Super Subbu is Netflix‘s first Telugu-language comedy series, and it deals with something that’s still pretty controversial: Sex! Well, sex education. A teacher is sent to a remote village to teach the topic, and the parents of the village’s kids want no part of it, and let the teacher know in no uncertain terms.
SUPER SUBBU: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A man is woken up in the middle of the night by an angry mob carrying torches. He’s grabbed, kicked and tied to a tree. He’s shown an illustration of the female reproductive system. His pleas that the government is requiring him to teach this to their kids does not sway the crowd.
The Gist: The next day, the teacher goes to headmaster Madusudana Rao (Brahmanandam) and tells him that he can no longer teach sex education in the remote village of Maakipur, where the village’s parents are very traditional and completely intolerant of their kids being taught the subject. As the headmaster tries to downplay things, the teacher’s bandaged arm and the gash in his head says otherwise.
Meanwhile, Subramanyam “Subbu” Chillukuri Rao (Sundeep Kishan) is at home; he works at the school as a temporary computer lab instructor, but doesn’t take his job too seriously. He got the job via his father, Kukkuteshwar Rao (Murali Sharma), the well-regarded former headmaster of the school who recently retired.
The government’s push to bring more sex education to public schools rankles traditional educators like Kukku Sir, who fumes at a condom ad on TV.
As Subbu runs errands for his family, he arranges to meet his girlfriend Divya (Maanasa Choudhary) to show her the under-construction condo he wants to buy. Although their potential betrothal was arranged by their families, they find themselves irresistably attracted to each other, but when Kukku Sir sees his motorcycle, which Subbu borrowed, in front of the building, he goes looking for his on and doesn’t like what he sees.
Enraged, Subbu lectures his son about not being able to control himself, and tells him that he won’t even consider approving his marriage to Divya until Subbu’s temporary school job becomes permanent.
At school the next day, the headmaster’s boss comes by, and the superintentent seems to be happy to see that Kukku Sir’s son is carrying on the family’s tradition as educators… until he catches three of the boys in the lab watching a sexy Bollywood scene on the main computer. He finds out when Subbu hooks up the projector to show the superintendent the good work they’re doing, not knowing what was on that screen.
The last thing that Subbu wants is for this incident to get back to his father. So in exchange for the headmaster ensuring that with his boss, Subbu reluctantly agrees to — you guessed it — teach sex ed in Maakipur.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Think English Teacher, but transferred to a very traditional Indian village.
Our Take: Super Subbu, created by Mallik Ram, has some funny moments, mostly related to Subbu’s relative haplessness in the face of his strict father. He’s trying to follow the rules, to the point where he’s a 32-year-old virgin who is saving himself for marriage, but is chafing under Kukku Sir’s oppressive nature.
It’s certainly interesting to see how Subbu is going to navigate teaching what many in his part of the world think is a taboo topic, one that’s necessary and government-mandated. All he wants to do is have a steady income and start building a life with Divya, out from under his father’s thumb.
However, he’s going to have to deal with village parents who will go to extreme measures to keep their kids — especially their sons — from learning about sex, consent, reproduction, contraception, and other topics that sometimes rankle people in this part of the world, too.
Will he win over the people of Maakipur? Probably, at least in part. But will there be a lot of scenes of him lashed to a tree? Yeah, we’ll probably see that, too.
Performance Worth Watching: Sundeep Kishan is both hapless and earnest as Subbu, who doesn’t want to teach sex ed — he probably knows less about it than the students he’s teaching — but has no choice if he wants to build his life.
Sex And Skin: Besides pictures of condoms, semi-steamy Bollywood scenes, and pictures of uteruses, there isn’t much.
Parting Shot: We jump to Subbu tied to a tree in front of an angry mob carrying torches. He screams, “Maakipur!”
Sleeper Star: Murali Sharma is appropriately authoritative as Kukku Sir. We’re just watching him on the screen and we’re scared of him.
Most Pilot-y Line: As the steamy Bollywood scene is projected on the big screen in the classroom, a song plays in the background that says “Poor Subbu, he’s gotten into trouble again.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. Super Subbu is a funny look at how trying to change things in a country and village that is super-traditional can lead to interesting things happening — like being lashed to a tree.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
