Filmmaker Zoya Akhtar’s upcoming movie ‘The Archies’ has received severe criticism with the release of the trailer for the film.
What is ‘The Archies’ and why is it compared with Riverdale?
Riverdale is an American teenage drama starring KJ Apa, Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart, Camilla Mendes and Madelaine Petsch. The series was released on Netflix in the year 2017 and is still on to the present date. The series is originally based on the iconic Archies comics.
Zoya Akhtar’s ‘The Archies’ is also an Indian adaptation of the Archies comics. However, The Archies trailer featuring star-kids Khushi Kapoor, Agastya Nanda, and Suhana Khan including others, has received severe criticism from netizens.
Netflix shared the trailer on its Instagram page.
How did people react?
A user on Twitter, after seeing the poster for the upcoming film questioned the idea behind the poster. The question that in which decade Indian kids dressed like this was asked. The user then called out Netflix for commissioning a project which appears to be unrelatable for the majority of viewers.
“In which part of India and in which decade, did teenagers dress up like this. Netflix commissions most shows for 50 woke friends of their executives. The rest of the country has to stretch their imagination to impossible levels to relate”.
Another user wrote about how it was very inconvenient and uncomfortable for Indian kids to turn into ‘white kids’. “Nepotism debate aside, I’m more concerned that they tried to make a group of Indian kids look white,”. One of them also wrote that it is ridiculous when Indian people fake western culture.
“Ridiculous to see Indian people faking western culture from the 1900s I mean common grow up showing how westernized you are won’t change your skin tone to Caucasian you’ll still remain brown lol .. stop this propaganda of spreading unnecessary western culture”.
Moreover, Netflix was called out for its ‘woke content’.
What is Netflix’s ‘woke content’?
Netflix lost around 2,00,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, causing its shares to plunge 25%. The streaming service while addressing the problem predicted another two million subscribers loss in April-June. Amidst this, Netflix also received criticism for objectifying women as Viking warriors and for the racist portrayal of white people.
The desperate attempts of Netflix to keep up the scores are failing considerably. Tesla owner Elon Musk has previously called out the OTT platform for its ‘woke content’ which some deem to be provocative. One of the Twitter users directly pointed out Netflix for bad content.
Even though the trailer is getting some criticism, some users think this actually might be a correct adaptation to Archies comics. For those who don’t know what is Archies comic, Archie Comic Publications is an American comic book publisher. The comic features life of fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle, Sabrina Spellman, Josie and the Pussycats and Katy Keene. Although the American series was based on the comic, the series lost the comic’s essence and humour and liveliness.
Until now, the trailer seems lively and fun, so it seems that the movie may follow the ideal concept of Archies comics.
