The Family Man Season 2 has been in the center of controversy ever since the streaming platform Amazon Prime Video released its trailer on the 19th of May. The controversy surrounded Samantha Akkineni’s role in The Family Man specifically. Number of online protests erupted as a result of certain scenes from The Family Man Season 2 trailer and there were bans called for it not only from the fans but also political leaders.
Amazon Prime Video now seems to have stepped up and reports are that it has issued a gag order to actress Samantha Akkineni, prohibiting her from speaking anything related to the show before the release. Gag order in case of films and series are issued to safeguard the show and also gives a certain kind of safety to any actors or creators linked to any show or film. This has been put in place so that no further controversies come up, nothing is taken out of context and sentiments of fans aren’t hurt in any way.
The controversy began as soon as the trailer dropped. The trailer shows how a coalition between a rebel group and ISI is going to take place in Chennai, and one of those rebels is revealed to be Samantha who is seen speaking Tamil. This angered Tamil fans as according to them, Tamilians are being shown in extremely poor light and also the Eelam Tamil struggle is being portrayed wrongly. This has led to political leaders like Minister T. Mano Thangaraj, MDMK leader Vaiko and NTK leader Seemam write to Prakash Javadker, asking for a ban on the show.
The creators Raj & DK, along with actor Manoj Bajpayee, time and again have guaranteed that there is absolutely nothing wrong that has been portrayed in the show, which can hurt the sentiments of Tamil fans and viewers in any way. It has been mentioned that the majority of the creative team is Tamilian and they have actors that hail from the state, all of them know the struggles and with that knowledge no one will ever do anything that can hurt the fans and demean the struggles in any manner.
The protests and trolling for the show has been so extreme that a few days ago it was noticed Samantha turning off her comments section on her Instagram posts. During one of her first interviews related to the show she has mentioned hailing from the state herself and also being a responsible citizen, she is fully aware of the culture and struggles of Tamil and in no way would show a bad image of Tamilians. Ever since that she has been silent on the issue but still has taken part in interviews and in one of them she has mentioned how this show is one of her biggest accomplishments.
Coming to the order issued by Prime Video, it will definitely in some way protect Samantha because then she won’t have to answer anything related to the show. Nothing can be taken out of context by anyone when no comments are made. Raj & DK and Manoj Bajpayee have already taken a stand for her. Talking about her role, all of them have mentioned that it is something that fans will in fact be happy to see and love. Everyone has requested fans to now just wait for it and watch the show, before making assumptions and jumping to any kind of conclusions.
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