Following the grisly Swathi/Ramkumar case, just wanted to open a discussion about Tamil cinema’s depiction of stalking and the actions of this particular deranged individual. One part of me says that there are millions who watch these films and a mere handful who are inspired to do these things, so the problem lies not with the film but with the individual, who clearly needs psychiatric intervention. Besides, where do you draw the line? If we were to abolish every behaviour that’s potentially dangerous, then we can only have mythological tales, and even there, some nutcase could take Ravana’s actions to heart and kidnap the object of his desire.
And yet, this case and its chilling similarity to the movies does raise this question: Is it really that short a route from Kodambakkam to Nungambakkam?
Also, got this mail from a reader:
this is hanzo, a regular reader of your blog… please open discussion about the chennai murder issue that has happened recently.
do you remember? you once wrote that all these filmmakers from rural tamilnadu come to chennai and make movies where people in the city are evil whereas all the rural migrants are innocent/easily manipulated/exploited people. I think it is with reference to movies like “Vazhakku Enn 18/9” … I dont remember exactly… But you were along the lines like – quality movies allright, but very one-sided.
but if you see the latest murder… it seems the guy ramkumar came to the chennai city only 3 months back. In this gap he has loved a girl and even murdered her for not loving her back… wonder if a movie will be made on this?
please open a discussion on this if you can… want to read your views…
Baradwaj Rangan 
brangan
July 3, 2016
Also, am curious if this case was covered by the national media… Because these channels have a tendency to be very Delhi/Mumbai centric, and was curious if a Swathi made them as outraged as a Sheena Bora or Nirbhaya. Haven’t been following the tv channels, hence the question…
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tonks
July 3, 2016
Our character and morals are shaped by what we see around us in our house and school, and by what we read or watch. If there were other areas of life where children are exposed to healthy man- woman relationships, say in school or college, then probably they wouldn’t take these movies so much to heart. But in the absence of such influences, and where healthy girl- boy interaction was considered taboo, if the only exposure to “love” were from Tamil movies, it’s not too difficult to see young people growing up with the notion that this is what is normal a sort of love- at -first- sight, and stalking without any encouragement in the hope that this ” sincerity” and “loyalty” will eventually change the girl’s no to a yes. And perhaps frustration when it doesn’t in real life, like it does in the movies.
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tonks
July 3, 2016
That said, there are the four “stages” of attachment, based on what the research tells us are the behavioral markers of attachment and stage one is “proximity seeking”. As attachment begins, you want to be near the object of attachment. Something about the person triggers a desire to be close. So a bit of stalking is par for the course when you’re in the first stages of infatuation. But when you continue with the behaviour even when the object of your attraction makes it clear that they do not reciprocate, then that becomes pathological.
Also, since stalking behaviour is not confined to regressive societies or movies ( the liberal west has it too), its not only just a simple case of imitation of what you see. Only the depraved would go to extremes, I suppose.
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Anirudh
July 3, 2016
I suppose it’s difficult to take a call on this. While on one hand one could say that movies take inspiration from reality and hence must reflect this aspect of it as well, on the other hand one cannot deny the impact that movies have on impressionable minds. One thing that probably filmmakers could avoid is the glamourisation of such characters. When such characters look cool and desirable on screen, one feels tempted, at least at an impressionable age, to behave like them.
BTW, thanks for opening up the discussion on this topic, and yes, the media is covering both this incident and the horrific one similar to this that occurred in Hyderabad yesterday….
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Anu Warrier
July 3, 2016
Also [adding to what tonks has to say], there’s a huge issue of social pressure involved. In the US, it appears that women (and therefore, young men) get their ideas of romance from rom-coms where all the nerdy looking ‘hero’ has to do is to persist in annoying the ‘heroine’ for her to realise the error of her ways and fall in love with him in the last reel, eschewing the ‘jock’ ‘other man’ who is, of course, nowhere as accomplished as he is. Sounds familiar?
Stalking the ‘object of one’s desire’ is so prevalent here that it has now been deemed criminal action in several jurisdictions.
The problem, as far as I can see, lies in the glorification of the stalking, the rewarding of that action, by heroines who surrender the independence and become simpering messes by the end of the film. I would be loath to say that we should be self-censoring every ‘bad’ behaviour that is shown on screen. What next? A disclaimer to say ‘Stalking is a crime’ every time they show such reel behaviour? But I don’t know how far is ‘too far’ and it will be interesting to read others’ views in the comments.
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sanjana
July 3, 2016
It made headlines everywhere. Also that of Vinupriya.
Nirbhya’s case was something which related to gruesome gangrape in a moving bus where no one was there to witness or to help which cant be compared to Swati case where the girl was not raped but murdered in a gruesome way in front of many people in a busy railway station. Sheena Bora’s case was different and highly publicised due to the high profile people involved.
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Iswarya
July 3, 2016
I’m glad this discussion has been opened because I’ve been having trouble handling this whole thing, turning it over and over in my head and seething all the while.
I want to make, of course, the usual disclaimers at the beginning. It’s a truism to say that all people who watched Nooravathu Naal or Taxi Driver did not look upon the onscreen events as a model to emulate in real life, and that only clearly deranged individuals did. Further, I am not for the government, or worse, fringe bodies policing the content of movies and creating an unwanted ruckus before/after the release of films and so on. If there has to be any form of censorship at all, it is only the censorship that the filmmaker’s own scruples might dictate. All that said, I think this is definitely a moment for some soul-searching and introspection on the part of filmmakers to see what kind of socio-cultural discourse and tropes they wish to perpetuate.
I say this especially from the perspective of an educator of sorts who has interacted for several months with precisely the kind of impressionable small town teenage boys studying mechanical engineering in regressive “boy-girl-no-talk” colleges. (Let me add that I am not stereotyping everybody belonging to this demographic, but the section I am talking about very much exists in large numbers.) I am also aware that these boys come under a host of influences other than cinema that make them sympathetic to stalker-ish behaviour, if not exactly turning them into actual stalkers. First of all, there is the familial reinforcement of patriarchal thinking and unchecked male privilege that makes them bristle at the very suggestion that the world and its goods (including women) do not exist solely to satisfy their desires. There is also the closed peer group influence that discourages them from having open conversations with womenfolk, including fellow girl students, that may lead them to see that women have minds of their own, aspirations, plans, and even the right to say “No.” This fencing-off behaviour is vigorously supported by college managements and parents themselves. I can recall at least a couple of colleges where departments such as IT and C.Sc with many women students in them have a different recess time and the all-male Mechanical department has its “break” after the other students have returned to class. I was told this was because Mechanical students had a history of harassing the other women students on the campus if they were all allowed to take a break at the same time.
As a part of training, I have thrown open discussions for these boys to participate in, to talk about their future plans and goals, both personal and professional. This is when I could see how unfortunately cinema becomes an influence that fuels their fantasies and solidifies their nascent misogynistic tendencies. The ideal wife for most of these boys is the sort of docile Samatha-type from Thanga Magan. When their eyes are opened to the rude fact that most of them are going to be unemployable once they pass out of college and that their core industries would absorb only the best of them, that too on a payscale much lower than what they dream of, they feel terribly insecure. Despite that, they insist that they will somehow manage to “get” a fair-skinned, educated, well-employed woman by the time they are 26 or 28. There is the other smaller percentage of boys who go the whole hog with Thanga Magan and insist that the said fair-skinned, educated young woman be an uncomplaining housewife too, living in peace with the boy and his parents on whatever meagre income he may be able to make.
When I ask them incredulously how they think such a girl would first agree to marry them, they all have their standard recipe for “making the girl fall in love.” The answer is too predictable and sickening for me to repeat here. The degree to which they idolise a Dhanush or Sivakarthikeyan pestering a girl into submitting to his advances onscreen is disturbing, to say the least. Of course, all these boys do not actively turn stalkers. But their sympathy with and tacit endorsement of such behaviour is unmistakable. This is further evidenced in the sweepingly misogynistic rants that they unleash in class, couched in the language of familiar movie quotes that glorifies such thinking. The notion of a woman’s consent is mostly alien to them and their refrain goes, as this blog post notes, “Kaadhalichu yemaathitaa, machi.”
A particularly heart-wrenching occasion was when I asked one of these batches of boys about the amount of violence perpetrated against women for apparently spurning the advances of men. I wondered aloud why acid attack victims tended to be invariably female, while perpetrators always male. In other words, when a breakup happens, why is it that a ‘heartbroken’ man feels justified in resorting to physical violence but girls who have been dumped have to simply live down the memories. One boy flippantly said, “Avanga thaan enga manasuliye acid oothiduraangaley, madam!” amid the loud cheers and applause of his classmates. He added that it was only girls who dumped boys for the sake of money and ended his little speech by citing Devathaiyai Kanden.
So, instead of trying to find a one-to-one correspondence between the scenes in a movie and the actions of any particular individual, it is more useful to think of the cultural matrix that is created by the society and perpetuated by movies (or vice versa) that embody and glorify misogyny in general. No one movie might have made a Ramkumar, but as a body, these movies have created a festering ground that allows some men to hold an opinion that Ramkumar’s behaviour might possibly have some kind of justification. Listen, for instance, to the @#%&*! at 5:02 mark in this video:
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Sheila Kumar
July 3, 2016
I wrote this for Metro Plus, many moons ago. Things have just gotten worse on screen and in real life, but not sure of the connect.
http://bindersfullawords.blogspot.com/2013/03/metro-plus-tamil-cinema-vicious-circle.html
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sanjana
July 3, 2016
The way the boys reacted, it seems there is no way they will learn the lessons and become civilised human beings.
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Aparna K
July 3, 2016
Thanks for this discussion. I did want to ask you, as a story-teller/ writer yourself and as a critic, whether you believe cinema reflects real life or is it the other way around? Most story tellers – whatever be their medium – usually look at the everyday and ordinary, the extraordinary in that, and of course the exotic/ mythology as inspirations? They might argue – quite rightly – that fact is always stranger than fiction. Would love to know your thoughts.
Also, you mention this: “If we were to abolish every behaviour that’s potentially dangerous” – isn’t it censoring, in some ways? Creating a framework to tell stories? Would you be able to argue for the screening of Udta Punjab, and also call to ban movies such as these, in the same breath? Don’t they boil down to the same thing? A story is a story is a story…
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KadaKumar
July 3, 2016
Movies are totally to blame here. Most guys in Tamil Nadu hardly enjoy a healthy interaction with girls. So when they encounter a girl who, say, smiles at them, they let their imagination run wild, fully fuelled by cinema tropes. After all cinema is their manual for romance. What else do they know?
So every random dark ugly guy with no education, wealth or class looks up to the archetypal dark ugly ruffian hero who has a heart of gold, and nothing but “pyoor lowe” for the highborn, rich, fair skinned beauty. Lowe that is untainted by sexual attraction, and indifferent to distinctions of caste, class, religion, education, background, etc. After all, its pyoor lowe.
So what do these unkempt heros do to attract the highborn, rich, fair skinned beauty? Stalk, of course. With romantic bgm playing in the background. If its a romantic bgm playing, then the guy, no matter what he does, has to be good. If he’s a creep with bad intentions (even if he’s doing the same thing), the music would be more ominous and seedy. So our random dark ugly guy with no education, wealth or class follows the same template: follows the girl around, eyes her ‘romantically’ and plays the bgm in his head for effect.
Of course, if he does muster up the courage to come within 10 feet of the girl, he’s bound to get a cruel call from reality. But no worries, cinema has that situation covered too. She’s only playing hard to get. She’s a nalla ponnu who’s imbibed Thamizh kalacharam. She only needs to warm up a bit more, and will ‘paaka-paaka-pudichufy our loser.
