The Viral Fever’s latest web satire sends up the culture of nepotism in the Hindi film industry that ensures a never-ending supply of actors and actresses. The new episode in the ‘Making of’ series (previous entries have lampooned breaking news and the Rs 200-crore film) is titled ‘A Star Son.’ Polaris Kapoor is the overweight and unkempt teenager whose filmmaker parents had decided his professional future the day he came into the world. Polaris is introduced to a starmaker (Sumeet Vyas) who sends him straight to the gym, where he miraculously loses kilos and gains paler skin. From there to winning an award for best debutant is as simple as the quality of humour in this web spot. Some bits hit the mark, such as the montage of directors discussing the various ways in which they will showcase the talent-free lad (played by Vibhav Roy) and the brilliant idea by the director who eventually gets the job of launching Kapoor Jr: he hires an acting double instead of a body double.

The rest is as unsophisticated and self-congratulatory as the movie industry it attacks, but at least somebody has noticed that there are too many young men and women who would never have been signed up if it weren’t for their surnames.

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