--- title: 'Yash Says Toxic’s Trailer Hasn’t Shown Its Voice for Women' type: 'blog post' section: 'The Argument' format: 'Editorial feature' standfirst: 'At a Hyderabad pre-release event, Yash answered criticism of how women appear in Toxic’s teaser, song and trailer. He asked viewers to wait for Geetu Mohandas’ full film before judging its women characters.' author: 'Marcus Reid' published: '2026-08-24' updated: '2026-08-24' about_people: - 'Yash' - 'Geetu Mohandas' - 'Kiara Advani' tags: - 'Yash Toxic women characters criticism' - 'Toxic A Fairytale for Grown-Ups trailer debate' - 'Geetu Mohandas Toxic film women portrayal' - 'Kiara Advani Tabaahi criticism Toxic' - 'Yash Hyderabad pre-release event Toxic' sources: - 'https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/there-is-a-voice-for-women-in-this-film-yash-defends-geetu-mohandas-toxic-amid-backlash-over-womens-portrayal-ahead-of-august-26-release/ar-AA2aKQ0I' - 'https://www.india.com/entertainment/toxic-yash-reacts-to-criticism-over-female-characters-in-geetu-mohandas-film-says-theres-a-voice-for-women-in-this-film-unlike-how-it-is-coming-across-in-the-trailer-8508303/' canonical: 'https://cinepixo.com/blog/yash-says-toxics-trailer-hasnt-shown-its-voice-for-women' publisher: 'CinePixo' --- # Yash Says Toxic’s Trailer Hasn’t Shown Its Voice for Women *At a Hyderabad pre-release event, Yash answered criticism of how women appear in Toxic’s teaser, song and trailer. He asked viewers to wait for Geetu Mohandas’ full film before judging its women characters.* By Marcus Reid, 2026-08-24 · The Argument Yash has answered criticism of how women are presented in *Toxic: A Fairytale for Grown-Ups*, saying at a Hyderabad pre-release event that Geetu Mohandas’ film has “a voice for women” beyond what viewers have seen in the trailer. India.com reported the comments on August 23, 2026, three days before the film’s scheduled August 26 theatrical release. Film readers should care because this is not a small side argument. *Toxic* is Yash’s return to theaters after the *KGF* films, Mohandas is a filmmaker with her own sharp record, and the question now hanging over the movie is whether its women are decoration or participants. ## Yash Answers the Criticism in Hyderabad According to India.com, Yash addressed the matter during a pre-release event in Hyderabad, after noticing the number of women in the audience. That detail matters. A movie star can talk in wide terms about society and cinema, but the room changes when the people being discussed are standing there, looking back. Yash told the crowd that people may have different opinions, but he believed the film would show women facing situations, expressing their thoughts and succeeding in society. He also said he is respected for his work rather than his money, a line that sounds like a star trying to pull the conversation away from glamour and toward labor. Then he came to the sentence that will travel furthest: “There’s a voice for women in this film.” India.com reported that he added the trailer may not reflect that, and he asked women in particular to watch the whole movie. There is a fair thing in that request, and a limited thing too. A trailer is not a film. It is bait, sometimes artful and sometimes blunt, cut to make noise in a crowded room. But a trailer is also the piece the audience has been handed. If it gives people a certain impression, they are not foolish for reacting to it. ![Geetu Mohandas](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/08/709f8bcc-50cd-4ff3-9881-2dff79bd570b.webp) *Photo: Thachan.makan · [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) · [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geethu_mohandas.jpg)* ## Why Toxic’s Women Became the Question India.com reported that the criticism grew from several pieces of the film’s promotion. The teaser drew attention for an intimate sequence involving Yash’s character and an unnamed woman. Some viewers questioned whether those images were being framed through a male gaze. The song *Tabaahi*, featuring Yash and Kiara Advani, kept the subject alive. Their intimate moments became an online talking point, and India.com reported that Advani faced trolling over the scenes. The trailer then brought another concern: some viewers felt the women did not seem to have enough weight beside Yash’s large gangster figure. That is the old danger of the gangster movie. The men get the coats, the guns, the rooms full of smoke, the speeches about fate. The women often get the look across the room, the song, the wound, the reason a man turns violent. A good film can break that pattern. A lazy one can inherit it and call it style. The piece does not know which *Toxic* is. No one outside the