Or
She’s an arrogant bitch full of thimuru, who needs to be tamed and taught Thamizh kalacharam. She needs a dose of our hero’s raw masculinity. She needs to be taught to feel our hero’s true lowe, and that’ll surely change her mind, no? After all, a loser who loves her trully is what every girl wants. Who needs the america maapillai with an impressive resume, dignified behaviour and smashing good looks. Thats’ all way too superficial. Also, our loser is the hero in his own mental movie. Son of the soil. Thamizhan da. America maapillais and all are side heroes who would disappear into the background in a scene or two. Everybody else would- all out-of-focus props. Only our hero and the girl are real. She has to fall for our guy. Sooner or later. One way or another. She just has to. Thats how it works. Power of lowe waves.
Fucking morons!
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jussomebody
July 3, 2016
I agree with what tonks says about stalking being par for the course… I guess it is somewhat acceptable to walk up to someone in a bar and buy them a drink, or compliment them and leave a number, and so forth, in some contexts. But those who don’t have those kinds of social opportunities or skills – how do they approach someone and express interest? For many – and I don’t agree with myself a 100% when I say this – some amount of stalking seems necessary, at least for a while. I am not undermining the need for consent, absolutely not. If the other party is not interested, it MUST stop in all contexts. But stalking is perhaps only a symptom, a form of behaviour that emerges at least partly from the absence of normal interactions between men and women in a society that doesn’t always equip people to handle their attractions in healthy ways. Stalking cannot be discussed as a deviance that can simply be criminalized, without addressing more fundamental issues…
I remember an interview before the release of Raanjhanaa where Sonam said that it isn’t really stalking if the girl is interested and encouraging of stalkerish behaviour. By that logic, consent is vital, but what really qualifies as ‘consent’? In Madras, the hero stops following the girl when she gives him a piece of her mind. Later she finds him to admonish him for not waiting for her on the street. Is that art imitating life (in some contexts)? Or is it a glorification of an undesirable act, the rewarding of that action, leading to life imitating art? I don’t know.
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pp2chillax
July 3, 2016
BR,
This is a discussion that will not have a definite conclusion and you know that well. So what are we doing here? I would like to borrow a quote from Before Sunset film “I know it’s almost impossible to succeed… but who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt.”
So here is an attempt to describe my point of view:
To understand the real truth (not the one media projects, not the one that has been circulating in WhatsApp and not even the official statement) it is essential to get into the ‘stream of conscience’ of Swathi and Ramkumar. Now that we can’t get into Swathi’s mind, we are left with Ramkumar. But what Ramkumar says to the Police can never be completely accurate. He may pretend or he may present a situation to justify his act or to glorify Swathi (suppose lately if he feels that she has to be celebrated). Unless you have Tolstoy sitting among the group of Policemen who is interacting with him it is impossible to understand his ‘stream of conscience’. We are left with only one option – to look at this event through the viewpoint of police investigation report. This report can present us only a set of actions and few backstories to prove the existing premise. But to understand Ramkumar, one has to derive the answer to the question “What makes a man to kill someone?”
As you are talking about the influences of Cinema, I would like to borrow Lajos Egri’s methods of defining a character in his book “The Art of Dramatic Writing and its basis in the creative interpretation of human motives”
// Every object has three dimensions: depth, height, width. Human beings have an additional three dimensions: physiology, sociology and psychology. Without a knowledge of these three dimensions we cannot appraise a human being. It is not enough, in your study of a man, to know if he is rude, polite, religious, atheistic, moral, degenerate. You must know why. We want to know why man is as he is, why his character is constantly changing, and why it must change whether he wishes or no.
Our physical make-up certainly colours our outlook on life. It affects our mental development, servers as basis of inferiority and superiority complexes. Sociology is the second dimension to be studied. If you were born in a basement, and your playground was the dirty city your reactions would be differ from those of the boy who was born in a mansion and played in beautiful and antiseptic surroundings. But we cannot make an exact analysis of your differences from him, or from the little boy who lived next door in the same tenement, until we know more about both of you. Who was your father, your mother, were they sick or well? What was their earning power? Who were your friends? How did you influence or affect them? How did they affect you? What kind of clothes do you like? What books do you read? Do you go to church? What do you eat, think, like, dislike? Who are you, sociologically speaking?
The third dimension, psychology, is the product of the other two. Their combines influences gives life to ambition, frustration, temperament, attitudes, complexes. Psychology, then rounds out the three dimensions//
So to answer your question, the film influence comes under second dimension, sociology. What films does he watch ? Now the answer to this question does not define his sociology completely unless we define other parameters that includes class, occupation (this is a separate topic to be discussed in this case), education, home life, religion, place in community and hundred other things.
According to me, the film influence constitutes only a little, even if he is inspired heavily, it is not a fault with the film or film-maker or the medium but with the other parameters that encouraged him to do so. Why are we not talking about other parameters? Say having a world with a single religion or no religion, everyone having a secured job with attractive pay, making the whole world a city or a village so that we can maintain similarity in every individual’s reaction. This is impossible and even if this is made possible I can see two people reacting in a different way as two brains cannot process the same information in the same way. A man is always in the center of constant movement and any small disturbance can create a vicious cycle.
If someone (or a group) is going to present a complete study of Ramkumar’s physiology, sociology and psychology it will the help us to understand “What makes a man to kill someone?” But this study can only help understand “Why made Ramkumar to kill Swathi” and cannot serve as a ‘How to avoid….’ notes to prevent another killing because there is no another Swathi/Ramkumar. “You can never replace anyone because everyone is made up of such beautiful, specific details” (Before Sunset reference again)
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jussomebody
July 3, 2016
In sociological terms, there is correlation between life and art. Causation cannot be established 🙂
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Lemon
July 4, 2016
Adding my two cents to Tonks’s and Anu’s insightful comments
As Anu pointed out, there are areas of similarity between the treatment of women in India and the ‘liberal’ west. The ‘nerd gets the beautiful woman’ trope plays out here in real life as resentment by ‘beta-geeks’ who feel they are entitled to women and lash out because they feel they are being forced into celibacy. This group is linked with some of the more horrifying online assault against women, and the occasional mass shooting ( the Elliot Roger case, for example). Of course, it’s not as if the movies invented this trope. Movies and sitcoms are often written and directed by men (and some women) who think of women as ‘objects of desire’ that can be attained if men just persist. These beliefs come from the larger society and reflected back to society, in more romanticized and glorified ways. Also, considering how both the creative and business sides of movie making are dominated by men, it’s that much harder for dissenting women’s voices to be heard.
This is why i think that an individual mental health based critique ignores a very important part of the picture. The patriarchy does not operate at an individual level. These narratives are collectively created, reinforced and made obligatory to a degree. While the most vile behavior resulting from this is limited to a small proportion of people, there are more “innocuous” behaviors ( which are widely tolerated) which feed the beast.
Much as the stalker glorification movies disgust me, I don’t want to censor them (though I wouldn’t support them with my money). I do want to engage creative people and the wider society in conversations about this. It’s not about censoring all bad behavior, but about being more aware of the role of our conditioning in portraying/responding to misogyny on screen. It’s also about being sensitive to the impact of such stories and hopefully, a genuine desire (for some) to sidestep or subvert them.
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udhaysankar
July 4, 2016
Iswarya: That was so scary to read.
There are infinite hurdles for boys and girls ( in rural, semi-urban and to an extent urban areas) to fall in love, ask someone out for a date oops, strike that.. To ask “enna pudichirukka illayaa??” question, hang out together , say ‘no’ if you want to, deal with rejections, be in a relationship, to get laid and to break up if things don’t work out. Parents in TN do their dardenest to make sure their girls remain “pure” so that they can be siphoned off to a same caste/class bridegroom. So, if I’m 18 with nil experience of interacting with girls or boys of my age, the only women/men I can look upto for some knowledge in dealing with these hormones are
1) parents who remain nonchalant about their marriage lives and make it taboo to speak about love, sex, opposite gender, etc.
2) movie characters, who present their unflinching, disturbing and consistent views on stalking, love, rejection, hate crimes, etc.
So, it’s natural most men and women have the second option predominantly as their ‘inspirations’.
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sachita
July 4, 2016
In this particular case, dont think some one like ramkumar requires a movie to end up like this. These people have severe psychological issues.
But to tons of other crimes in tamil nadu, tamil cinema is definitely to blame.
It is one thing if you have one off film glorifying a character. But pretty much every movie shows this. A standard template for the hero – heroine path.
The girl from a completely different world should fall for this guy because of the ‘depth of LOVE’. A girl’s skin color is to be mocked at but if you make fun of guy’s skin color – it is against tamilians.
And stalking is not a normal behavior for sure. All of us have been thru infactuation, very few end up stalking. Stalking is a troubling behavior.
Cant still come to terms with the fact that the a 24 year old girl lost her life like this.
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hattorihanzo4784
July 4, 2016
BR
thanks for opening the discussion. I want to know how should we watch 7g Rainbow colony?
Is it like a character study like in Bala’s movies like Pithamagan, Nanda, Naan Kadavul etc… where the director is saying – “look today I want to show you a very different character… He is not effing normal… this is not normal heroism…the hero of this movie is like one in a million… just watch the movie and enjoy the freak show..”
or
Is it like a Kadhalan, Kadhal Desam, Boys etc… where they show… – “look this is how youth are thesedays. There is nothing wrong with them… if you find it wrong then it only means you haven’t caught up with the times… you are too old… this is true love”
In which category does 7g Rainbow colony fit into..? is it a character study of a weirdo or a depiction of true love of these times?
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Anu Warrier
July 4, 2016
I guess it is somewhat acceptable to walk up to someone in a bar and buy them a drink, or compliment them and leave a number, and so forth, in some contexts.
I don’t think either of these actions would be considered ‘stalking’, no? To me, it would be stalking only if you don’t take ‘no’ for an answer and persist in paying for their drinks (with the expectation that they therefore owe you something), or follow them to their homes the next time you see them because they didn’t call you back…
For instance, we once had a discussion on Amol Palekar’s character in Chhoti si Baat – in which film, he follows Vidya Sinha around, not having the guts to tell her how he feels. It is clear that Vidya is attracted to him as well, and her conversation with her friend in office makes that very clear. So, does that constitute stalking? I don’t think so.
For me, Shammi Kapoor’s behaviour towards Rajashree in the Laal chhadi maidan khadi song (Jaanwar) was stalker-ish. (And I say this as a huge Shammi Kapoor fan!) He annoys her, gets her friends on his side by pretending to drown, and continues to keep going after her until she ‘falls’ in love with him. We could argue that those were much more innocent times, with there really being no ‘punishment’ for the heroine – Shammi didn’t have too many ‘taming of the shrew’ films.
At least in Hindi films, the glorification of ‘stalking’ as a valid romantic endeavour began only in the late 80s-early 90s. All the Khans have been guilty of acting in such movies, so have the generation of heroes that came after them.
Funnily enough, when I watched Raanjhna, I didn’t really see the film as a glorification of stalking. I haven’t read/heard the interviews of the actor/director, so I don’t know what they said, and whether that glorified the whole -stalk-and-she-will-be-yours attitude.
@Iswarya – that is seriously scary! I wonder what it will take for those boys to discover that there is a world out there in which women are not put in just to make their lives more comfortable. What do you tell them when you hear these sort of comments?
