'Atrocious performance, cringe': Ananya Pandey's riches to rags portrayal in Call Me Bae reminds fans of Sonam Kapoor's Aisha [reactions]

Karan Johar is known for showcasing larger-than-life stories. The maverick director often faces ire from netizens for launching and re-launching stars. After launching Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Tiger Shroff, Ananya Panday, Karan Johar has launched Ananya Pandey on OTT with Call Me Bae. The trailer of the Ananya Panday's Call Me Bae was dropped in August.

About the trailer Call Me Bae

The trailer tells a tale of riches from rags, wherein Ananya Panday essays the role of super-privileged South Delhi girl who is born with a silver spoon. She has luscious cars, shops till she drops, and hasn't seen a minute of what poverty looks like.

However, life takes a u-turn when all her credit, and debit cards decline and are frozen and shunned by her family. She has to shift base to Mumbai and navigate the 'middle class' life. Determined to prove herself, she joins a news channel and 'hustle' of ordinary existence.

Ananya Panday pokes fun at the "struggle meme"

Towards the end, there is a reference to a viral comment which Siddhant Chaturvedi had said to Ananya.

In a 2020 appearance on former journalist Rajeev Masand's newcomer's roundtable, "Siddhant said," The difference is jahaan humare sapne poore hote hain, wahi inka struggle shuru hota hai (their struggle begins where our dreams are fulfilled)."

Dialogues are sure to leave you in splits

"White bread? I thought yeh duniya se eradicate ho gaya tha ...like polio." ( I thought, white bread had been eradicated from the world).

Another dialogue is 'Is there no seat belt in rickshaw."

Ananya Pandey is back with another atrocious performance: Netizens 

A user wrote, "She needs acting lessons like asap.."

Another mentioned, "Another atrocious performance."

Some even compared her character and role to that of Sonam Kapoor's role in the film Aisha."

A fan mentioned, "The jokes didn't land and the acting is very unnatural."

The next one mentioned, "Unpopular opinion: Sonam kapoor would have nailed this role."

The fourth user mentioned, "Oh im so disappointed. I just saw the trailer here and i loved it a lot. Is the actual thing really that bad?? I thought ananya just had to be herself. Such a shame."

Some even said that Ananya Panday's Call Me Bae is a desi version of Caroline Channing's 2 Broke Girls.

A section of fans trolled her saying, she was playing herself.

Call Me Bae, a new comedy series set to stream on Prime Video from September 6.

Karan Johar on Ananya's performance

Karan Johar said, "Everyone watches stories that are from rags to riches. However, 'Call Me Bae' is about riches to rags. It is in the tone of humour and irony, and also towards the end, in the tone of empowerment, which is depicted beautifully by Ananya Panday.  You have seen her in a lot of work, and she has been going from strength to strength, but this is by far her best work and will define her in the world of entertainment and everyone is going to see that."

If Rohan and Poo from 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham' had a baby girl, it would be Ananya's Bae: Karan Johar

"If Rohan and Pooja now would have had to have had a baby girl, she would be Bae. I'm just talking because she really is a glorious Gen Z 2.0 derivative of Poo. It's like where Poo ends, Bae takes off.

"That's the best way that I can describe her because even when you saw the character of Poo, it started with all the fun and games and then, she contributes to the emotional gravitas of the ongoings in 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham'," Johar told reporters here at the trailer launch of the series.

Speaking about her series, Ananya said, "It is like a mix of 'Schitt's Creek', 'Clueless', 'Aisha' and 'Nancy Drew', among other fun shows that I don't think we do get to watch right now. It is the kind of show that I would love to watch. It is very light, happy and fun. Even though Bae has a bit of all of these characters, she is her own person. She is all heart and I hope people love her as much as I did."