After poster controversy, film team puts off song launch

Recently, posters with the words ‘____ Poda Ponnu Venum’ that were put up across the city raised many an eyebrow. Several people took offence to them, and called out the crassness. The posters were actually part of a promo campaign for the film Kadalai Poda Ponnu Venum, has television personality Azhar in the lead. The first look of the film was launched by Vijay Sethupathi.There was also a buzz saying that the actor will be launching the teaser.
However, following the criticism, Vijay Sethupathi clarified that he had no clue that the film’s team were planning to put up such posters. Now, the film’s director, P Anantharajan, has come forward to present his side of the story. “This is a clean subject,” he assures and adds, “There will be nothing obscene in it. I am an associate of Samuthirakani sir, who works on socially relevant topics. This film, too, is one such subject. I am really upset that this happened, especially for our producer Robinson D and me. I hope things change.”
He further elaborates, “The film is a romantic comedy starring Azhar, Manishajith, Yogi Babu, Mansoor Ali Khan and Senthil. It is a clean love story, on the lines of Attakathi. Flirting is the first step towards falling in love and that is why we kept this title. We had a firm who was looking after the promotional activities. They came up with the idea of this poster, and we decided to go ahead with it for Valentine’s Day. But we never expected that people would get offended and hurt. We did not put up the posters with a bad intention. But everything went haywire. In fact, we were supposed to release a song soon after this campaign, but with the negative reaction, we have now chosen to defer it.”
The director reveals that he also apologised to Vijay Sethupathi, whose name was dragged into this controversy. “He is someone who always encourages newcomers. I felt very bad and couldn’t face him after this. Later, I explained the idea behind this campaign and apologised to him,” he says.
But he clarifies that they will not be changing the title of the film just because of this controversy. “Once audiences watch the film, they will understand why we have chosen such a title. But we will re-work our promotional campaign,” he says.