The teaser for Yash's Toxic has led to a controversy (PHOTO: X)
Yash’s new film, Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, stirred up a storm the moment its teaser hit the internet on his 40th birthday, January 8.
In the teaser, Yash shows up in a pretty intimate scene with a woman inside a car at a graveyard, then things shift into action mode.
That first part? It didn’t go over well with everyone. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) filed a complaint with the Karnataka State Commission for Women, claiming the teaser was “obscene” and bad for women and kids.
The controversy heated up even more when an old interview of Yash on the show Weekend with Ramesh started making the rounds again. In it, Yash insisted he wouldn’t do scenes he’d feel awkward watching with his parents.
Now, people are pointing out the difference between what he said back then and what’s in this new teaser, and the debate’s only gotten louder.
Most of the backlash is about that sex scene in the cemetery car. After the teaser dropped, fans got curious about the woman in the scene.
At first, rumours said it was actor Natalie Burn. But then director Geetu Mohandas cleared things up on Instagram, posting a photo and introducing Beatriz Taufenbach, a Brazilian model and actor, as the woman in question. Geetu called her “my cemetery girl.”
Since all this blew up, Beatriz has deactivated her Instagram account. Try searching for her handle now and you’ll just get a “Profile isn’t available” message.
So, between the heated complaints and the online guessing games, this teaser’s gotten everyone talking and not always in a good way.
In a letter to the commission, the state secretary of AAP, Usha Mohan, raised her issues and said that the obscene and explicit content of the teaser of this movie is damaging the social well-being of women and children to a great extent.
These are scenes that have been published in the open without any age restriction and thus debase the honor of women and affront Kannada culture.
This quote shows the attitude of the party, which believes that the teaser is not only immoral towards the decency of the people but is also against the cultural sensibilities of the people.
Other than this, social activist Dinesh Kallahalli has submitted an official complaint to the CBFC protesting against the obese, sexually explicit and morally offensive scenes in the teaser. The creators are still responding to the grievances.
The social media reaction to the teaser was strong as a segment of viewers had strong reactions on social media. Even though certain people were horrified by the erotic display, others condemned it as a lack of originality.
The controversial nature of the film has been a source of division amongst the filmgoers as some users have found reasons to defend Yash and others have been disappointed with the creative direction.
The controversy has sparked fresh arguments about what counts as decent in Indian cinema and how much responsibility filmmakers have when they put their work in front of such a mixed, all-ages audience.
Some critics think the teaser goes too far, but plenty of fans argue that acting isn’t a problem unless it actually breaks the law or crosses clear moral lines.
Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups stars Yash with Kiara Advani, Tara Sutaria, and Nayanthara. It hits theatres March 19 and will go up against Dhurandhar 2, which features Ranveer Singh and Akshaye Khanna.
Everyone’s waiting to see how people react, especially given all the back-and-forth about creative freedom and what artists owe society.
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