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Bollywood is notorious when it comes to stereotypical and caricaturish characters that are often used as punching bags for comic relief. Be it the Gujrati mota bhai who only talks in an inaccurate accent to the Punjabi best friend who can’t help but go balle balle at every alternate thing; representation was confined to mimicking and generalizing cultures and we have more than a few examples of the same. Among others, the South Indian Tamilian has also borne the brunt of trope-treatment that has reduced his/her/their identity to English-speaking, veg-eating and Rajinikant-loving Brahmins.
In fact, according to Twitter, there’s another example at hand. The teaser of Karan Johar’s Meenakshi Sundareshwar just dropped and it has stirred the same debate online because of the ‘gross stereotyping’. The Netflix film that stars Sanya Malhotra and Abhimanyu Dassani apparently is about a long-distance romance where the lead pair finds love in an arranged marriage set-up but all of it is shadowed when the characters depict the age-old tropes that we have seen a few hundred times. Including a Thalaiva connect.
Needless to say, Tamilians have had it with Bollywood trying to box them in the same tired brackets and have taken to social media to point out the many things wrong with the teaser. See for yourself.
As if Chennai Express didn’t do enough damage: what the actual fuck is this? https://t.co/vnM25J1KfU
— Krishna.K (He/They) (@kriiiiishhhhhhh) October 12, 2021
Better be not Chennai Express 2.0 https://t.co/qk7yNTwiYI
— Karthi 🌌👽 (@karthi_knn) October 12, 2021
Typical Shitty Stereotyping of Tamil nadu by Bollywood .
& No offence , Why always RAJINIKANTH reference ?😑
Its exhausting to see the stereotypical portrayal of TAMIL people in Bollywood movies .#Valimai #AjithKumar https://t.co/KJntVUxIRD— Vimal வலிமை (@Valimai233332) October 12, 2021
Enough of repeating same stereotypes ra. South isn’t just Idly Sambar and Rajnikanth movies! 🤦 https://t.co/joufePUgjT
— Kiran (@inquisitivekidd) October 12, 2021
Hardly anyone speaks Hindi in Madurai
95%+ Tamils follow non vegitarian diet
Tamilnadu is not all about Rajinikanth
Nobody sells Idli in open at Madurai Railway station
These 100% imaginary characters of North Indian creators who absolutely have no knowledge about Madurai. https://t.co/POIlO5ckmQ
— Pazuzu (@Pazuzugallu666) October 12, 2021
At this point I’m convinced they do this shit simply to piss us off 🤣🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/LhkAOKFUv3
— danny’s thigh tat👅 (@vaathukulambu) October 12, 2021
Playing a kuthu song in the background doesn’t make the trailer appear even remotely tamilian.
also what up with this talkin’ bout rajnikanth with no context?Happy Stereotyping 😩#MeenakshiSundareshwar pic.twitter.com/o5jhXtZQxi
— dihurdeys (@Ruhid_Syed) October 12, 2021
Dei @NetflixIndia kenji kaekurom, please just leave us alone#MeenakshiSundareshwar pic.twitter.com/Cj8tR4PNfY
— Bhavya Venkatesh (@bhavyavenkatesh) October 12, 2021
Amongst all things that gets misinterpreted in Bollywood movies, Tamil representations got to be right up there. #MeenakshiSundareshwar
— Koushik Kannan (@KoushikKannan3) October 12, 2021
Less than 10 seconds into the video and I already know they did not do any research. #MeenakshiSundareshwar pic.twitter.com/u1foQYVRLP
— bharathi (@VenkatBharathy) October 12, 2021
Stereotyping at its best (worst)! Another bollywood film to stereotype south indians as vegetarian, folk song listening, Rajinikanth loving, pretentious English speaking people. Grow up guys!#MeenakshiSundareshwar
— Vignesh Venugopal (@vvignettist) October 12, 2021
I dont know when will bollywood understand that all Tamil’s are not brahmins. All Tamil’s are not veg eaters. Even brahmins wont dress and talk like this now a days. And not all tamil songs are folk songs. And stop ur obsession with our superstar!#MeenakshiSundareshwar https://t.co/oSMamGPhO1
— Sandy (@dragondeenas) October 12, 2021
when North India dude moved to Tamil Nadu #MeenakshiSundareshwar will happen. https://t.co/JbUuRIfYND
— mask (@mrmaskmf) October 12, 2021
Bollywood people showing south is basically like Hollywood people showing India or Indian films..
No one has any clue, except for the generic things they think that represent the culture..#MeenakshiSundareshwar #HowJadedIsThis https://t.co/sJW8umPgcP— Srujana Uppuluri (@srujau) October 12, 2021
Couldn’t cast actual Tamil actors, still thinks Rajnikanth is the only star that Tamil people love, an engineer joke and a general air of cringe around the whole thing👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
How about stick to producing stuff that you know, eh @NetflixIndia @Dharmatic_ ?? https://t.co/0SxGvbI590
— James Ashwin (@JAshR07) October 12, 2021
Insert Tamil songs, Tamil icons and Tamil culture (grossly stereotyped) to get some eyeballs, but the characters only speak in Hindi!! Chennai is just 2 hours away by flight from Bombay, one visit would have made the makers realise what an atrocity this is #MeenakshiSundareshwar https://t.co/yl4qiyG9cA
— Akshita Nandagopal (@Akshita_N) October 13, 2021
Now, one can hope that the film fares better when the trailer drops eventually making way of the film. Meanwhile, Meenakshi Sundareshwar will mark the digital debut of Dassani of Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota and the directorial debut of Vivek Soni who has also co-written the film with Aarsh Vora. Produced by Karan Johar’s Dharmatic Entertainment, Meenakshi Sundareshwar is all set to release on Netflix on November 5.
Cover artwork by Bhavya Poonia/Mashable India
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