Astro's LRT posters quoted a drama's misogynist lines as if they were the pitch

In February 2026, promotional posters for a Malay-language drama series appeared inside Kuala Lumpur light rail transit (LRT) coaches, run by pay-TV platform Astro on RapidKL's network. The posters quoted lines from the show as standalone captions, including Malay text translating to 'there is no use for a wife to be beautiful but disobedient to her husband' and 'wives who deny their husband sex fall into sin and are far from paradise'.

Language researcher Miriam Devaprasana photographed the posters and posted them to Facebook, arguing that Astro, RapidKL and the drama's producers had 'crossed the line from marketing into normalising harmful ideas' by using public transit to circulate the lines without context: 'If these advertisements are intended to generate traction for the show, they do so at a serious social cost.' The post spread quickly, arriving in the middle of a national conversation about misogyny sparked by the murder of a 16-year-old schoolgirl the previous October.

Astro removed the posters and published a statement saying it did not endorse the views quoted, that the campaign was meant to highlight stereotypes the drama itself explores, and that presenting the lines in a public setting without that context 'may have led to unintended interpretations'. It apologised 'unreservedly for any resulting misunderstanding'.