Netflix gets legal notice over ‘sexist’ remarks on Madhuri Dixit in The Big Bang Theory

Critically acclaimed American television sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, is under the garb of legal controversy after political analyst Mithun Vijay Kumar filed a lawsuit against an episode in the show. Mithun has filed a notice against the streaming service, over an episode in the series that he terms to be “derogatory and offensive”.

The Netflix episode of Season 2 features derogatory remarks against actress Madhuri Dixit, when Kunal Nayyar’s character (Raj Koothrapalli) and Jim Parson’s character (Sheldon Cooper) compare Bollywood actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit.

In the scene, Sheldon calls Aishwarya Rai “a poor man’s Madhuri Dixit” in the scene. To this, Raj replies, “Aishwarya Rai is a goddess, by comparison, Madhuri Dixit is a leprous prostitute”.

In his legal notice, Mithun has described those remarks “highly derogatory and offensive towards Indian culture and women”. He further added that such type of content promotes sexism and can have an adverse impact on society and perpetuate harmful stereotypes and discrimination against women.

Taking to Twitter, Mithun shared this notice on his handle, saying that he was deeply disturbed by this exchange between the two characters as he was a fan of the Devdas actor since his childhood.  In his tweet, he said, “As a fan of Madhuri Dixit since childhood, I was deeply disturbed by the dialogue. I found it highly derogatory and offensive towards Indian culture and women”.

He also revealed that he sent the legal notice to Netflix office in Mumbai requesting them to remove the episode from the series. He added, ‘it’s important to hold media companies accountable for the content they distribute, and I hope that Netflix India will take this matter seriously”.

Created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, The Big Bang Theory first aired on CBS between 2007 and 2019. The show featured actors like Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kunal Nayyar, Simon Helberg, Kaley Cuoco, Mayim Bialik and Mellisa Rauch in pivotal roles. The show is a CBS Network original, currently licensed to Netflix and has been on other platforms, including Prime Video earlier.