The Karan Johar playbook: The open secret, male same-sex sexuality, and the ‘big-brand’ in Bollywood

This paper critically contextualizes the open secret of Karan Johar’s sexuality as a key marketable commodity in neoliberal framework ‘KJo’ brand. It examines cultural legibility his sexuality. argues that juxtaposition between ubiquity and maintained silence on identifying serves an incitement enables study role incrementally making space for depoliticized individualized upper-class male same-sex By mapping textuality culture industry surrounding Hindi film industry, this offers nuanced critique co-option by Johar its deployment gimmick.