Facing flak, 'Khaali Peeli' makers change Beyonce's spelling in song
The makers of the upcoming movie Khaali Peeli have come up with a minor tweak for their controversial song Beyonce Sharma Jayegi. In an attempt to calm down the noise around the track, writers have changed the spelling of the 39-year-old pop icon's name in the song to "Beyonse." The song has been receiving immense criticism for its racist undertones, and for disrespecting Beyonce.
Beyonce Sharma Jayegi, that was released this week, was berated by fans on social media, particularly for the line, "Tujhe dekh ke goriya, Beyonce sharma jayegi." It was alleged that the lyrics glorified fair-skinned women, a problem that has long remained a part of Bollywood films. Indian fans also called the track "racist" for comparing a fair-skinned woman with the beloved African-American singer, Beyonce.
Now, the official music video of the song reads the title as, "Beyonse Sharma Jayegi." However, the lyrics as well as the audio remain the same. Notably, it was recently reported that the makers were planning to make changes to the lyrics so as to avoid plausible legal issues, as Beyonce had reportedly trademarked her name years ago.
Indian fans of Beyonce slammed the song. They even apologized to her using the Twitter trend #SorryBeyonce, and asked the pop star to sue the makers. In fact, the video song has over one million "dislikes" on YouTube. Beyonce Sharma Jayegi has been composed by Vishal-Shekhar and sung by Nakash Aziz and Neeti Mohan. Its lyrics have been penned by Kumaar and Raj Shekhar.
Recently, the film's director Maqbool Khan also apologized for the song, saying they did not intend to hurt anyone's sentiments. "The term 'goriya' has been so often and traditionally used in Indian songs to address a girl, that it didn't occur to any of us to interpret it in literal manner...We are all huge fans (of Beyonce), there was never any question of disrespect."
"Goriya has been used in many Hindi songs earlier. Our idea was to simply use a synonym to 'girl.' There is no derogation intended - we revere beauty of global celebrity Beyonce and don't mean to hurt any of her fans," songwriter Kumaar has said.
Produced by Ali Abbas Zafar, Khaali Peeli tells the story of two outlaws who are on the run from the cops. The movie stars Ishaan Khatter and Ananya Panday in lead roles. It also features Jaideep Ahlawat and Satish Kaushik. The movie is set to be out on the recently-launched pay-per-view service, Zee Plex, on October 2.
