Indian fans are apologising to the iconic singer Beyoncé for an upcoming Bollywood movie song titled 'Beyonce Sharma Jayegi’, criticising it for its ‘sexist’ and ‘racist’ lyrics.
The peppy dance number, featuring Bollywood actress Ananya Panday and actor Ishaan Khatter, is in hot water for its lyrics suggesting Beyoncé should be ashamed of not being as fair as the actress in the song.
The controversial lyrics go as “Oh tujhe dekh ke goriya, Beyonce sharma jayegi” which translates as “after looking at you fair woman, Beyonce will feel shy/ashamed”.
Beyoncé’s fans are weighing in by hitting the dislike button on the Youtube video of the song, which was released on 7 September. The song has over 490,000 dislikes and 60,000 likes.
Others went public on Twitter to ridicule the song for blatantly promoting racial and skin colour-based discrimination (colourism), which is seen by many as problematic in a country where lighter-skinned people are often seen as historically being from the more privileged castes.
Several pointed out that Beyonce featured South Asian women in her music video ‘Brown Skin Girl’ in order to promote inclusive representation.
However, some Twitter users reasoned that the word "goriya" is simply used to refer the the girl as "beautiful girl" and not as "fair girl".
Bollywood is a $2.4 billion film industry with a massive audience, and its representation of Indian culture through films and songs has drawn scrutiny.
Earlier several accused actors like Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Disha Patani for endorsing fairness creams while supporting the Black Lives Matter movement of the US. They were called out as “hypocrites".