Deepika Padukone's latest movie, Chhapaak seems to have become controversy's favourite child.
First there was Deepika's visit to Jawaharlal Nehru University to stand in solidarity with students who had been attacked, which did not go down well with everyone.
Then, there was the erroneous news report that claimed that the name of the acid-wielding antagonist in the film had been changed from Nadeem Khan to Rajesh.
And now, Padukone and the film are again back in an uncomfortable situation after the actress seemingly issued a 'makeup challenge'.
Acid attack victim is not a 'makeup look'. And certainly, recreating it may be an admirable feat purely from the artistic point of view, but it is definitely not a sensitive approach to take.
Videos that recently surfaced on Twitter, but originated on TikTok, show a makeup artist interacting with Padukone.
"I'm going to challenge Faby (the makeup artist) with three of my most favourite looks..." Deepika can be heard saying in the video.
Taking up the challenge, the TicTok-er goes on to recreate Deepika's looks from Om Shanti Om, Piku and Chhapaak.
Now, while the other two renditions remain on the artist's social media handles, the Chhapaak rendition seems to have been deleted. In fact, the Instagram video posted of her Chhapaak look (the entire transformation was shown) was available while this article was being written, only to disappear abruptly halfway through.
But nothing ever truly disappears on the internet. And what comes on one platform, often makes its way rapidly to others. Social media users uploaded the original TikTok video on Twitter, and we have to add, the reactions were not the most positive.
Take a look at what others on Twitter had to say:
In recent times, as part of the promotional drive for the movie, Padukone had conducted a social experiment with her team to find out how people react to having acid attack victims amongst them.
More recently, Deepika, and direcrtor Meghna Gulzar visited theatre to see the reactions of people to 'Chhapaak'.
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