Peddi was released worldwide on June 4, with paid previews in Telugu starting in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on June 3.
Around the same time, a press screening of the Hindi version took place in Mumbai. The way Janhvi Kapoor's character was shown, especially the many close-ups of her stomach and the scene where she is kissed without her permission, left the media shocked.
There was an uncomfortable silence in the room.
During the break, it became the main topic of discussion. It was clear that within 24 hours, the film was going to face a lot of negative reactions. As expected, that's exactly what happened. The criticism grew more intense on June 5, and by the morning of June 6, director Buchi Babu Sana finally admitted his mistake.
Buchi wrote, “I have always respected women both on and off screen, and it was never our intention to objectify or disrespect any female character.
If any part of the film has been perceived that way, we respect those feelings, understand the concerns being raised, and sincerely apologize. After reviewing the feedback, we have decided to make changes to the concerned portions.”
The apology, however, was hard to accept.
Many rightly asked, why did it take a social media storm for the makers to realize that these scenes had issues? This whole situation shows how some filmmakers are tone-deaf, not in touch with the changing audience, and dangerously out of sync with what people expect today.
A 10-year-old could watch Peddi and say the scenes with Janhvi Kapoor are very inappropriate.
So it's shocking that so many people who worked on the film saw these parts before the world did and nothing changed. The director, the production team, the editing team, the VFX team, the sound team, and many others in post-production must have seen those scenes. The makers, producers, distributors, and even close industry people probably watched the film before its release. Did no one warn against it?
There are only two possibilities.
Either some people pointed out the problem and were ignored. Or worse, the team was surrounded by a "yes-man" culture where no one had the courage, honesty, or power to tell the director that what he had shot wasn't bold, romantic, or popular, but deeply uncomfortable.
This is where many filmmakers go wrong.
When they're only around people who praise everything they do, they start believing their work is the best. Then the film meets the real world, and reality hits hard. In the case of Peddi, it hit very hard.
The backlash should be a major lesson for not just Buchi Babu Sana but each filmmaker making big films today.
First, makers should seriously adopt the Aamir Khan method of showing the film to focus groups before its release.
These are people who are not part of the team and are more likely to give honest, unsensored feedback. A filmmaker may be too close to his own material to see what's wrong with it. An outsider can often spot what the team ignores or accepts as normal. In Peddi's case, a single honest focus group screening could have saved the makers from this embarrassment.
Secondly, and more importantly, there are certain rules to follow when making a film for a large audience.
A Pan-India film is not just a movie that's dubbed in multiple languages. It's a film that's shown to different cultures, different groups, and different sensibilities. If you want the whole country to buy a ticket, your story, how you present it, and your handling of gender issues must survive the scrutiny of the whole country.
This is where Peddi failed badly.
If the film had been released only in Telugu, the backlash might have stayed more contained. But once it was in the Hindi market, the criticism spread quickly. The paid previews took place in Telugu on Wednesday night. The Hindi audience, however, came in larger numbers only after 4:00 pm on Thursday, as morning shows were not as busy. It was this group that began calling out the controversial scenes strongly, and soon the outrage grew. By then, a large part of the Telugu audience had already seen the film; the morning shows were packed. Yet, the national criticism started only when the Hindi audience saw the film in large numbers.
A similar incident happened with The Family Star (2024), starring Vijay Deverakonda.
The film was released only in Telugu and didn’t attract widespread criticism during its theatrical run. A month later, when it was released on OTT, audiences in the North discovered a scene where the hero makes rape threats to a woman from the goons' family. The scene was clearly meant to be a heroic and applaudable moment. Instead, it backfired badly. Many viewers were shocked and wondered how such a scene had escaped criticism during the theatrical run.
This doesn't mean that audiences from the home market are okay with such problematic scenes.
They are not. Many Telugu viewers also raised their voices during The Family Star and Peddi. The point is simple: when a film goes beyond its home market, the level of scrutiny changes. The audience becomes more diverse, the discussions become louder, and problematic content gets exposed faster.
