Toxic teaser is just misogyny packaged in shiny ragebait; it's clear Yash-starrer wants to rile up to stay relevant

Toxic stars Yash alongside Nayanthara, Kiara Advani, Tara Sutaria, Huma Qureshi, and Rukmini Vasanth.

With a film called Toxic, one needn’t expect too much in terms of sensitivity and balance. But when the film is directed by Geetu Mohandas, you hope there’s something different there. The first assets demolished those expectations. But then, Yash, the film’s star (and co-writer), announced they’d have a teaser only for the women in the film. And there are quite a few of them. Toxic has five female leads. The new teaser arrived on Wednesday morning and introduced the women for the first time. The only problem - all of them, including the superstar Nayanthara - got one shot each, while Yash dominated the frames, as did graphic sex scenes and innuendos about penises. Definitely, not one for the ladies!

Toxic teaser: Yash in a still from the teaser, supposedly for women.

A toxic teaser, surely

Titled Ladies and Ladies, this 1-minute, 42-second teaser features Yash’s voiceover (and his thumbnail, too). Like death and taxes, he is everywhere. We get glimpses of Nayanthara riding a bike, Kiara looking stunning, Tara Sutaria sashaying, Huma Qureshi kicking butt, and Rukmini Vasanth pointing a gun. At this point, we’re already hoping she was pointing it at us to rid us of watching more. But there is more - more of Yash. The teaser has five shots of the female leads - one each - and 13 of Yash. Yes, I counted. Normally, I’d say it makes sense because he is the bankable star. But wasn’t this supposed to be a teaser announcing the ‘ladies’ of Toxic? If so, the farce is quite transparent.

Not ladies first here

The complaint with Toxic has not been that it relegates its female leads. Most Indian films are guilty of doing that. Jacqueline Fernandes and Disha Patani barely had any lines in the entire first half of the recently released Welcome to the Jungle. And they were the leads there. Why Toxic lives up to its name is just how blatantly it pushes the misogyny. It’s one thing to make a film about toxicity. It’s another to celebrate it, glorify it, and almost make it aspirational cool. In a nation infamous for making demigods out of film stars and taking life lessons from mass entertainers, it is worrying, to say the least.

The obsession with sex

But what is the most intriguing aspect of the film is the gaze. The film, despite being directed by a woman, has an overwhelming male gaze that almost leers and letches. Sex can be shot in a glamorous manner without making the women objects. Toxic does not even try that. What is most jarring is one fight scene where Yash jams a gun into a female assailant’s mouth. The following shot is the most obvious allusion to graphic oral sex I have seen in an Indian film in recent times. And if that wasn’t enough, there is a supposedly funny line about ‘men and their co**s’ thrown in. Toxic’s approach to sex and intimacy has the finesse and class of how a teenage boy thinks about the subjects.

Ragebait disguised as a film

One may write theses about Toxic’s misguided or misplaced priorities. But I don’t believe the makers have put one foot wrong in their promotions so far. This is a film made by provocateurs. The assets are meant to instigate, rile up, and cause furore. It is ragebait masquerading as a work of art. It will start debates online and offline and remain in people’s consciousness for days. But whether ragebaiting is an effective movie marketing strategy or not will only be clear once the film releases on August 26.