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Varsha Ganesh
July 4, 2016
The filmmakers deliberately inject such dialogues to “relate” to a certain section of the audience. It is not creative freedom but careful manipulation to sell an otherwise uninspired and oftentimes bad film. It is a lazy and easy shortcut to getting out of having to expend energy to make a good film. I agree that drawing a line can be hard if we begin the talk on censoring but it’s important to also think about intention of these filmmakers. If their intention is character shaping, that’s one thing, but from the above clips, it’s nothing more than the desire to garner a few applauses from a few people, damn the cost to society. And society is paying dearly, or atleast the parents of Swathi are right now. Cinema does have some measure of social responsibility, probably not everywhere, but definitely in a society that worships it, considers it an essential part of existence and often, a manual to live life by.
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Uma
July 4, 2016
People do need to differentiate messages passed out by movies and reality. But have our films ever shown a dark skinned, plus size female stalking a fair skinned boy and making him fall in love with her? Or how about a dark skinned boy falling in love with another dark skinned girl?
The movies predominantly show loser, dark skinned guys successfully wooing alabaster skinned heroines? Why is that? For a predominantly male audience who are from low income background this is their dream sequence and these heroes in the movies feed to their dream sequence?
In real life, during my college days, we had a dark skinned, plus sized girl who imagined that a good looking boy was in love with her and would tell her imaginary tales to whoever that was willing to listen. She was the butt of everyone’s jokes. But if the situation was reversed, an ordinary looking boy had fallen in love with a good looking girl, everyone would have encouraged him.
When I was in 9th or 10th std, my school bus teenage conductor told me that he loved me. How did this uneducated guy get this idea? Almost all the feamles in our Country have had to deal with stares, groping and what not? When there is no concept of girl boy interaction and these heroines dancing to sheela ki jawani type adult songs only lead to the general youth just making everyday life a hell for females.
I had commented once before about my mom’s death in a post about Talvar. She was murdered in our home by 2 twenty something kids who were after jewels and this is what they had to say during confession, ” In movies, they show murder to be so easy.”
Art imitates life and vice versa and I wish our filmmakers were more responsible and make attempt to make realistic movies, show some normal man woman friendships that doesnt end up in love, some sensible female characters who look something closer to normal. I guesss in an Industry that is primarily driven by money that is too much to ask
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Shalini
July 4, 2016
I tend to think that whatever influence movies have is limited to the margins. Of far greater import, in my mind, is how big and diverse one’s world is. Interacting with a broad range of people is the best antidote that I can think of to “othering” (slotting someone as innately different/alien). Turning someone into an “Other” facilitates dehumanization and makes them fair game for anything one wants to do to them. Might movies encourage such thinking? Perhaps, but only where the rot was already ingrained and irreversible.
I often feel that the history of mankind is just one long and endless struggle to see and treat each other as fully human.
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10yearslate
July 4, 2016
Maybe it goes in subliminally, but films remain de-facto educational sources and behavioural templates. Take for instance a few bullet points from my experience.
A relative in his late 70s had a melt-down at a recent family function and his rant was classic Sivaji Ganesan from ‘Vietnam Veedu’, down to breast-beating in front of the garlanded photo of his late mother ‘Ennai pettha ammaaaa…etc.,’
I was cast in a Hindi play last year as a South Indian. While the role wasn’t a caricature, they initially wanted me to play it a la Mehmood in Padosan. And the director was a well educated, supposedly urbane guy. After I gave him a piece of my mind, he was quick to acquiesce.
A friend’s father was in a famous, brand name hospital in Chennai recently. His wife and daughter, (Ok, fair skinned, ‘typical’ Tam Brahm looks) were overtly being ogled by the ward boys and I overheard one of them doing a Vadivelu style ‘Maami’ in an undertone to the other.
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olemisstarana
July 4, 2016
“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Margaret Atwood
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Amit Joki
July 4, 2016
I agree over what tonks says. Say there is school A where there is proper co education in the sense, boys and girls in the same classroom. And school B where though boys and girls study in the same school, are separated by classes and any interaction is considered taboo.
Now, I have inevitably observed that students from School A who have got admission in school B are happy. Their mentality is, appada ponnunga tholla ippa intha school la illa(Phew! I there wont be any girls to bother me here).
On the other hand the students of School B are jealous over the students of School A. School B students are more interested in girls than students of School A.
This clearly shows that a healthy boy-girl interaction is the key. Students of School A students have had that in plenty and they think of girls as just another human being.
But thats not the case for students of School B, because they don’t get to have any female friends and so like a sublimation process, the phase transition is directly to a romantic state.
Clearly it is the case where forced repulsion leads to multifold attraction.
This is also the reason why some people are tongue tied(including me, though I (put kadala/ mild flirting I guess?) like a boss on facebook) when faced with a girl face to face.
As of blaming films, I don’t think the films where stalking is shown is a problem. It is films which shows attacks on girls for refusing to say no.
If I remembet Valakku En 18/9, there is a big spoilt rich kid who throws acid. He is let away.
This IS THE problem. The director might have wanted to convey that people of higher status easily get away, but they plant the idea in the heads of these morons that it is acceptable to hurt your loved ones.
Deiii nee love panna ponnu daaa! What kind of filthy love is this, wherein one hurts whom one loves is beyond me.
Sathyama purila. My idea of love is to caress them like flowers and keep them happy and keep unwanted insects out of the way. Keep them happy and blossomed. Laugh with them and if they are not, make them laugh. Make sure there is nothing that can bring tears in her eyes.
But these fuckards(dont know if this word is there in the dictionary, but it is fucking + cowards), don’t seem to share my idea of love.
Hell with the word love, this isn’t love. Just lust or to put it in slightly decent manner, infatuation at best.
Avanella apdiye vitrukkanum saaga. If not, let there be interrogation as shown in the Film Visaaranai. And if it is filmed and leaked, innum nalladhu. Hope it serves as a deterrent for others. But adhu nadakathu pola yena human rights activists odane flag eduthitu vandhuruvaanunga.
Has someone, a stat of crime rates in countries where there punishments are made public? Would be interesting to see if there is any change at all.
Rant over. Sorry BR for hogging your comment space.
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Filistine
July 4, 2016
The link between movies and real life are admittedly tenous, but I have always wondered why there are no “anti-stalker” movies in Tamil/ other south Indian languages. Is it because the film industry tacitly agrees with the stalker-mentality? Or is it because they believe that only sex, Shah Rukh Khan and stalking sells? Perhaps there is a way to incentivise anti-stalking movies. Tax-breaks, for movies that take a stand against women-bashing, perhaps? Is there a recognised womens-rights movement in the state? Maybe they could be asked to co-censor films. Or something even more simple. Have a disclaimer whenever stalkerish or anti-women dialogues occur on screen. If we can put up with anti-smoking disclaimers, then these should be par for the course as well. The worst the film industry can do is to ignore the issue
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travellingslacker
July 4, 2016
While the films might have had an impact on him, I think they are only an extension of the society. Still in vast parts of the country, people are brought up suppressing their natural desires, making them believe that it is wrong or improper… this breeds generations of confused youth who cannot express themselves or have normal conversations with the opposite sex…
The same guardians of the society (the conservative moral police types can ease their conscience by blaming it on pop-culture… but they have blood is in their hands too…)
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Sharan
July 4, 2016
I feel this is a clear case of deprivation and frustation. I had gone through facebook account of ram kumar. Most of the female friends in his list are fake accounts, the kind that post sleazy photos of girls and indulge in sexually vulgar interactions. I feel this kind of indicates he is highly sexually deprived. ( https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004637557094&_rdr )
I find it difficult to believe this guy even loved swathi ever. It took him just two months to go from stalking to proposing love to killing. There are two things to it one is the stalking behaviour and other is the violent behaviour. cinema may or may not be a influence on his stalking nature. Since this being a blog related to cinema, i can understand a discussion around cinema as an influencing agent, but i feel this to be a serious problem evolving out of culture and changes in society. Culturally speaking there is no healthy interaction between boys and girls especially in our tamil society. I think the major changes in the society that could influence guys like ramkumar are social medias like facebook, their perception of life in new sectors like IT industry, moving from village to cities.
I am trying to get into mind of ram kumar from whatever knowledge i have about him from information in public domain. Chances of me being wrong is high. In his confession statement to police he had told them that he dreamt of working in IT industry. He is a mechanical engineering graduate. It could be the kind of pay in IT jobs. Beyond pay it could be the kind of perceived glamorous life attached with IT that would have attracted him. what would have been his idea of life in IT, what opinion he had over girls working in IT industry. Was it really just love that he was expecting from swathi.. He is 24 years old and not a teenager to get madly infatuated to a girl in a span of two months. Would he have reacted in a similar fashion to a girl he liked from his own vicinity nearby his village. what would have been his perception of girls from cities. Cities give freedom of anonymity to be far away from glazing eyes of relatives and friends, the kind he would have got in social medias like facebook, twitter etc. I do not know his activity in facebook but looking at his female friends list, was he reciprocating his online behaviour here in the city.
We had so many acid attack incidents earlier. The most disturbing thing is the violent manner in which he vented his frustration by hacking her. I think society had great influence here. He is from meenakshipuram which has history of violence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Meenakshipuram_conversion .His birthday was on june 20th and he killed her on 24th. Could this be frustation with life generally? .. https://mobile.twitter.com/kamaljii/status/749224921876791296/photo/1
Patriarchal society, misogyny and all have played a part. If we look beyond these factors there are other ticking bombs that changes in society are bringing. Online world, unemployed graduates, interaction between people from different cultural and social strata are one among them.
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venkat1926
July 4, 2016
I do not say that reality must not be shown in films both evil and good. But if a “thaliava” woos a girl unilaterally and persistently till it becomes a molestation, it is romanticized, particularly because in Tamil Nadu and in some other states the hero of a film is made a god with “pal abishekams”. That is where the problem occurs. small amount of stalking is natural as the boy wants to find out about the girl (a girl does not stalk a boy). But if once the girl is not amenable the boys should wish her all the best and turn into a good friends. Unfortunately Indian boy thinks that once he loves a girl, immediately that girl becomes his property. It is feudal mentality. Indian boys should come to acceptance if a girl refuses him or if she falls in and even falls out of a love affair. She must have full freedom. I have another take on this. Girls who are accosted like this do not have expertise how to handle such a situation. Girls should be taught how to face such situation with tact and good humor. Parents, teachers, friends and society should teach the girls.
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Kay
July 4, 2016
This topic is something which has been bothering me for quite sometime now. I do believe movies influence the behaviour of young boys by endorsing an idea that a good-for-nothing, uneducated boy can fall in love with a fair skinned educated girl (eg., adukalam, varuthapadatha valibar sangam, okok and the likes). Such infatuations are glorified as true love and when the girl is not interested, it becomes a challenge to make her accept. Next comes the part where the hero gets drunk and sings that girls who scorn their love are evil. And then somehow miraculously the girl falls in love. So there is this underlying message that when you stalk a girl and you profess your love repeatedly, there will be a day when she finally accepts your love. Even Shivaji had a similar storyline. And we had singaravelan.
Not all boys become stalkers watching these movies but there is this underlying sympathy with their kin in general that when a guy falls in ‘true love’ with a girl and she doesn’t reciprocate, then it’s the girl who is wrong.
Next comes our society. We live in a society which believes that girls should be meek and just get married to whichever guy their parents point to. Whereas, boys are forgiven for falling in love and wish to get married to a girl of their choosing. This differentiation in the treatment of the children leads to a strong sense of self importance in boys.
Thirdly, the educational institutions. Most of the schools and colleges have separate classrooms, buses, lab timings, etc for girls and boys which prevents healthy interaction between them. One of my brothers in law casually said he doesn’t have any plans of talking to girls ever. How unhealthy is that?? His college also allows boys to use mobile phones in hostels whereas girls are asked to keep their phones in the custody of the warden and they are allowed to call their families only between 8 to 8.40 pm!
