Modern politicians want to appear "hip" and "in tune" with the young
generation. Netanyahu meeting with Bollywood actors and taking a
selfie
is part and parcel of that strategy:
"I want all the Bollywood celebrities, producers and stars to join
together for a selfie. Let a few hundred million people see the
friendship," Mr Netanyahu said.
"Will my Bollywood selfie beat @TheEllenShow Hollywood selfie at the
Oscars? @SrBachchan @juniorbachchan @rajcheerfull @imbhandarkar
@vivek_oberoi," PM Benjamin Netanyahu captioned the selfie.
The words starting with @ are tags which direct the reader to other
twitter feeds. I believe the more tags you use, the more visible your
post becomes to twitter readers. Netanyahu might be old (68), but he
is no geezer!
Justin Trudeau employed
a similar strategy. It
appears some twitterers thought it went a little overboard:
Is it just me or is this choreographed cuteness all just a bit much
now? Also FYI we Indians don’t dress like this every day sir, not
even in Bollywood.
There is even a
youtube clip from 2015
of him dancing Bhangra.
In addition to that,
Bollywood is cautious
when it comes to approaching political issues. Therefore meeting with
it is fairly safe. Only
three actors,
Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, and Salman Khan refused to meet with
Netanyahu in the Shalom Israel event.
The strategy is a double-edged sword. They want themselves
to appear cool and funny and their opponents
(The BDS Movement,
in Netanyahu's case) grumpy and boring. Why complain about
"cultural propaganda" when you can dance the night away? The risk is that they instead appear cheesy and fake.
