The online debate surrounding Jahnvi Kapoor and Ram Charan’s massive box office film Peddi has shifted from its historic ₹135.36 crore global opening to a fierce controversy on X regarding the treatment of its leading lady, Janhvi Kapoor.
While the Buchi Babu Sana directorial is being hailed for its epic scale and a powerhouse performance by Ram Charan, it faces a severe cultural backlash for what audiences and major publications are calling the objectification of her character, Achiyamma.
Janhvi Kapoor’s Over Sexualization Debate
The debate reached a fever pitch when some fans caught screenshots of Janhvi Kapoor’s official Instagram account allegedly “liking” a viral post that sharply criticized the film’s makers.
The post, published by an online film analysis group, was titled: “Peddi: the most expensive disrespect ever paid to a leading woman in Indian cinema.”
While there are fans arguing that the post is edited and not a real like from her account, but there are others who say otherwise,
The viral critique pointed out a staggering hypocrisy in the film’s writing, arguing that while Peddi spends a ₹350 crore budget discussing the denial of human identity and class struggles as systemic evils, the camera and script simultaneously strip away Achiyamma’s decency and basic humanity to the corner.
The post further claimed that Janhvi explicitly voiced discomfort regarding the highly sexualized framing and close-up shots during the post-production and editing phase. According to the report, her professional boundaries were entirely disregarded by the director in favor of perceived box-office commercial appeal.
A previous interview of SRV is also going viral where he mentioned the same issue about directors using close ups on female actors so that audience feels something.
SRV once said that close-ups on a woman’s body parts are a director’s way of forcing the audience to stare and feel something.
Now look at #Peddi. It’s exactly that. Janhvi Kapoor is reduced to nothing but b**b and a$$ show for the masses. No substance, no connection to the… https://t.co/SqYrNpgyf6 pic.twitter.com/aQq12Cbmic— PintuX (@pintya_348) June 4, 2026
Though the “like” was swiftly removed from the page, screenshots had already spread across X, with fans viewing the move as a silent confirmation of her frustration with the final cut. Singer Sumangaly Ariyanayagam publicly backed the sentiment, writing on her platform:
“A room full of powerful men sat down to write a story about the trauma of being powerless. In the same breath, they turned Janhvi Kapoor’s character into a body for the lens… They knew exactly what human dignity meant. They just decided she didn’t deserve it.”
The “Love Track” Under Fire
Moviegoers on X have heavily criticized the specific visual and narrative choices throughout the film’s romantic arc, which many argue actively glorifies a total lack of consent.
In a deeply controversial sequence, Ram Charan explicitly states a desire to touch the heroine without her consent, rationalizing that she would never willingly return his love, and her father would never agree to their marriage.
This dialogue culminates in a scene where the hero kisses her without consent during a power outage. When she breaks down in tears, rather than addressing the gravity of the act, another male character advises her to remain silent for the sake of her father’s political career.
Major trade reviews, including The Hindu and India Today, have pointed out that nearly every scene featuring Kapoor feels isolated from the core sports narrative, designed solely around close-ups and objectification rather than real character development.
Not the first time with Janhvi Kapoor
This marks the second consecutive time Janhvi Kapoor has faced this exact criticism in the Telugu film industry, following her similar role in Devara opposite Jr. NTR.
The backlash on X has ignited a broader industry discussion about how mainstream filmmakers treat prominent Bollywood actresses. Audiences are calling out a repeating trend where massive budget pan India films are justified not by giving women meatier, complex scripts, but by reducing them to dance props and heavily stylized objects.
With Peddi dominating the box office over its opening weekend, the fierce pushback online suggests a growing exhaustion among modern cinema audiences toward regressive tropes disguised as mass commercial entertainment.
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