When all the spheres of interaction reinforce this sense of self importance and also the belief that girls have to be kept in control by dictating their dress codes and phone usage and what not, is it any wonder the boys turn out the way they are??
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Cinemakaran
July 4, 2016
Ultimately the choice of internalizing good or bad things from film is something that cant be controlled.
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Peter Vas
July 4, 2016
This tweet of mine had some support:
Movies that show heroes stalking women, must run bold ticker across screen:
Stalking is criminal offence per IPC 354D. 3 yr in prison 4hero
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Aditya (Gradwolf)
July 4, 2016
This is a very complicated topic for two reasons. One, the culture of cinema we have in our country is very different from elsewhere. Forget country, the culture of cinema in this state (or particularly Tamil and Telugu) is very different from elsewhere in the country. So a discussion about what we show and how we show and what influences and how much is quite warranted. How heavily or not heavily is debatable and there is no end to it but we need to talk about it. And there cannot be censoring and that is a bad way to handle this problem. Neither is a Udta Punjab level disclaimer like “this film does not encourage stalking” or some such! All we can do is talk about it and get everyone’s voices heard. We have a culture of fans taking every word of a star as a tenet. We have stars espousing how to live and what’s right and what’s wrong. This is right from the time of MGR to now, and we discussed this a lot in that Rajini thread for example.
The second reason, as a friend pointed out, is we get only the male gaze stories. We never get stories from the other side. Sometimes we don’t even hear the girl say No to that kind of behavior and it somehow softens the whole inscrutability of how this stalker behavior led to a happily ever after story. And of course, scores of other cases where the No lands on deaf ears. Having said that, I also agree with jussomebody when she says “I guess it is somewhat acceptable to walk up to someone in a bar and buy them a drink, or compliment them and leave a number, and so forth, in some contexts. But those who don’t have those kinds of social opportunities or skills – how do they approach someone and express interest? For many – and I don’t agree with myself a 100% when I say this – some amount of stalking seems necessary, at least for a while. I am not undermining the need for consent, absolutely not. If the other party is not interested, it MUST stop in all contexts.”
As I write, we have a third problem. I didn’t really understand the letter you posted and in some broad ways, it seems very problematic to me (in possibly the same way your Vazhakku En review drew heated debates). There is also class bias here. A lot of times this is not a city vs village story. Sometimes “charm” too blinds us. Someone else brought up Alaipayuthey (not here) and mentioned why Dhanush and Simbu behavior is considered stalking while Madhavan is not. I personally feel Alaipayuthey is a weak example because I am not sure if the Sakthi character puts her foot down. But take Mouna Raagam for example. The Karthik character is celebrated as one of the most charming in all of Tamil cinema. But what he does is textbook definition of stalking and we know how many times the Revathi character says No to him. So every time we talk about these things, the class bias makes it all the more difficult to be precise. It is not only M Rajesh’s films and TASMAC scenes that are to be blamed.
The last thing I wanted to say (even though this is not the most pressing topic at the moment) – it’s a problem when we bring film criticism into this. I am not for mixing ideologies and film criticism in any way. Again, the culture in our cinema makes this a difficult rule to defend but a character’s motivations need to be seen within the framework of the story and the right way to go would be to educate young people to differentiate this and in the ways to consume cinema. In short the culture has to change and it will take a long time. For example, many people in producing examples for this, bring up Guna. But Guna was always the story of a person with mental illness. Iswarya’s comment and her experience with students pretty much lays the problem out. A big part of the solution must be to break down the barriers of communication and interaction between genders and stop with the kind of policing that is visible to us in colleges in Tamil Nadu and probably invisible to us in families and households – and this comes from class, caste and various other factors.
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ananya1395
July 4, 2016
Maybe it’s the other way around. So much has been written about how the Indian film industry is dominated by males, in writing, direction, screenplay, everything. Maybe such movies reflect the mentality of an average Tamilian male, hence the reason for the use of the same stalking/subjugation tropes for the past 20 odd years.
Film makers routinely include the loser guy gets the beautiful girl storyline in almost every movie, whether it’s supposed to be a comedy or one of the lame hero worshipping action movies. Maybe they do this because they know that the aforementioned Tamilian male who watches the movie will be able to relate to it and contribute to the success of the movie.
What’s interesting is that this is probably a vicious cycle that originated in the distant misogynistic past where moviegoers were likely majority male and somehow became the norm, even with progress, even with changing times. I’m young, but I remember watching Kadhalikka Neramillai a few years ago and was put off by a similar stalking angle. Scenes like that probably shaped the mind of today’s filmmakers, who in turn are unwittingly passing it on to the current generation. Hopefully someone someday will break the wheel, but the damage has been done.
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Iswarya
July 4, 2016
+1 Varsha Ganesh. I am not for meddlesome “cuts.” I am not even supporting the idea that directors with an authentically creative vision should be made to fret all the time about how certain freaks in the audience might be “inspired” to do harm by drawing some perverse conclusions based on a character’s behaviour. But most of the woman-bashing these days is worrying mainly because it is done in an offhand, lazy way with the idea of pandering to those frustrated, inherently misogynistic adolescents, with an eye on the cash register.
I think disclaimers (as shown for smoking/drinking scenes) are worse than useless. Nobody takes them seriously, and they are ugly distractions. Instead, what about creating financial disincentives for such portrayal on screen? I’m not talking here about CBFC behaving like a grandmother and disallowing adults from watching certifiably adult content. The problem is actually about how filmmakers catch ’em young and how early these things are internalised from the movies by impressionable kids. If we feel that people under 18 should not be exposed to gore, nudity and other sensitive content, why can’t we extend the same logic to the glorification of such criminal behaviour? If all the movies where the hero stalks the heroine are awarded an ‘A’ certificate by default, do you think all of these directors would still stay true to “their creative vision” and make such movies?
Everything in Kollywood is driven by money. This crass pandering to adolescent male fantasies is also because those are the pockets the filmmakers are eyeing. If films celebrating stalking are going to lose out financially since their audience has to be above 18 and if they are also denied TV airing rights because they are certified ‘A’, automatically these people would start sanitising their content. We all know how much these filmmakers can bend over backwards to get a U certificate for every creepy film they make. So much for the integrity of their vision.
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sanjana
July 4, 2016
India falls between middleeast countries where girls are protected by shariat laws and western society where men are more mature and girls have less inhibitions.
And tamilnadu’s case is unique even in India. Even in tamil nadu, there are enlightened pockets but they are very few. Once upon a time I stayed in tamilnadu and completed my school education in a co education school where boys never misbehaved but mildly amused at girls. Maybe the place where I stayed had few rowdy elements.
Boys think that girls snatch away their jobs just to buy more fancy things. And they want girls to support them by marrying them. Unemployment is one of the reasons. I dont believe that boys chase only fair skinned girls. They chase pretty dark skinned girls too.
In the north some men think they can show their power by humiliating girls by gangraping them. They dont drew inspiration from bollywood films for this. The environment and bad company makes them do so. Mardaani?
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brangan
July 4, 2016
Aditya: I am writing a piece about another aspect of the class angle in this issue, which is that this also seems somewhat reactionary. As in “they” are out to get “our” women. Are there no upper-class boys who are “stalkers”? That’s the problem when one tries to generalise one case/event into a social trend. Because we see only one side of it (and are shown only one side of it in the movies), most opinion pieces tend to berate films and make it sound that it is these “low class films” that put these ideas in people’s minds.
Iswarya: But we routinely get the most violent films with a U certificate. All the censors care about is swear words and sex scenes. It’s so funny that you can get away with an item number in which a woman parades her booty in front of scores of random men on screen (and thousands more in the audience), and yet, you cannot show an intimate scene between a couple.
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sanjana
July 4, 2016
Slalking need not result in rape or murder. I have seen slalkers getting it from girls’ family members and getting the police treatment too.
Before a film is screened, they should show documentaries showing how stalking harms everyone including the stalker. Let the prominent filmstars send a strong message to their fans. Prevention is better than cure. Make fervent appeals to boys, their parents and the society in general.
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Iswarya
July 4, 2016
BR: I completely agree that the certification process has to undergo a sea-change. What I am arguing for is the principle behind the certification. I am equally worried about the amount of violence filmmakers get away with. But just as there are calls made for tightening these rules, the logic has to be extended to such casual endorsement of criminal behaviour as well. That’s what I am saying. Again, Aditya brought up Guna and hattorihanzo478 raised a question about 7G. I am all for those individualised character studies of sociopaths or non-idolised losers. An ‘Everyman’ identification with the protagonist of Guna is almost impossible for the sort of undiscerning audience I am speaking of. The trouble is with “you-too-can-get-any-girl-you-desire” reinforcement in films made about loser ‘heroes’ with an Everyman aspirational quality to them, e.g. the standard fare Dhanush/ Vishal/ Sivakarthikeyan movie.
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bladenomics
July 4, 2016
If I tell you – the stalking experiences I’ve had and the names of people who covered up my stalker- what can you do?
I’ve done my part of raising an alarm (yes, cops too), that did stop the problem but despite knowing the names of people involved, they are still free. They managed to act innocent and sorry one side and slander my name on the other side and no legal action against them since “they haven’t harmed me physically yet”.
What if Swathy, her friends and family knew her stalker and wanted to raise an alarm beforehand? Would it have saved her life? I respectfully disagree.
Nothing can be done if it has been decided to slander someone- physically or her image, I say that with experience. It’s better to take my word based on hard experience than argue with home grown ideologies, movie and legal references.
I also believe the culprit was nailed down quickly because of the murder location being in Chennai, a metro city where safety of working women is paramount. The society down south has a tendency to cover up for their sons and to blame their daughters for being victims. (We can compile a list of movies that portray this, however this is not influenced by movies, it has always existed in our society. If anything, a lot of movies (including the stalker heros are the despised sons of their parents).
Though the heroism of simpletons as super heroes may motivate male ego, it has little impact on stalker behavior. In Ghilli, Prakash Raj wants to kill to pursue Trisha, however, he has been portrayed as a villain.
I had the support of everyone including people on social media and their friends in the force. We, who hate to hear a plausible culprit is walking free, can do nothing beforehand legally speaking. If anything,we can be blamed for being seeking attention or being naive.
Nevertheless, one MUST go through that exhausting experience, call the cops, tell your employer and family, do what you must do, take the mud that is thrown back from all these people when you seek help. Because if you don’t, people will be talking about what you didn’t do than what the stalker did.
We don’t need to educate women to raise an alarm or make a complaint. What we do need is to encourage people to expose their friends who misbehave.
Thanks for opening this discussion, I can feel the pulse and anger in every comment.
Uma, especially, sorry to hear your mother was murdered.
I wish I was as brave as some of you to blog the real life experiences. Though I could share via email- bladenomics@gmail.com / @bladenomics http://bladenomics.com
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Rahini David
July 4, 2016
Iswarya and KadaKumar: Terrific comments
All commenters: The number of times colorism has reared in the comments section above is seriously scary. Can we consciously separate “dark-skinned” and “loser” henceforth? Thank you so much.
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Iswarya
July 4, 2016
+1 olemisstarana.
Anu Warrier: Oh, don’t ask! I do try drumming some sense into them by sharing some home truths. I make it sound all practical by discussing the cost of living, bleak career prospects, need for family support and slowly introduce the idea of treating the woman they are going to live with as their equals. You can see how their responses progress from slow, numb despair and insecurity to sensing a ‘secret feminist agenda’ in my talk!
