The trailer of the Bollywood political drama 'Madam Chief Minister' was released in T- series on Wednesday to good reception. The trailer came amidst backlash from netizens for the 'savarna gaze' in the poster starring Richa Chadha.
The Subhash Kapoor directed political piece is based loosely on the life of the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati. Critics condemned the 'caste appropriation' and criticized the filmmaker for not choosing a lead role from the Dalit community.
As per the makers, the movie is all set to have a theatrical release on 22nd January this year. The actress shared the poster for the upcoming movie on her Twitter account with the caption, "A political drama about an 'untouchable' who hustles and makes it big in life."
The poster features Richa with a bruised face carrying a broom in hand and wearing torn clothes and a caption 'untouchable, unstoppable'. "Stop stereotyping and building Bahujan stories in your own way", slammed Netizens. "Mostly the Dalit characters are given roles of working-class people where they have to look a certain manner," they noted.
A Twitter user said, "We Dalits will not be watching you misrepresent our community. I will make sure to tell every Dalit in my own family and friend list to not watch this."
Cinema critiques have noted the domination in Bollywood of stories centered around upper caste households with few exceptions. The savarna gaze of upper-caste filmmakers has been condemned in the past in movies including Article 15 and Swadesh.
Other than Richa Chadha who plays the lead, the movie has Akshay Oberoi, Saurabh Shukla, Manav Kaul in key roles in 'Madam Chief Minister'.