Allu Arjun spoofs South cinema in advert, fans take offence

In a new advertisement posted by food delivery giant Tomato, Telugu star Allu Arjun is seen flexing his acting skills and spoofing South cinema. Channelling his character from his latest release ‘Pushpa : The Rise’, Arjun can be seen battling a number of goons in a mall. He begins to fall in slow motion as he punches a villain, who asks him to drop faster. Taking a dig at high-octane action sequences in the film, he says, “It’s south cinema. This is how we do it.”
The goon replies that he is craving for Gongura Mutton and the restaurants would close by the time he hits the floor in slow motion. Arjun flashes his phone and says in Telugu, “Gongura Mutton or anything else, Zomato is there for you”. At the end, he paraphrases a famous line from ‘Pushpa’ and says, "Manasu korithe, thaggedele (when your heart desires, don't just settle).
The advertisement garnered a lot of attention, some positive but some negative as well. Fans took offence to the actor seemingly making fun of south cinema. One tweeted, “Don’t forget your roots, Mr Allu Arjun”, while another added, “It’s insulting the south cinema”. There were also social media users who threatened to delete Zomato app from their phones. One such netizen wrote, “I am uninstalling the app in my phone right away. Degrading south cinema in your recent ad.”
On the work front, Allu Arjun was last seen on screen in ‘Pushpa : The Rise’, which co-starred Rashmika Mandanna and Fahad Faasil. The movie earned over £33.5 million at the box office, becoming the most successful Indian film of 2021.