And the worst part of this is that once in a while I get so carried away with my liberal mode of thinking that I trample some of their sensitive areas. On one occasion, it took a word of caution from a fellow male trainer for me to notice that their provincial fear-of-the-teacher silence was slowly giving way to a simmering resentment among them that a woman was challenging the patriarchal values they hold sacred, and that this might potentially spell trouble for me outside the classroom.
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Jagajaga
July 4, 2016
Written by BRangan: “One part of me says that there are millions who watch these films and a mere handful who are inspired to do these things, so the problem lies not with the film but with the individual, who clearly needs psychiatric intervention.”
I completely disagree with this premise. Assume most aspects in life follow a Gaussian distribution. Meaning, the extreme cases are small (part of what BRangan has pointed out), and most of us are closer to the average (“extreme” and “average” w.r.t any quality – goodness, evil, perversion, smartness, eccentricity, and so on…). But, in a society like Tamil Nadu where films have a history of being a mass medium of societal change (do I need to expound any further??) even on those who are average, don’t merely WATCH the films, they ABSORB it, significantly. Some proof-from-the past/present: (a) The popularity of the Dravidian Movement, the rise of MGR, Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha, Vijayakanth, etc. (b) the propagation of anti-Hindi/anti-Brahminical wave, (c) the repeated notion that Brahmin guys are bad, but Brahmin girls (only girls not older “Maamis”; who are again sinister to the core) are the prettiest angels who need to escape from the burden imposed by thousands of years of fettering tradition, (d) the profound “mass” idea that a hero has to be an uneducated loafer, whose only worth is his allegiance only to Tamil culture and somehow the heroine who is from a higher hierarchy in the society (economically, culturally, and education-wise) WILL definitely fall for this rascal, (e) the impressive idea that Seths/Jains and anyone living in Sowkarpet is at best abominable and at worst fiends completely bereft of mercy, honesty, and all other good qualities “Tamil”, (f) the thought that NRIs are necessarily bad people, and mercenaries (g) the fancy portrayal of college life being unrestrained fun. Professors are necessary dumbos, Students are creative geniuses unable to become extraordinary in their fields only due to the shortcomings of the system, and never ever due to their own lack of efforts, and lastly (g) the holy grail followed throughout Tamil movies that all things native to the “Tamil culture” are pure, good, and nothing else. Rest all is a Brahminical/North-Indian plot, in conjunction with NRIs and westerners.
Don’t trust these points?? Just walk on the streets and ask the average Tamil-film-watcher, his/her opinion on all these aspects. Also ask what they formed these opinions based-on. My strong hunch is, they would concur with all these, and point-out that they learned about these facets through movies.
Under this circumstance, when there is this vast history of over half-a-decade behind you, knowing that even the average person ABSORBS what is being conveyed via movies, why do you want to convey a detailed picture of how a crime is committed? Which vein to target if you want to instantly kill someone ( ref: the much-loved “Pudupettai”)? Which set of the society to target if you want to get away with it?
So yes, the problem definitely lies with the films, which shifts the average to the extreme.
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udhaysankar
July 4, 2016
BR: If you are writing an article about the class angle do not ignore the caste angle too.
I have heard countless idiotic conversations about boys from a particular caste trying to bait other girls from the supposed higher castes, a very dangerous generalization than the class one.
We quickly generalize the behavior of a group because of few rare incidents.
There’s this notorious relative of mine who often cites the failed marriage of the yesteryear actress sri vidya, as a precedent that inter-faith marriages never work out and the girl will always be the victim of the ensuing legal battles. And whenever I try to speak something against it most of they grown-ups resort to “idhelaam Pesa nalla dhaan irukkum anaa, nadaimurai vaazhkaiku sari pattu varradhu…”.
So, in such a atmosphere films need to careful in addressing these sort of sensitive stuff especially when they have the power to influence an entire generation of parents and youth.
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udhaysankar
July 4, 2016
ADITYA:
“A big part of the solution must be to break down the barriers of communication and interaction between genders and stop with the kind of policing that is visible to us in colleges “… Golden words that have to etched in kalvettus and colleges across Tamil Nadu.
But, I don’t see this happening in our lifetimes. Cause, these colleges can function easily even with such outrage on social media. All they need are admissions and nothing stops students from getting themselves admitted in colleges across Tamilnadu.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/shayanroy/speak-up?utm_term=.dtLDPqJ952#.xg1EQkG1xm
If you go through the above link, you will notice that majority of those kaalaachaarathai kaapaatrum elite colleges are from Tamil Nadu . So, indha elite colleges ke indha level naa, appo what about the numerous other colleges in TN that are unaccounted for??
One among them goes as far as saying that a ‘cosmopolitan’ atmosphere is maintained in the campus in their brochure, ‘despite these small talibanic rules’ I guess😂.
http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2013/10/update-vit-university-refuses-act-even-thousands-register-protest/
http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2013/11/college-punished-daring-ask-women-shouldnt-equal-rights-heres-story/
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Rahini David
July 4, 2016
A few thing I have been thinking about.
1) Karthik in Mouna Raagam and Madhavan in Alaipayuthe
Karthik parks his bike in front of a bus and uses this as a strategy to persuade her for a date. He also persuades saying she is only scared of his charm. Karthik goes to the college and makes an infernal annoyance of himself. This is not an average girl will like and I should admit that I would hate it. He does show the tendency to not take no for an answer. Especially the bike strategy. Persuading by way of suggesting that he is just too charming that she is scared of being seduced is alright, you can always say no. But basically yes, that romance does have shades of stalking.
Madhavan and Shalini in Alaipayuthe exchange a few words in a friends wedding and flirt in the railway station. It is obvious that she likes him. It is not clear to me where she says she does not want his attention. Ok, he makes most of the moves. That itself doesn’t make it stalking, no? No Romance happens with the woman taking even numbered steps and the man taking the odd numbered steps. A little bit of vague interest displayed is good enough, IMO.
3) Women stalking men
We don’t seem to talk much about this. Many instances in the movies, no? Weirdly, that sounds like a male fantasy too. “I am just minding my own business and this girl keeps coming and throwing herself at me.” Are we not bothered as the real life instances are too low or not dangerous enough? Can any of the guys confirm if the girl-stalker stories annoy them? Citizen is a movie that comes to my mind, if only vaguely.
4) Banning
No, It would not work. Most of what we see on movies have a dark side. I dislike people having inordinate belief in ghosts. Can I go and ban horror? I don’t like stories in which people use creative ideas to avenge their loved ones. Can I go and ban all movies that have that story line? It is just that good dialogue regarding such portrayal in televised debates will bring a perspective on such movies.
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Rahini David
July 4, 2016
5) Singaravelan, Kadhilikka Neramillai and other loved classics
I remember that a couple of people objected in the Papanasam thread when I called Singaravelan a pro-stalker movie. What is Singaravelan other than a pro-stalker movie? What is the basic story there? I think we can put it down to the people who defended it being Kamal fans. Why is there a knee-jerk reaction if OUR hero does something wrong in a movie. Why do not learn to call a spade a spade? It was funny. Yes. There is no denying that it was. SV was released before I learnt to be disgusted at stalking scenarios. THAT probably explains a lot. I like it. But I can not justify it.
The movie “gopura vasalile” has two instances of stalking. One which ends with “Yes, I love this idiot, I love this lovable idiot.”
Kadhilikka Neramillai is such an old movie. I don’t think it is surprising that such songs like existed in 60s. Let them be. Why do such songs/movies still exist. That is the problem.
6) “My Hero strongest” syndrome.
Have you all noticed that Amit Joki has acquitted pro-stalker movies of their guilt and feels that only Vazakku En is more problematic? That is because he is a Dhanush fan. The cognitive dissonance felt when an object of affection is doing on-screen something that he should not, makes him feel that way, IMO.
Amit,
You say “I don’t think the films where stalking is shown is a problem. It is films which shows attacks on girls for refusing to say no.”
Don’t you think that movies which gift the girls to the guys like a trophy for being a terrific stalker a problem at all? “Vazakku En” shows the rich boy going scot-free? Is he not finally brought to justice finally? Even if not, it shows that having acid thrown at women is a reality and that it is reprehensible. Moneyed people do get away. But it does not glorify it, no?
Thanga Magan in which the girl gets impressed with “Ivalavu alagana ponnukku thimiru iruntha thappu illa” is a more dangerous movie. Because it deludes men into thinking that all it takes is a well-placed compliment. And it angers them that the same lines are not working for them. Put Dhanush-worship to sleep and try to think clearly.
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Rahini David
July 4, 2016
7) Some amount of stalking seems necessary
The success stories are one reason this seems so.
https://anusrini20.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/stalkers-rejoice/
The girls are expected to say no initially as a sort of ritual. “Pride and Prejudice” has a line in which an annoying guy tells Liz Bennet that he understands that the girl is expected to say no in order to not seem too eager herself. “Gone with the wind” has Scarlett O’hara having a practiced line which she tells to suitors whether she likes them or not. We are not very different. We expect the girl to be angry. Girls who even like the guys are forced to be cold and distant. When they do, their body language may betray them and the stalking will continue and really end in eventual acceptance. Another guy will come along and try the same with another girl and feels that his friends experience is going to be his experience too. That he is entitled to stalk too. And the circle continues.
8) Why are there no “anti-stalker” movies in Tamil/ other south Indian languages.
The young men go to the movies on the first few days. They make or break the movies. It is their whims that will be catered to.
9) Girls who are accosted like this do not have expertise how to handle such a situation
Girls are expected to tell their parents or wardens as the case may be. The parents react by sending them to school with male escorts and if the girl is a working woman, expect her to give up her career for the sake of a mistake by a stranger. No wonder women want to keep quiet about this, no?
But to be polite when saying no is not an unimportant trait. I am not saying this just because it has worked for me a reasonable number of times. It is important to not hurt egos just because WE are not that sort of people. I have many times have been asked why I didn’t slap him. It is not easy to slap people just like that. It is easier to stand your ground with the “NO”.
10) Not all boys become stalkers watching these movies but there is this underlying sympathy with their kin in general
Very true.
11) GVM movies
Neethanea En Pon Vasantham – Just because she used to be your GF, it doesn’t mean that you earned the right to stalk her. Seriously.
Varanam 1000 – A woman lets a man stay in the same room just because he followed her across the globe? WTF.
These are stalker movies too. It glorifies following around and gave happy endings to both.
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brangan
July 4, 2016
Rahini David: It was funny. Yes. There is no denying that it was.
Am I the only one who finds Singaravelan unfunny? Okay, maybe a handful of one-liners. Otherwise, it’s easily one of Kamal’s worst films.
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Rahini David
July 4, 2016
BR: The age when you first see a movie will have a reasonable impact, I guess. Early 20s for you if I am not wrong? I would have hated SV if I had been an adult when I first saw it.
As it were, I found SV hilarious. It had both Goundamani and Vadivel, what else do I need?
Kamal’s worst comedy maybe Maharasan, IMO.
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venkatesh
July 4, 2016
Great discussion folks.
@Iswarya: You have touched an absolutely raw nerve. Men in college mobs adhering to goon type behaviour is the default “macho” mode in TN. The deeper you go into the South the worse it becomes. Their image of women is cleaved into two either a Madonna or a Whore , there is no nuance, no shades of grey, no reality to it.
Let me relate something from my life.
I experienced this first hand when i was younger, Did my entire schooling in the North (Delhi, Jaipur, etc.) and came for my Uni education to Madurai. I ended up at a college that was a co-ed (thank goodness for that) but the manner in which these hormone addled guys would interact with the girls in the College was a mixture of scary, freaky and something i had never experienced.
