After yesteryear hero Krishna, his son Mahesh Babu is being lovingly called ‘Superstar’ by the fans. He owns a huge fanbase and the majority of them admire him for his acting and looks rather than his background. He is one of the biggest stars in South India who has the capacity to get the film over the line just with his stardom.
In the last 3-4 years, all his films were successful at the box office no matter how they were. His last outing ‘Sarkaru Vaari Paata’ was a success just because of Mahesh’s craze and charisma. Even the re-release of ‘Pokiri’ was a major success and got houseful collections. After this, fans of other heroes started the trend of re-releasing the matinee idol’s biggest hits. Mahesh and his fans started this trend in Tollywood.
While all this is great, Mahesh becoming the brand ambassador of a private channel and promoting their programs has not gone down well with a section of his fans. He appeared in a dance show recently and the star hero was accompanied by his daughter Sitara Ghattamaneni. Now, he is seen promoting a few serials which are telecasted in that channel. An Icon like Mahesh asking people to watch serial is drawing a lot of criticism. Considering the huge money Mahesh gets, he is right in doing all the promotions but advertising for daily serials is something the fans are not able to digest.
As we know, Mahesh comes up with one film every two years. He spends a lot of the heart operations of small kids and other social service activities. With Rajamouli’s film starting next year, everyone knows that he will be engaged with it for at least 2-3 years. So, making money out of brand endorsements and advertising for television channels is justified according to many but fans who treat their hero as a demigod are unable to accept this.