Author and political analyst Mithun Vijay Kumar sent a legal notice to the OTT platform Netflix, demanding that an episode of the famous Big Bang Theory be removed. He has alleged that in that episode, Bollywood entertainer Madhuri Dixit was ‘insulted’.
The notice states that such content can have a “negative impact on society”, particularly in “perpetuating harmful stereotypes against women”. He further states that the content “promotes sexism” and “misogyny” which is not acceptable in any form.
Big Bang Theory is an American sit-com (situational comedy). The show originally centered on five characters living in Pasadena, California: Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), both physicists at Caltech, who share an apartment; Penny (Kaley Cuoco), a waitress and aspiring actress who lives across the hall; and Leonard and Sheldon’s similarly geeky and socially awkward friends and coworkers, aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar).[4][5] Over time, supporting characters were promoted to starring roles, including neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik), microbiologist Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch), and comic book store owner Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman).
The episode that author Mithun Vijay Kumar wants to be removed is episode 1 of season 2. In the episode, in one of the scenes, Raj and Sheldon are sitting on the couch at Raj’s apartment and watching television. Sheldon asks Raj if it was Aishwarya Rai on screen.
When Raj answers in the affirmative, Sheldon, the know it all, comments saying that Aishwarya Rai is a “poor man’s Madhuri Dixit”.
An offended Raj, an Indian origin Astrophysicist in the series, gets rather offended and says that Aishwarya Rai is a goddess and compared to her, Madhuri Dixit is a “leprous pr*stit*te”.
Taking to Twitter, the author posted that he is a lifelong fan of Madhuri Dixit.
“Recently, I came across an episode of the show Big Bang Theory on Netflix where Kunal Nayyar’s character uses an offensive and derogatory term to refer to the legendary Bollywood actress @MadhuriDixit. As a fan of Madhuri Dixit since childhood, I was deeply disturbed by the dialogue. I found it highly derogatory and offensive towards Indian culture and women. So I asked my lawyer to send a legal notice to Netflix, requesting that they remove the episode from their platform. It’s important to hold media companies accountable for the content they distribute, and I hope that @NetflixIndia will take this matter seriously”, he tweeted.