There were guys who would hang out of a crowded bus door for 2 hours to get a glance from a girl who would shyly glance back once every 45 or so minutes. She was now their “aalu”. Mind you this was the sum total of their interaction, they had no other direct interaction at all. It was fucking insane. Me coming from Delhi and not travelling in the bus had no clue such a ritual existed or such “couples” existed and one fine day met up with the female member of one such couple accidentally and spent a couple of hours with her drinking Thums Up in a coffee shop. This was headline news within 2 days in the college and the guy with a bunch of his friends came and threatened me to leave his “aalu” alone while breaking my wrist in the process.
The kicker, apparently the girl had an inkling such a thing would happen and this was her way to “test” the guy.
Now, I dont know if such a story line has ever occurred in any film or what spurred our couple to test each other this way or was i supposed to be the local version of the American Mappillai. Fuck knows.
What i do know is :
(a) This is not only related to films though films probably skewer the distribution to make the extreme look like the median.
(b) Men from TN do not have a clue about how to interact with women in a non-mother or sister context.
(c) Women in TN have no freaking clue of how to say a yes or a no to a guy.
This is an epidemic across the State and is not going to go away any time soon.
Epilogue: I left the college and my education half-way through, it was beyond me.
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shaviswa
July 4, 2016
This dialogue was received with huge cheers in the cinema hall.
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shaviswa
July 4, 2016
Another justification to make the target girl uncomfortable — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzm6Y-8_nRQ
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shaviswa
July 4, 2016
Vijay here talks about how talking on phone, going to movies and having ice cream leads to te boy developing ideas. 🙂
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brangan
July 4, 2016
So which is scarier? That last scene, or this comment below it?
Nice advicing anna.. You always rock vijayanna.. You are our next super star ilayathalapathy vijayanna
Five marks.
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venkatesh
July 4, 2016
BR, RahiniDavid: What has Singaravelan ever done to you guys , it has dated but is quite funny none the less.
And Maharasan , that one song with Bhanupriya is good enough to tide over the rest of the movie., interestingly, the movie had the female stalks the male trope.
@RahiniDavid: Your question from before, what do males think of the female stalking the male trope ?
I have no problem with it. If done well, its entertaining enough and definitely plays into the wish-fulfilment category. But so does all of cinema. So no, its perfectly fine.
I also believe the reverse is fine too , male stalker movies including the worst excesses perpetrated by Dhanush, Simbu, Madhavan et all are perfectly fine. The problem i have with either self-censorship or some sort of jaundiced eye acceptance of these movies is that its a slippery slope.
To take one example , Madhavan with Shalini in Alaipayuthey is considered flirting while Karthik and Revathy in Mouna Raagam are not., really. Why not? The answer to that is bound to be subjective and mired in vague generalisations like one is more charming, her body language was different, she didnt say no “firmly”, he was too insistent etc. etc. And there will be opposing sides to every opinion. I have never heard of a woman complain about the Karthik role in Mouna Raagam as being stalkerish.
The answer is simple. Art and Society influence and are influenced by each other. , to make cinema or any art form responsible even tangentially to horrific real life incidents like the Swati case is wrong,
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Aadhi
July 4, 2016
With regards to Rahini’s comment, been thinking why the term ‘dark-skinned loser’ didn’t seem out of place at all in Tamil cinema stalker context. By using the term ‘dark-skinned loser’, I guess it’s not an endorsement of any notion that they both essentially go with each other always. The usage is rather reflective of what has been the obsession of Tamil filmmakers to almost always particularly link a certain skin color to a certain kind of identity.
Son of the soil, Thamizhan, respects parents and culture, kallankabadam illadha manasu, true deep sincere louwer, macho, protector of loved ones, doesn’t speak English. Some films also explicitly refer to the color tone of the stalker, wherein the director makes one of the characters refer to how dark skin shouldn’t be a problem in accepting the true louw of our hero, aka creep. It’s as if the director (through the hero) is saying : “ You girls don’t like to be stalked by a dark guy. If he is fair skinned, you wouldn’t have a problem”. Stalkerman Dhanush in Tiruvilayadal aarambam says “Karuppu dhaanga azhagu, vellaya irunda vyaadinga” or something . Dearest thalaivar has an entire segment playing along these lines in Sivaji. There is an insanely catchy song in Kanchana that goes “karuppu pola oru perazhagu boomiyengum illa, nee karnanoada pulla”. “Unakenna venum, vellaya oru thol”. While Rajni’s outburst might have come after some significant courtship period with shobana, it’s still problematic when he slams her for choosing someone with lighter skin.
In Tamil cinema world, being karuppu automatically equates to looking ugly. Now these heroes teach the women they pursue how to look beyond appearance and see their golden heart. True louw, yo. Never let go of her because individuals aren’t entitled to make their own choices or reconsider them. Never let go of her even though she detests every aspect of you as a person. Never let go even if you both have barely met a couple of times. Obviously she hasn’t seen your golden heart deep down inside, which might be the only reason she hasn’t fallen for a darling like you. Oh yes, in the process you will hack her to death for a comment about looks to let her know it’s not all about looks and shit. WOW
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Rahul
July 4, 2016
I think its a fool’s errand to keep arguing that movies do not affect society. The usual apologia works like this – movies aren’t the only reason, not all people are affected similarly, people are assholes to begin with, movies just show what is already happening etc
We call these stars , heroes, we copy their hair styles, the way they talk, walk , dress etc. We use movie songs to eve tease etc
If people want to keep seeing this, the argument should be about freedom of expression, and by the same token, we should judge very harshly stars who continue to glorify such acts on screen.
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Shalini
July 4, 2016
This thread is wreaking havoc with my perceptions of India. I always thought that the South was the more civilized part of the country. After all, isn’t it Delhi, not Chennai, that is considered the rape capital of the nation?
@ Anu – “At least in Hindi films, the glorification of ‘stalking’ as a valid romantic endeavour began only in the late 80s-early 90s. All the Khans have been guilty of acting in such movies, so have the generation of heroes that came after them.”
Hmm. I think the opposite is true and the mid-90s is when Hindi films finally began to move away from equating stalking to courtship. We went from Yash Chopra depicting obsessed voyeuristic creep Rishi Kapoor as the masculine romantic ideal in 1989’s “Chandini” to the same Chopra portraying obsessed voyeuristic creep SRK as the anti-hero in 1993’s “Darr.” Granted there was still some residual sympathy for the stalker in “Darr” but by-and-large the film didn’t root for him – even if large swathes of the audience did.
No, the stalking hero became a staple of Hindi films sometime in the late 60s. And remember the graphic, gratuitous rape scenes that were a fixture of virtually every Hindi movie from the 70s to the 90s? There’s no place for Ranjeet in Hindi movies any more. That’s progress. Indeed, in this one aspect the trajectory of Hindi films offers some hope for Tamil cinema. And yet, violence against women in North India hasn’t abated one whit.
And oh, I also disagree that misogyny in the US manifests itself in the same ways as in India – in pop or “real” culture. The contours of the problem here are quite different, IMO…but that’s a discussion for another time.
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brangan
July 4, 2016
venkatesh: to make cinema or any art form responsible even tangentially to horrific real life incidents like the Swati case is wrong
Absolutely. The comments here are terrific, but most of them are about the commenter’s discomfort with the stalker scenario, rather than how this radiates and becomes the cause for a Ramkumar.
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Aditya (Gradwolf)
July 4, 2016
Actually if I remember correctly the Vijay advice in Sivakasi is even worse.
Rahini: Yes, women stalking instances too definitely exist and I have known some real life stories. Plus there are a handful of films doing the same. But I think it doesn’t have the same impact because it doesn’t come from the character that is driving the story, or in most instances of our mainstream films – the actor and the person who is driving the story. Like I said before, the male gaze is what dominates in these films so the women stalkerish behavior doesn’t become an “influence”, to how much ever degree. That is probably where one can gauge how big or small cinema is as an influence. As people have said before, it is simplification if we boil it down to the whole thing being product of the kind of films and characters that are created. These things exist even without cinema, they might just end up getting the extra nudge coming from the actions of worshiped idols.
As for why are there no anti-stalker films, I am not sure what you mean. If I understand right, won’t these become PSA movies? By making something like that, aren’t we making cinema message driven and adding to the problem? This glorifies X, so let me make something that will tell you about the harms of X – basically watch cinema and learn. If I didn’t get your point right, apologies. Instead of anti-stalker films, we need to make more organic love stories. And we do make them. But just like any other industry, we have our share of bad films.
On a lighter note, I am sure many bad Kamal comedies exist but in the post 90s phase with Crazy Mohan, Singaravelan is definitely better than Thenali in the laugh out loud category.
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venkatesh
July 4, 2016
So which is scarier? That last scene, or this comment below it?
BR : You are giving way too much credit to a YT comment written, by the looks of it, by someone who has the IQ of a minor mollusc on a particularly slow day.
There is a vast subaltern group of Indians who inhabit the internet and roam its pathways bringing down the level of discourse wherever they go. It is impossible to gauge what they mean by their words and actions, you might as well be talking to a bot. Thriving, intelligent communities have dispersed to be never formed again due to this.
This phenomenon is so prevalent that it has a name among forum moderators, Indian invasion , and moderators now take active measures to somehow mitigate the recurring damage caused by this.
So in net, you are reading too much into a comment that doesnt deserve it.
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Rahini David
July 4, 2016
Aditya: Actually someone else asked why there were no anti-stalker movies. I replied to it saying that the demographic that pays for the ticket is predominantly male these days and hence the movies cater to that.
Maybe we do make organic love stories and I just became too jaundiced to know that but I know not of any recently.
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Dr. Srinivas
July 4, 2016
I thought GM was scintillating in SV with his trademark ‘skewering the whole premise of the Film’ mode fully switched on. His ‘Ennaya nee mora ponnu nora ponnu’ still has me guffawing whenever I think about it. What a genius?!
Is it purely business or do the Directors themselves tacitly approve of the misogyny (subtle AND blatant) inherent in most of our Films? Somebody mentioned about ‘lazy Filmmaking’ and the archetypal low class male who ‘makes or breaks Films’. There is one thing that I can’t wrap around my head with.
Recently I saw a few Edward G Robinson Films which I thoroughly enjoyed and it set me thinking. The ‘male female interaction’ has been done to death in our Films. ‘Pure’ genre Films like ‘The Maltese Falcon’, ‘Rififi’, ‘Le Cercle Rouge’ or even a ‘Midnight Run’ are not only well crafted but are immensely entertaining. Most males (Of whatever class) are bound to find it exciting to watch. There are a whole load of things that a male protagonist can be pre-occupied with apart from stalking a member of the opposite sex. This hasn’t been explored enough in our Films. I just saw Mammooka’s ‘Munnariyippu’. What a Film?!
Yes, there are obvious cultural, financial and emotional differences but some things are universal. Is it really impossible to make such Films with a distinct local flavour? It is a genuine question which I had wanted to ask for a long, long time.
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Madan
July 4, 2016
I was going to bring up Singaravelan too. When I saw it as a kid, I thought it was funny. When I watched it again as an adult, I felt uncomfortable about some aspects of the film. Yes, it is weird how the rowdy-ish behaviour of stalking a girl somehow goes hand in hand with sanctimoniously lecturing her about what an Indian woman is supposed to be like. And then Khushboo actually agrees and dresses up in traditional wear for a beautiful IR song to play in the background. Yo, yennaya idhu, just too much!
