Chinmayi Sripaada calls out absence of Sai Pallavi, Dhee from success posters of Amaran, Rowdy Baby

Singer Chinmayi Sripaada has often lobbied for fellow female artists. In a new post on X, she called out the makers of Rajkumar Periasamy’s hit action film Amaran and the song Rowdy Baby from Balaji Mohan’s 2018 blockbuster Maari 2 for lack of female representation in their new success posters. (Also Read: Amaran becomes Sivakarthikeyan’s highest-grossing movie at ₹200 crore worldwide)

What Chinmayi said

Chinmayi took to her X handle on Wednesday night and shared two posters. The first one was to celebrate Rowdy Baby hitting 1 billion views on YouTube. The poster featured actor-singer Dhanush in his all-black look from the song, playing an electric guitar. The other poster she shared was that of Sivakarthikeyan’s look as Indian Army veteran Major Mukund Varadarajan in the latter’s biopic, Amaran. The poster hailed the film as a “mega blockbuster,” claiming that it earned ₹300 crore worldwide in just 19 days.

Chinmayi wrote in the caption, “One of the most talented and beloved female artists in the South will still not find space in a success poster, shoulder to shoulder with a man. Rowdy Baby was what it was also because of the trippy vocals of Dhee. Anyway.” Chinmayi alluded that Sai Pallavi, the female lead of both Amaran and Maari 2, is absent from both posters. She also pointed out that while Dhanush sang Rowdy Baby, his female counterpart Dhee’s mention is absent from the success poster as well.

Internet argues with Chinmayi

While some X users endorsed Chinmayi’s stance, many objected to it. Many claimed that the Rowdy Baby poster is fan-made, whereas the official poster does feature Sai Pallavi alongside Dhanush. “Fact check before you embarrass yourself (smile emoji),” wrote the user, along with sharing the official poster. Chinmayi responded, “I first saw that poster in the official accounts of the team. That image is here on Twitter and it was widely circulated – MANY spoke about how Sai Pallavi is absent as well. This should have been an update much later. Doesn’t make a difference to the talent of the calibre of Sai Pallavi anyway.”

Another X user argued that Sai isn’t on the Amaran poster because the film attracted such a huge audience because of Sivakarthikeyan’s popularity. They argued that unlike him, Sai can’t guarantee ₹300 crore at the global box office. They also quoted the example of Amar Kaushik’s recent Bollywood blockbuster horror comedy Stree 2, which became the first Hindi film to earn ₹600 crore in India. The historic success was attributed, to quite an extent, to the film’s leading lady Shraddha Kapoor, instead of her male co-star Rajkummar Rao. Chinmayi responded to this argument by writing, “Google Stree2 and the first thing that comes up is “limited screen time” she got. Anyway cannot really speak much to a system thats skewed.”