film’s release can fairly say from this reporting alone. What can be said is that the campaign has led some viewers to ask the question before opening day, and Yash has now answered it by pointing toward the finished film. ![Kiara Advani](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/08/d2732be7-d10e-450f-9ba5-4ec91c2c4612.webp) *Photo: Bollywood Hungama · [CC BY 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) · [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kiara_Advani_snapped_at_the_screening_of_Shershaah_(cropped).jpg)* ## Geetu Mohandas Changes the Usual Bet The director’s name is not a footnote here. India.com identified *Toxic* as a film by Geetu Mohandas, known for the National Award-winning *Liar’s Dice* and the Malayalam thriller *Moothon*. That makes the debate more interesting than the usual pre-release shouting match. Mohandas is being paired here with Yash’s commercial force. India.com described the project as bringing her grounded filmmaking style together with his mass appeal. That is a real gamble in practical terms. A star vehicle has needs. It must feed the entrance, the posture, the charge in the theater when a familiar face takes command. A filmmaker with a colder eye may have other needs. She may want silence where the crowd expects thunder. The hope, and it is only hope until the film is seen, is that those two instincts push each other. Yash’s comment asks the audience to believe the women in *Toxic* have more room than the promotional cuts suggest. Mohandas’ past work gives that hope a place to stand, but it does not prove the case in advance. ## A Cast Big Enough to Carry More Than One Story India.com reported that *Toxic* features Yash in a double role and includes Nayanthara, Kiara Advani, Tara Sutaria, Huma Qureshi and Rukmini Vasanth. That is a lot of screen presence to gather around one gangster tale. A casting list like that creates its own promise. It also creates a burden. If performers of that size are brought in only to orbit the hero, viewers will feel the gap. Not because every film must become an ensemble drama, but because actors bring expectation with them. Nayanthara does not enter a frame lightly. Huma Qureshi has a face that can make a room feel morally complicated before anyone speaks. Advani, already pulled into the online noise around *Tabaahi*, is not just carrying a scene; she is carrying the public argument around it. India.com reported that the film is backed by KVN Productions and Yash’s Monster Mind Creations, and that it has been mounted on a large scale. Money on that scale does not only buy sets and action. It buys attention, pressure, and a bigger target. Every choice gets louder. ## The Trailer Is Evidence, Not the Verdict India.com reported that *Toxic* is set against a period crime backdrop and promises a darker take on the gangster genre. It also reported strong pre-release attention around advance bookings and Yash’s return after *KGF*. So the film arrives with two engines running at once: star hunger and public argument. Yash’s answer tries to slow the second engine without killing the first. He is not denying that the trailer gave people something to talk about. He is saying the trailer is incomplete. That is a reasonable defense, as far as it goes. The honest position before August 26 is simple. The concern may be answered by the film, or it may be confirmed by it. Yash says women have a voice in *Toxic*. Geetu Mohandas has the chair. The cast has the faces. Now the movie has to make good on the room it says it has made for them. ![Yash at an event in 2022](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/08/5a43035e-86b0-4cf5-ba4e-d1cca6d43b7e.webp) *Photo: Anish1121 · [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) · [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yash_Actor.jpg)* ## How this piece was made **Format:** Editorial feature ## In this piece - [Yash](https://cinepixo.com/people/yash) - [Geetu Mohandas](https://cinepixo.com/people/geetu-mohandas) - [Kiara Advani](https://cinepixo.com/people/kiara-advani) ## Sources - https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/there-is-a-voice-for-women-in-this-film-yash-defends-geetu-mohandas-toxic-amid-backlash-over-womens-portrayal-ahead-of-august-26-release/ar-AA2aKQ0I - https://www.india.com/entertainment/toxic-yash-reacts-to-criticism-over-female-characters-in-geetu-mohandas-film-says-theres-a-voice-for-women-in-this-film-unlike-how-it-is-coming-across-in-the-trailer-8508303/ Every factual claim above is drawn from these. The reading of them is ours. Source: https://cinepixo.com/blog/yash-says-toxics-trailer-hasnt-shown-its-voice-for-women Written for CinePixo. Nothing on this page is imported prose.