Some comments compared the evolution of Hindi cinema with that of TFM, making the point that the former has seen a drop in stalker films compared to the latter. But this wasn’t the case even up to the end of the 90s. Even Aamir Khan did the lovable tapori act in Rangeela; he had to, really, to stay ‘relevant’. At the time, you had only single screens so there was really not much elbow room for Hindi filmmakers at the time (one reason why Hindi films in the 90s were generally quite terrible). This changed with the advent of multiplexes. As the tax holiday ended and multiplexes began to price their tickets higher, filmmakers could also afford to market their films for the ‘upwardly mobile’ audience. From what I understand, in TN there is actually a ceiling on the price of cinema tickets? If my understanding is correct, then this should be done away with forthwith and theaters should be allowed to charge the price they see fit. This will allow filmmakers to also make films for different segments of the audience rather than targeting only the young low class male because they will turn up in big numbers (thanks to the affordable tickets).
In general and not only limited to cinema tickets, TN would do well to junk at least some of their price controls and make people more accountable for themselves. How long are the leaders going to use a cocktail of Tamil chauvinism and welfare schemes to cocoon its workforce? About time they prepared them for the jungle out there.,
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Rahini David
July 4, 2016
Venkatesh : I don’t think anyone is opposing the point that it is subjective. It will be. The question is subjectively mild or horrific, what power does the movie have to influence the minds of people and it is pretty much influential.
BR: Just as some others need to come out of their “dhanush is cool”, “vijay is wise ” mindset, you need to step out of “art is sacred ” for a moment to see what movies do to young people.
It may poison only a 1 percent, that seems to be your argument. It poisons 1 percent of every single individual. That is mine. Yes, you and me and singara velan supporters and everyone else is altered in ways that cannot be reversed.
And if you for the past 20 years had been stalked by random strangers and have been TOLD by the stalkers in so many words that they took the cue from movies, would that have had the power to alter you or would you rather literally die in the alter of ART and its beautiful subjectivity?
Sorry if I am harsher than normal. Some things have to be said. For 12 years now I have been discussing this shit with the potential ramkumars of the world. They ARE influenced by movies.
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Madan
July 4, 2016
So..as for the topic at hand, it is not something that can be addressed by censorship, right? Maybe you could twitter bomb superstars the next time they make misogynist statements in the guise of upholding morality and that dreaded thing called ‘Indian culture’. But I am guessing they are too thick skinned/cynical to be bothered by that. So all of this suggests that it is only as symptom of societal dysfunction. So many years have passed and yet the Indian male remains the ladla of ma-baap plus padosi’s eyes while it is the Indian woman who is supposed to be ‘responsible’ and watch out and be careful all the time. Until this fundamental imbalance is acknowledged and addressed, what progress can be really made?
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Aadhi
July 4, 2016
Venkatesh : I could totally relate to your experience, personally. I was almost about to get thrashed by a group of guys from Tirunelveli for talking to one of their ‘ pullais’. I studied in a govt. engineering college near Trichy and we had an inter-department fest. Being part of the organizing committee, I had to scout for female singers in our batch while I was to do the male portions. After someone referred her name, I met her near the canteen and asked whether she could sing with me for the event, and that was it. Twenty minutes later I am accosted by a crowd of fellow students from her native, aggressively admonishing my supposedly indecent behavior. I had to call the dean to get myself out.
All of which is to say that, it’s not only the parents or the college authorities, but also young students in those parts who think that a male-female interaction is a cosmic event that must happen only inside family. Every other female that’s not part of your family becomes your sister. Forget dating, even hanging out with friends, or heck even making friends from the opposite sex is something youngsters in those parts would consider blasphemous. One guy in that group issued me this ultimatum, “Idhelan un Chennai pullainga kita vechiko”. This incident ran all over me after reading that the killer hailed from a south TN village.
P.S : This is not a generalisation. Just one of my experiences which made me form a few opinions about how boy-girl interactions happen (or rather don’t) in south TN.
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Bharath Vijayakumar
July 4, 2016
BR…one of the reasons why I think a film like Appa probably should exist is this. Despite it working only like a moral science class wouldn’t its purpose be served if a few people did take away something from it. While I do agree with everything you said about the film in your review, I still think it is an important film in the context of the debate that you have opened up here. Below is an excerpt from an article that I wrote about the film.
The best part of the film is what it wants to convey about how boy-girl relationships. It makes a point about how inaccessibility to interact with the opposite sex could go a long way in shaping the minds of individuals. A warm handshake and few minutes of interaction is all that is needed to ‘wipe away the dirt’ from one’s mind is what Samuthirakani’s character tells his son.While one could play the devils’s advocate here and question how can ‘an interest in sex’ be classified as dirty, it is quite clear that Samuthirakani is not trying to convey this. In his words in the same scene, it is this inaccessibility which sometimes leads a few to view the opposite gender as a mere medium for sexual gratification, which in turn leads to the dastardly acts we see dominating the headlines these days.The point being made here is very important and relevant. Again this is more through dialogue. But given that the father is trying to imbibe these thoughts in his teenage son, dialogue does seem the most appropriate way. You did have a similar father in Vaaranam Aayiram who asks his son to bring over his girlfriends to his home. Let us go back to the form vs content debate. Not initiating a battle between these 2 films but you would agree that for certain people the message is bound to be more loud and clear in Appa. This ‘certain people’ does not refer to any one of the typical A, B and C centres that the cinema trade classifies its audience into. All kinds of people do exist everywhere and if Appa is able to register this thought in a few, then the existence of this film is very much justified. Whether cinema should educate at the cost of dilution in its form is debatable and a different topic altogether. Because just like many aspects in life, cinema too is relative and what it is to one, it need not be the same to another.
Complete article at
http://www.moviecrow.com/News/12727/thoughts-on-samuthirakanis-appa-and-why-it-is-important
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Shalini
July 4, 2016
“.. most of them are about the commenter’s discomfort with the stalker scenario, rather than how this radiates and becomes the cause for a Ramkumar.”
Perhaps because the mating behaviors of the Tamil cinematic male are not the cause for a Ramkumar. Cinema may amplify elements of a society/culture but it’s not culpable for the actions of an individual. That responsibility has to the reside with the individual.
I can’t on any level buy “the movies made me do it” defense. At least not from an adult. Children are a different matter, but even there the responsibility falls on me, the parent, to filter for appropriateness, not the filmmaker.
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brangan
July 4, 2016
Rahini David: I am not saying that films do not influence people. I am saying that that’s no reason to begin censoring films or editing content, because then you’ll only end up making movies about completely pure people. Art should be made as is, without constraints, and it will be consumed by many people without repercussions. As for the few who pick up aruvaas or whatever, that is unfortunate — but the problem lies with that person and not with the work of art,
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Amit Joki
July 4, 2016
Rahini: First stop harping the tune of me being a Dhanush fan. I won’t smoke just because he does in his movies. I won’t drink liquor just because he does it in his movies. Similarly for Hell’s sake I don’t endorse your so called stalker movies just because Dhanush is in it.
I am his fan because of his acting. I didn’t even like Maari because it was cake walk for him as an actor and I expected more.
Secondly. Please understand what the word stalk means, before using it casually, not knowing it actually means.
From my Orient Longman dictionary Wordmaster Dictionary
Stalk: A person usually of an ABNORMAL condition Of mind, who follows a person(usually a woman) EVERYWHERE and is LIKELY TO HARM THE PERSON.
I can think of two Dhanush films where stalking (according to your vocabulary), is shown.
3 (Three) where he follows Janani. He doesn’t follow her after she confronts him.
Raanjhanaa wherein he follows Zoya and gets slapped. And she says she will continue slapping him and she does.
In both the cases, he is a day schooler. He follows her only in the path to her house. Not every f where, which the definition of stalking is made of.
Do you remember the lengthy reference I made with reference to schools A and B, that you so conveniently ommitted?
That was to highlight that in such a society, one can only meet outside the school and to tell something the girl won’t be waiting in a place for you to talk to her, because it is a taboo to talk even.
Hence the act of following. If girls and boys could talk easily without inhabitions, then no one would need to follow someone to know whether she likes him or not.
It can very well be done inside the classroom. So following is more of a need than want.
So before calling names to films as pro stalker first blame this society. After all films are reflection of our society. I can assure you no films show what is not happening in our society.
For eg: In VIP when Dhanush hides the cigarette packet in the upper slab commenting “intha cigarette dabba va olichu vekka padra paadu iruke”, a whole section of youth behind me shouted at their top of their voices in the second day night show, “sariya sonna thalaivaa”.
Secondly in both the cases the character is in love. Not abnormal.
And thirdly, for the hecks sake, in no scene does he harm her. In no scene does he even threaten her.
So harming part of the definition of stalking clearly missing.
SO the question is, have you ever heard the word FOLLOW? Or is it too mild a term for you to use.
After all pro stalker sounds more sensational than pro follower aint it?
So why do you think I am wrong in showcasing films like Valakku En 18/9 and films where dialogues like “ava enakku kadekila na vera yaarukkum kadeka kudaathu” are spouted wherein both the following part and the harming part is shown and most of the times the attacker gets away owing to his influences.
My theory is people like Ramkumar might have done the same in the hope of being let away but are not mindful of their societal status are no match to ones of the assailants in the movies.
This post would not have arised if he had only followed like Dhanush does in his movies. It is because she is been done to death which is what Valakku En 18/9 and their kind of movies show.
And your tone of “Has anyone seen what Amit has commented” is nothing but calling me out because I am sure people do have eyes and the comments are sequential so they would have to pass by my comment to read the other one..also if possible please do read my comments as if I am a single entity, which I am without the assumptuon that whatever I write carries the influence of Dhanush.
And finallt, for all that is holy, watch the film Thegidi. That is stalking. And don’t resort to fancy words but to politically correct words which mean what they tend to mean and have a clear mind of what stalking is, and what it is not.
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Jagajaga
July 4, 2016
brangan: If you mean that problem lies only (ONLY) with the person, and not with the art, then you’re definitely wrong, per me. The problems lie with both, and both are affected by each other. Its a vicious cycle. How can you completely exonerate art – given the vast reach art has?? The point is repeatedly that if art can affect electoral decisions in this state especially, why not emotions? Why not instigate people to do stuff they otherwise wouldn’t do?? Why do you keep insisting otherwise?
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Rahul
July 4, 2016
Madan , I think the female actors need to be put on the spot more , and should be encouraged for speaking out, putting their foot down – not because they are more responsible, but because they are more sympathetic.
Recently Rima Kallingal gave an interview about this, which is more about sexism behind the scenes but I think that is also related.
Perhaps we can constitute an annual award for the most misogynistic scene, role, song, movie etc.
BR – “but the problem lies with that person and not with the work of art,”
That sounds like a false binary to me.
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udhaysankar
July 4, 2016
Venkatesh and Aditya : What happened was really unfortunate for you guys. But, all such stuff are completely normal for average college guys and girls in Tamil Nadu.
BTW, Definition of a slut/the**duya/item in TamilNadu (most colleges and schools too) :
1) A girl who interacts/talks a lot with all the boys around her. Yeah, you heard that right.
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Jagajaga
July 4, 2016
Brangan: To add further to my comment, if my understanding of what you say is correct when you say “that is unfortunate”, then we just have to live with some shitty people who indulge in crappy stuff, if they happen to be inspired by art. So stuff like this will keep happening, and no art has no role at all in it. On the larger scale of life, such phenomenon will always happen, and they can be safely ignored??
Oh and art is purer-than-thou, always, so it has no role in inducing people. Is it??
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shaviswa
July 4, 2016
@BR yes – I saw that comment too. That is the indoctrination happening to some young men at least. But would these people get influenced only through films? If they have that tendency, they would develop it through some information source. So cannot blame just films.
But Tamil films have taken the underdog wins girl script to new heights. We have so many heroes today using this template. Heck – Udhayanidhi has built a career around stalking women on screen.
