‘Super Subbu’ tackles sex education taboo in rural Telangana
Hyderabad: Netflix’s first Telugu original series, Super Subbu, puts the spotlight on a subject still considered taboo in many Indian homes: sex education.
Directed by Mallik Ram and starring Sundeep Kishan in the title role, the series is set in a remote village in Telangana. Kishan plays Subramanyam Chilukuri, or Subbu, a sex education officer posted to a region where conversations around the topic remain difficult.
The show opens with familiar scenes from school days, where teachers skip sex education lessons to avoid uncomfortable giggles, revealing the unease many educators themselves feel around the subject.
Co-written by Mallik Ram, Ramesh Eligeti, and Shivani Dhobal, Super Subbu addresses sex education, menstrual health, and family planning with humour. The tone recalls Vicky Donor, transplanted to a rustic setting. While some jokes are risqué, the series avoids crassness, the makers said.
At its core is a father-son dynamic familiar to those who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. Murali Sharma, in his web-series debut, plays Kukkuteshwar Rao, Subbu’s authoritarian father and a school teacher who dismisses sex education as “pure, unadulterated nonsense.”
The series argues that while some urban homes and schools have adopted a more pragmatic approach to sex education, the subject remains off-limits in many households. In remote villages, those conversations are even harder.
