AIB, the comedy group that has been engulfed with a controversy over a roast that it filmed in Mumbai and uploaded on YouTube, has explained why it decided to remove the nearly 90-minute-long video that tore down actors Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor. Here are 10 highlights from the AIB statement, packed with wit and a craftily-stated call to attention
The AIB Knockout video has been taken down. While we'd love to claim that it's because so many people watched it that it broke YouTube, the truth's a little sadder.
No one person or force forced us to take this video down...under the circumstances, this is us being pragmatic.
AIB Knockout was another such attempt to try something new and bring the roast format to a country where celebrities aren't often known to laugh at themselves.
The format was the same as any international roast ie insult comedy, delivered in the form of one-liners designed to be as rude as possible. It is performed with the understanding that none of the material is meant to be taken seriously.
With the Knockout, in our own juvenile, idiotic way, we wanted to push the envelope of comedy in this country. But then the envelope pushed back.
Things got to the point where people who have supported us...were put in a position where things could get deeply unpleasant for them...we don't want anybody to get hurt because of us.
The videos got over 8 million views. Far more importantly, on the video page, the people who liked them outnumbered the people who disliked them by ten times to one. Yes, ten times.
This Knockout shouldn't matter. In a secure culture it wouldn't matter...there's a larger cultural conversation going on here, where we're at the very edges of what it's okay to say.
We'd like some sort of cheerful resolution to this so we can focus on more important national issues, like the upcoming Cricket World Cup.
It's a good thing nobody's downloaded the file and put it on a torrent website or anything.
