Promotions in the Telugu film industry have become desperate. There are no two ways about it. Smaller films started banking on controversies and/or silly speeches years ago. Some artists are asked to speak in deliberately cheap ways to grab attention. If a comedian, for example, refers to a juicy social media trend, uses a cuss word, or mentions a televised controversy at a pre-release event, just know that it's not at all spontaneous. In this method, every speech is calibrated carefully to generate talking points on social media. The idea is to let content creators make viral reels.
Big films, however, have stayed away from such in-your-face gimmicks. Peddi, however, is an exception. One can be sure that Anantha Sriram's recent comments rationalizing the objectification of Janhvi Kapoor in the movie were aimed for virality. What was a lyricist doing at a post-release success meet? When did you last see a lyricist being provided the opportunity to speak at a post-release event? Anantha Sriram has used warped logic to defend the use of "offensive" language in the song Chikiri, arguing that everyone has the right to free speech in a democracy.
Jagapathi Babu, too, has been deployed in a prominent way to make certain statements about Peddi. Even after the movie's release, he has been participating in promotions. Nothing inherently wrong. But his participation doesn't look organic at all.
