Netizens troll Rajinikanth for his body-shaming remarks on Aamir Khan, Shruti Haasan and Soubin Shahir at 'Coolie' audio launch

With just a handful of days remaining for his next release Coolie, 'Superstar' Rajinikanth is in the midst of a social media storm. Last weekend, the audio launch of his film was telecast on Sun TV and since then, netizens have been on a rampage regarding certain segments of Rajinikanth's speech at the function.

Historically, the 74-year-old has been known for producing riveting speeches at the audio launch functions of his films. They are often a mix of humour, philosophy and interesting anecdotes about life, with the intention of spreading a good message to the audiences. At the Coolie launch, it was more of the same from Kollywood's Thalaivar but the formula of his speeches have started to get weary, given that he wants to speak on every pivotal cast and crew member. While it is extremely humble of a top star to speak for so long and mention all the relevant people in his project, Rajinikanth's speech format has become predictable in recent years. That, however, wasn't the problem with his speech at the Coolie launch.

While reflecting on Soubin Shahir, the veteran remarked as to how he was initially unsure about the casting and also used the term 'bald' while describing the Mollywood actor.

"When Lokesh told me that he is casting Soubin, I was told about Manjummel Boys and when I saw that, I was like 'what is this, a bald person, how can he do this role?' but Lokesh told me that he is an outstanding artist," said Rajinikanth in his speech.

Soon, he went on to shower Soubin with praises for his acting and performance in Coolie but the intro to this part of the speech didn't sit well with the netizens who felt that Rajinikanth's body-shaming words were disrespectful of Soubin.

Shruti Haasan, daughter of the legendary Kamal Haasan, was the next at the receiving end. Kamal's box office rivalry with Rajinikanth is well-documented but despite the heavy competition, the duo has remained the best of friends over the years. Shruti, meanwhile, has been in the film industry since 2009 when she debuted in Bollywood before entering Kollywood in 2011. Yet, Rajinikanth's intro about the actress sounded weird.

"I was told that Shruti Haasan is being cast, I was like 'Really? She is a glamourous actress that I saw during the days of 3", said Rajinikanth before praising Shruti and also drawing parallels between her famous father. However, it sounded bizarre that Rajinikanth spoke about Shruti as if she were a beginner in the industry.

Later on, while describing Aamir Khan's persona, the Superstar used the word 'short' in a descriptive sense. While he lauded Bollywood's Mr.Perfectionist for his cinematic brilliance, there was a sentence that sounded awkward for netizens.

"On one hand, you have Salman Khan and the other hand, you have Shah Rukh Khan. Then, you have the short Aamir Khan who stands tall," remarked Rajinikanth.

Understandably, neither of these references were in sour taste from Rajinikanth. He is known to treat people with humility and perhaps, what he wanted to convey isn't what came out through his speech. However, in this day and age, it is always a thin line between humour and objectification, especially when there is possible body-shaming involved. Soubin and Aamir were unfazed by these words, and seemed to relish the speech but it is perhaps time that Rajinikanth had a relook at the template of his speeches.

Also, what has been puzzling is the whole Rajinikanth fanbase dismissing such moments in the speech as if they don't matter at all. Being a fan is always good unless it reaches the point of being a fanatic. The sensible set of fans would definitely agree that this speech had plenty of problematic moments in it.

"Rajini should stop talking about people’s appearances🤚🏼" said a user on X.

Another user, meanwhile, was a lot more vocal on the issue and was severe on Tamil Nadu's biggest movie icon in the modern era.

"Rajini’s so called humility exposed as sheer misogyny in Coolie Audio Launch. His cheap sexist jibes at co stars and degrading remarks are disgraceful and unworthy of any legend. Blindly defending this toxic nonsense only normalizes disrespect and must be strongly rejected."

There were more criticisms in store as the 'rajinikanth body shaming' keyword saw a plethora of such comments from netizens.

"Rajinikanth speech at the Coolie audio launch was really disappointing he literally insulted Soubin and body-shamed him in front of nearly 10,000 people. He even said Shruti only does glamour roles, which made her feel awkward."

"I always thought #ThalapathyVijay was bigger than Rajnikanth, but I never said that aloud out of respect, but after today, he lost my admiration. The most insecure actor #Rajnikanth."