The makers of Ishaan Khatter and Ananya Panday-starrer Khaali Peeli have been criticised for racist lyrics used in the dance number ‘Beyoncé Sharma Jaayegi,’ which was released on Monday. The song currently also has more dislikes than likes on its official YouTube link.
The words in the song that have been found to objectionable are: "Tu jo kamar yeh hilayegi, Tujhe dekh ke goriya, Beyoncé sharma jayegi (When you shake your hips, fair-skinned woman, Beyoncé will be embarrassed).” The word 'goriye' refers to a 'fair skinned woman', and the line appears to make a direct reference to pop superstar Beyoncé's skin colour as a Black American woman. Beyoncé's name trended on Twitter all through Monday as many of her fans claimed the line in the song is a racist dig at the Grammy award-winning artist.
"#BeyonceSharmaJaayegi Bollywood hitting new levels of low after hitting rock bottom. Using obnoxious lyrics, skin color and comparing her with #Beyonce . Utter disappointment again," tweeted a user.
"Dear Beyonce, We are sorry for this," tweeted a fan of the singer.
beyoncé honey , we are so sorry pic.twitter.com/abS5MShFth
— aakshi (@kiaraastan) September 7, 2020
Urging Beyoncé to sue the makers of the Hindi song, another user tweeted: "Beyoncé please sue these m***s, I am begging you."
"Please look at the lyrics carefully, 'Tujhe dekh ke goriya, beyoncé sharma jaayegi', we all know that Beyonce is black whereas Ananya Pandey (a POC) is fair skinned and drawing comparisons between the two, the song suggests that Beyoncé is inferior (Beyonce sharma jaayegi) to Ananya just because she's not 'gori' (fair skinned) like the song suggests, implying that she has got to be ashamed because apparently bollywood believes that only one shade is beautiful! Now tell me how is that not racist and a perpetrator of the ideology that if you're not fair, then you cannot be considered beautiful!" reads a thread posted by a Twitter user.
The song 'Beyonce Sharma Jaayegi' has received a similar fate as the trailer of the recently released film Sadak 2, which made headlines for getting more dislikes than likes on YouTube.
At the time of publishing this story, the song had 39,000 likes against 2,18,000 dislikes on the official YouTube page of Zee Music Company, which owns music rights of the film. The song has been written by Kumaar and Raj Shekhar, and composed by Vishal and Shekhar. Nakash Aziz and Neeti Mohan have sung the dance number featuring Ananya and Ishaan. Directed by Maqbool Khan, romantic action drama Khaali Peeli is slated for a digital release on October 2.
This is not the first time Bollywood has been criticised for racism and discrimination over skin tones. Several critics have questioned the ‘brown skinning’ of actors to show them as poor or from rural backgrounds. The Ayushmann Khurrana-starrer Bala also faced criticism for showing Bhoomi Pednekar in brown face as a ‘lesser-liked feature.’ The fixation with fair skin has also been prominent in south cinema, with dark-skinned women used as comic relief and are often discriminated against.