Within hours of the makers of the forthcoming Bollywood movie The Kerala Story 2: Goes Beyond — a sequel to the controversial film The Kerala Story – releasing its official trailer, social media erupted in a storm of resistance, with Malayali handles leading the pushback armed with biting memes.
One scene in the trailer, where a detained woman kicks away a plate of beef declaring, “Will starve to death but will never eat beef,” only to be force-fed by her tormentors, has become the prime target of online ridicule. In response, women have increasingly posted videos and images of themselves eating beef to prove it is no taboo, while memes mocking the makers for being so far divorced from reality have flooded platforms, drawing even more hilarious comments.
An AI-generated video flipped the trailer on its head, showing actors halting midway to ridicule the makers before ending with both the victim and tormentors sharing beef while laughing out loud. Another post featured a serious-looking woman watching the trailer, responding deadpan with a plate of beef in hand that the makers must have mistaken someone else for Malayali women.
A satirical comment, styled as ‘breaking news’, claimed beef prices had skyrocketed in Kerala since the trailer’s release. Another user quipped that the detained woman may have rejected the beef because it wasn’t served with porotta – an obvious nod to Kerala’s popular beef-porotta combo.
