Sivakarthikeyan faces backlash for telling school kids ‘all Koreans look alike’

Actor Sivakarthikeyan is receiving criticism on social media after his recent speech at a school event where he jokingly mocked Koreans. His comment that all Koreans look alike and it’s difficult to identify between a man and a woman was called out by social media users. Many called the actor racist and suggested he needs to attend sensitisation workshops.

Apart from acting, Sivakarthikeyan is also famous for his stage speeches where he mimics other stars and does comedy. He recently gave a controversial speech in front of school students, a clip from which has been doing rounds on Twitter. In a part of the speech, the actor spoke about Korean actors and how they all look the same. He also recreated his scene from his latest Tamil film Don in which he treats the Korean language and accent as humorous.

The original Twitter user who shared the clip from the school speech wrote: “Sivakarthikeyan mocks Korean language (based on that racist ‘comedy’ sequence from Don), says all Koreans look alike, and their women look like men. All these in an event at a school, in front of kids! Our celebrities badly need to attend special sensitisation workshops!” Another user wrote, “What is this racist nonsense @Siva_Kartikeyan? All Koreans look the same? Mocking the language, mocking gender identities. Kollywood seems to adore the passing of ignorance and all forms of bigotry as comedy. Punching down is. never. funny.”

Another user questioned the purpose of actors in educational institutes, writing, “This is what I have been calling out for, this man is really toxic in all his films and what he represents(stalking, backwards ideologies, racism, body shaming jokes). Pulling Tamil cinema 100 years back.” One said, “Dear celebrities, mind your privileges and be sensible enough to take up things that you don’t even imagine. Atrocious to the extreme core.” Several other netizens expressed similar sentiments.

Sivakarthikeyan currently awaits the release of his upcoming Tamil-Telugu bilingual film Prince. He also has the Tamil science-fiction thriller Ayalaan in the pipeline. Ayalaan, directed by Ravi Kumar, is said to be a film centered on a lost alien who finds a friend in Sivakarthikeyan’s character.