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Published 18 Jun, 2022 11:00am

Ad containing Gangubai Kathiawadi scene just cant Swing it

In the land of tone-deaf advertisements, Pakistan has a new contender. Swing, a popular restaurant in Karachi, is receiving a lot of backlash for their latest campaign that features Alia Bhatt (or a stolen scene from her movie anyway).

The restaurant is offering a 25% discount to men on Mondays, a point they decided to drive home by using a scene from the Indian film Gangubai Kathiawadi. The scene shows Alia, after being beaten into prostitution, gesturing at men with a flat expression to get her first client.

The scene is disturbing for very different reasons in the context of the film but when used to advertise food to men, the levels of cringe become unpalatable.

As if the use of the scene was not bad enough, the restaurant doubled down in retaliation to all the backlash it was receiving. The line on their latest Instagram post is “movie karey to aag, hum karein to paap”. (If the movie does it, it’s fire, if we do it, it’s a sin).

At this point, it remains unclear whether or not the restaurant had rights or permission to use the scene in their advertisement.

This is also not the first time a Pakistani brand or company has faced backlash for a tone-deaf campaign. Just earlier this year, The Pink Tree Company, a clothing brand, came under fire for placing their model, Haya Bokhari, in the Walled City of Lahore. The class divide between the model and the men in the photos was very stark. Many consumers also accused the campaign of using the less privileged as props.

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