Movie Artists Association (MAA), which represents the the Telugu movie industry, has condemned comedian Manoj Prabakar for his comments about actor Mahesh Babu in a recent video. The association wrote to Nasser, President of the Nadigar Sangam, called out Manoj’s allegedly offensive remarks and said it reflected poorly on the Sangam. MAA asked the Sangam to take the strictest action possible against Prabakar, and said that only this could restore and uphold the beautiful relationship between the Tamil and Telugu film industries.
The controversy began when a video of Manoj Prabakar criticising Mahesh Babu’s acting in SPYder went viral on social media. It features a mock awards event setting and has Manoj making several remarks about Mahesh Babu. At one point, Manoj even calls Mahesh ‘the Katrina Kaif of South India’. However, Katrina Kaif’s fans don’t seem too offended by that particular comparison.
The comedian even says that SPYder villain SJ Suryah did a better job onscreen than Mahesh. Such claims have not gone down well with fans of Mahesh Babu. After being hounded on social media for his actions, Manoj eventually published an unconditional apology on his social media page. In it, Manoj alleged that he received several threats and was called ugly by social media users who claimed to be fans of Mahesh Babu.
The comedian’s friends and family members were allegedly abused online as well, as a result of which Manoj wrote: “I am the guy in the video and I am the one who said whatever I said in the video. So, it will be great if you all can please restrict your threats and messages only to me. Anything good or bad you have to say, please direct them towards me and not to anyone else.”
The comedian also said that the video was several months old, and that the controversy was happening for the second time. “So, I thought it is only fair to put up an explanation and close this forever. The entire one hour video is a Mock award show and it clearly starts with a disclaimer. So the intention of the show was not to hurt anyone. In all honesty the entire show was written and performed for fun and we making fun of any said person in the video is definitely not going to bring down the status of that actor or any person mentioned in the video. Also that was never our intention.”
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He apologised for his actions and said that he was ‘still learning’. “And do not judge me based on this video alone. If I may request you all to go and watch my other works if possible. Hope they will make sense to you. If they too didn’t, then all I can say is that I will work harder to create better and meaningful content. We all are humans, we all do make mistakes. And I am still learning.”
A spokesperson for the Nadigar Sangam said the association is aware of the issue and is trying to work out a way to resolve it. “As far as we are concerned, Manoj is not affiliated to us in any way, and direct action cannot be taken. We are exploring other avenues.”
Mahesh Babu has not responded to the controversy so far.