Honestly, when news broke that an Indian political analyst was suing Netflix India to force the streaming service to remove sitcom The Big Bang Theory, my first thought was that it would definitely be an idiotic campaign stunt.
Like in Florida, where a school principal was just fired for showing a picture of Michelangelo’s David in class. Yes, the man is naked, but he’s also a world-famous 1504 marble statue on display in Florence – !
But when I read the description of the scene that Mithun Vijay Kumar is so angry about, that he has hired his lawyer to file a lawsuit against Netflix India against “discrimination against women”, I was stunned at first. In my recollection, the sitcom is so innocent that at first I couldn’t even imagine the scene actually occurring in the series as described:
In the scene in question, Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and Raj Koothrapalli (Kunal Nayyar) are sitting on the couch watching the Bollywood movie Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai. Sheldon then argues that the (real) actress Aishwarya Rai is just the poor man’s version of the (also real) Madhuri Dixit. However, Raj counters this as follows: “Aishwarya Rai is a goddess and Madhuri Dixit is a leper prostitute in comparison.”
Of course, the joke would be at the expense of Sheldon and Raj, who boast about their supposed Bollywood knowledge, but at the same time are exposed as mere gossip – because in the movie “Kaho Naa … Pyaar Hai – love out of nowhere”. Neither Aishwarya Rai nor Madhuri Dixit plays the lead role, instead the lead role is played by Amisha Patel.
But let’s be clear: in this scene, the series really makes a total mistake in tone! Imagine the same dialogue with well-known Hollywood actresses: “Florence Pugh is just the junk version of Jennifer Lawrence.” – “Jennifer Lawrence is a goddess and Florence Pugh is just a leper prostitute by comparison.” I mean WTF? Shitstorm pre-programmed.
Should the lawsuit be honored?
If you ask me whether the series should be scrapped or even banned, in India or elsewhere? Of course not!
If Madhuri Dixit, who by the way was already a seasoned 40-year-old actress at the time of the first airing, were to personally sue for insult, then you should definitely think about squeezing out the dialogue or leaving out one scene, but whatever also. otherwise would actually be an exaggeration.
When they first saw it, 99 percent of viewers probably didn’t even realize it really wasn’t okay – because with “The Big Bang Theory” such dropouts were not expected at all, but they weighed themselves in warm certainty with a view to total harmlessness.
But maybe that’s why it’s so shocking now to see the snippet on its own – because you really don’t remember the series’ mega hit as that shitty…