Siddharth Anand says controversy around Pathaan's Besharam Rang 'white noise'

Siddharth Anand, the filmmaker, claims that the controversy surrounding the "Pathaan" song "Besharam Rang" was nothing more than "white noise," as everyone involved understood that the Shah Rukh Khan-starring movie contained nothing objectionable. Before the stylish espionage thriller's January 25 release, right-wing organisations had called for a boycott due to Deepika Padukone's orange bikini. Politicians had also criticised the music for offending religious sensibilities.

"We were neither scared nor pumped up. That was all just white noise. We knew that there was nothing objectionable in our movie. We were in Spain and I picked that costume just randomly. But I never imagined all this would happen.

"The colour of the outfit looked nice as it was a sunny day, the grass was green and water was blue. That was the logic behind it," Anand said at the News 18 Rising India Summit 2023 on Thursday evening.

The filmmaker said he is glad that the audience saw through the brouhaha and made the film a humongous success.

"When this happened, we thought that audiences will understand when they watch the movie that our intent was not wrong and what they are seeing on screen is not objectionable. But I can't blame the audience because they hadn't seen the movie till then.

"I think it is very commendable for the audience to visit theatres in huge numbers and book their tickets in advance. They proved the boycott movement wrong." Also starring John Abraham, "Pathaan" collected over Rs 1,000 crore at the global box office. The film is currently streaming on Prime Video.

The director, known for hits such as "Bachna Ae Haseeno", "Bang Bang!" and "War", said those behind the boycott calls fail to understand that there are many whose livelihoods are affected by such controversies.

"When they say boycott, they want you to boycott a movie or a star but they don't look at all the people whose livelihoods are dependent on the film. At least 300 people worked on my film's set every day. After the film has wrapped shooting, there are so many VFX artists who work on it.

"When a movie is running in cinema halls, there are people who work in theatres. So there is a huge industry that works around the film industry and it benefits when a movie does well," he said.

The director is currently working on "Fighter", which reunites him with his "War" star Hrithik Roshan and Padukone.

With PTI inputs