u201d Karan Johar Proves that He Has No Idea about Love or Millennials\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Part-Queer Eye, part-Splitsvilla, and complete trainwreck, Netflix\u2019s Indian dating reality show What The Love! is little more than another opportunity for Karan Johar to brag about the list of famous people whose numbers he has saved on his phone.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=6179\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Arr\u00e9\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-05-31T17:08:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1580742158-1024x573.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"573\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Poulomi Das\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"In \u201cWhat the Love!\u201d Karan Johar Proves that He Has No Idea about Love or Millennials\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Part-Queer Eye, part-Splitsvilla, and complete trainwreck, Netflix\u2019s Indian dating reality show What The Love! 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