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Rahini David
July 4, 2016
Like how you can’t wish away caste and religion, you can not wish away art. Art is large and very disobedient to decencies and by its nature amoral. But it is very much the cause of Ramkumar’s behavior. Unstoppable, yes. But very much the reason why stalking is as common as it is. It is a catalyst. A rather potent one.
It is like liquor and I am not in favour of banning liquor either. But please don’t say liquor doesn’t make bad drivers worse. It does.
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venkatesh
July 4, 2016
Rahini David:The question is subjectively mild or horrific, what power does the movie have to influence the minds of people and it is pretty much influential.
I really cannot agree to this. Where do we draw the line ? What is positive influence ? How do you define negative influence ? Something that influences you positively might not influence me the same way. I mean look at where we are with Mouna Raagam in this post itself, i dont think Mouna Raagam has an iota of stalkerish behaviour but you think it does.
For once, i think i will have to agree with BR, if we go down this route we have to only make films about completely pure people., which could still be considered as negative by some folks.
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Anu Warrier
July 4, 2016
Iswarya, that is even more scary. 😦 Yes, I’ve heard enough of the ‘secret feminist agenda’ to know that it is never anything but pejorative. As Shalini and Aditya pointed out, we need – at grassroots level – to differentiate between reel and real. Especially Aditya’s comment: the right way to go would be to educate young people to differentiate this and in the ways to consume cinema.
Jagajaga I agree with your comment. In a state where film stars are deified, it is not scaremongering to think that films have a huge influence on behaviour.
Rahini, you make valid points.
BR, Shalini, on a rational front, I agree with you: ‘films made me do it’ is not a valid defence at all. But that is cold comfort to the victims of behaviour influenced by the movies. When you know that your words and actions have great influence on your fans, you do need to be more responsible about what you are saying or doing.
BR: From your post on the Tanmay Bhatt-Lata Mangeshkar/Sachin Tendulkar fiasco: But this fracas is also a timely reminder that in a country as diverse as ours, it wouldn’t hurt to be a little – just a little bit – sensitive.
I would extrapolate from this to say, in a country where crime against women is on the rise, and leads to such gruesome assault, don’t you think that filmmakers/actors need to be a little – just a little – more responsible?
Again, I’m not suggesting banning the films, or censoring them, or sticking in a disclaimer at the beginning. As little as anyone else do I like someone preaching at me. But. I am saying that when we glorify certain acts onscreen, we are reaching an audience that doesn’t know there’s another world out there. We are only cementing their belief that this is how the world is, this is how women are, how they must be. This is how real men must behave so that others (read women) admire them, and therefore fall in love with them.
That education, that life is so much more than what they see onscreen, that their heroes may be aspirational, but the characters they play are not (or should not be) – that lesson needs to be taught, and taught soon.
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Iswarya
July 4, 2016
BR: “Art should be made as is, without constraints, and it will be consumed by many people without repercussions.”
Well.. This was along predicted lines. But the questions of sovereignty of art that you are at pains to withhold do not apply to all kinds of films. I’m not brining in a subjective qualitative judgement here. There are directors who brave the censors and all other difficulties to put together a film that represents their vision in as undiluted a form as possible. And then there are those that turn out assembly line products eyeing the easy cash inflow channels by explicit crowd-pleasing, i.e. catering to the potential Ramkumars.
While not banning or unconstitutionally trying to muffle the latter group, why not make their efforts financially unrewarding, using ‘A’ certificate as a serious deterrent? (Of course, there needs to be better enforcement of entry rules in theatres and satellite airing rights, but that’s another discussion.) It’s a business at the end of the day and let makers of dubious products be subject to greater regulation, the way we tax tobacco!
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Anu Warrier
July 4, 2016
Shalini: think of the ultimate stalker from the 50s/60s – Shammi Kapoor. My favourite. Think of him in Dil Deke Dekho or Tumsa Nahin Dekha. Think of Yun toh humne laakh haseen dekha – where he keeps singing at her, even when she’s annoyed. Watching it today, I can’t muster up any great outrage about it. Perhaps because it was Shammi Kapoor? If it was Ranjeet, would I have thought it cute? Or is it because, as I said before, it was a more innocent age? Where even the romance was innocent? And there was a certain respect for the heroine even if she was only arm candy?
When Dev Anand played grey, even immoral characters – he paid for his sins.
However, watch Dil where Madhuri Dixit gets her comeuppance when she fights back against Aamir’s ‘playfulness’, he pretends to rape her, so she can realise the seriousness of rape. What happens? She falls in love with him.
In Baazigar Shahrukh Khan kills a young girl in cold blood to take revenge for his father’s death and his mother’s insanity. So he walks around killing X number of people, but is in the end absolved (even though he dies – some sort of punishment I guess?) because he is ‘good’. (Read this for a hilarious take on the film: https://www.buzzfeed.com/imaansheikh/jo-haar-ke-bhi-jeet-jaye-usse-deluded-kehte-hain?utm_term=.aadmMEmLp#.vqg3Do3Q4)
So also in Darr and Anjaam. He might have been positioned as the ‘anti-hero’ in every single one of them, but the way the films are shot, it is clear that the films’ sympathies lie with the character. Especially in Anjaam, where he is crippled, and the avenging heroine becomes the bad person for killing him.
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venkatesh
July 4, 2016
@Iswarya : Well. But the questions of sovereignty of art that you are at pains to withhold do not apply to all kinds of films. ….
It’s a business at the end of the day and let makers of dubious products be subject to greater regulation, the way we tax tobacco!
If only, Iswarya , if only. Movies are not like cigarettes. Cigarettes have been proven to cause cancer. There is a clear detrimental effect to a human body because of them. Movies , even the ones that are assembly line products have artistic merit to them. Its the subjectiveness.
Unfortunately this is one of those issues where there is no partial. You cant be slightly pregnant , you are all in and censor them or you are all out and take the sovereignty of art as paramount.
p.s : I might not agree with the sentiment however you write very well.
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brangan
July 4, 2016
I can understand people arguing for a total ban on such films. Or the other extreme. What I don’t get is this selective targeting. One man’s irresponsible film is another man’s classic. It is SUCH a slippery slope.
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Radhika
July 4, 2016
We talked about Pudhiya Paadhai in an earlier discussion – to me that is the logical conclusion of the stalker – the belief that the raped girl will marry/love him, because once she is raped, she is “his”. That’s one case where I would have let my anticensorship politics take a backseat.
Iswarya – that’s bleddy scary. It’s very brave – and hopeful – of you, to counsel these confused young men. The irony, as your colleague pointed out, is that treating them as adults who can reason could actually prove to be a problem if they overcome their provicial protocols and perceive you as a threat.
The murder in Nungambakkam was indeed horrific – and as Iswarya pointed out, there is a great systemic complexity to this, not just the impact of movies. It’s tales like this that make me despair about India. Given the economic mess, the looming unemployment – this reminds me of Susan Faludi’s point, in Stiffed, many men defined their masculinity in terms of being a “good provider” for their families, and that the feminist drive for economic equality resulted in a fragile and easily threatened American manhood, so women because the scapegoats for the economic anxiety felt.
The one hope we can cling onto, is that mercifully such cases are not the norm, they are still rare enough that there is a degree of outrage when it occurs. i was quite zapped to read that so many women in scandinavia say they’ve been harrassed or assaulted. Reasons for this included the greater mobility in working women, which meant more exposure with higher risk of sexual harassment, and also that women often have higher education and income levels than their partners, which causes men to feel frustrated and prone to use violence as a way to compensate. So, it’s something that cuts across so many different cultures. Movies may be adding to the surround sound, but they are not the primary cause of such behaviour.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
July 4, 2016
One part of me says that there are millions who watch these films and a mere handful who are inspired to do these things, so the problem lies not with the film but with the individual, who clearly needs psychiatric intervention.
Couldn’t agree more with you on this. I’m appalled by some of the comments posted here – why Tamil cinema and the kalacharam are to be wholly blamed for everything? May be, such incidents happen frequently in Chennai or perhaps majority of your readership comes from the Tamil diaspora. What about Telugu cinema that predominately makes the ‘taming an arrogant bitch’ kinda films? Bollywood is even worse. I believe the Tamil filmmakers (even the masala ones) are somewhat sensible.
All that said, I do agree that some films have had an impact in the lives of youngsters. If not for such films, words like ‘figureu’, ‘item’, ‘mokka’, ‘adangu’, ‘adhuppu’, et al., wouldn’t have found a place in the Tamil dictionary!
Thanks for bringing up Mouna Ragam into the discussion. I wonder how come an econometrics student falls for a good-hearted thug in quick time.
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Iswarya
July 4, 2016
I repeat I am not for banning. Freedom of expression, for all kinds of art, ought to be upheld. But why provide tax cuts to films that typically glorify criminal behaviour? Why provide them the financial incentive?
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RohaN
July 4, 2016
Great discussion, thanks.
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Iswarya
July 5, 2016
Just to clarify, I was not talking about selectively exempting some movies from tax. Maybe I muddled the phrasing. I meant, make the glorification of stalking one of the criteria for awarding the ‘A’ certificate for all movies that do it. The distinction I was actually making was that, despite this certification, films such as Guna – a genuine, non-Everyman, character study of a sociopath – would be made, ignoring the tax difficulties. And that is fine. But the ruling will keep out the easy panderers. That’s what I meant.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
July 5, 2016
On a lighter note, I am sure many bad Kamal comedies exist but in the post 90s phase with Crazy Mohan, Singaravelan is definitely better than Thenali in the laugh out loud category.
Aditya: I remember a discussion in a Tamil movie forum which I read long ago. The topic was about the best comedian in Tamil cinema. When there was a repeated mention of Kamal’s name, somebody came up with this: ‘Kamal Haasanukku iyalbaga nagaichuvai varum enbadhe oru nagaichuvaiyana vishayam.’
To me, his best comedies are SV and SL. Panchathanthiram is his worst to date. I wonder what makes many people like the film.
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Iswarya
July 5, 2016
venkatesh: Thanks. 🙂
Honest Raj: All that said, I do agree that some films have had an impact in the lives of youngsters. If not for such films, words like ‘figureu’, ‘item’, ‘mokka’, ‘adangu’, ‘adhuppu’, et al., wouldn’t have found a place in the Tamil dictionary!
Talking about the influence of films on vocabulary, I’m not at all surprised and I’m not saying it’s always a bad thing. One amusing instance of this was when I casually used the word “Appa Tucker” to describe some phony mountebank-ish doctor to my 87-year-old grandpa, and he seemed to quickly pick up the word, later using it to describe the same person to my granny. My granny’s reaction was priceless! 😀
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Ravi K
July 5, 2016
Cinema is influential, but it’s not like films are turning otherwise good guys into stalkers and misogynists. These films tap into something that is already exists in the culture and are an extension of the culture.
One issue here is why young men are so damn obsessed with cinema and their heroes. Are they sublimating some sexual aggression they have pent up because their society discourages open interaction between the sexes? These rasigar mandrams are exclusively male, made of adults obsessed with their favorite stars in a way that’s pretty disturbing. Maybe if men and women were allowed to simply talk to each other openly the guys wouldn’t be doing stupid shit like performing paalabhishekam to cutouts of their favorite stars. Women don’t do this, probably because they have no powerful female cinematic role models, and also because they have more sense 😛
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venkatesh
July 5, 2016
But why provide tax cuts to films that typically glorify criminal behaviour? Why provide them the financial incentive?
Because tax cuts are applied on a completely different metric. “U” certified, Tamil titled film from a major producer means it gets a tax cut.
How do you apply a metric like “Is this film enabling stalkerish behaviour?” for tax cuts ? Where does a vigorous courter become a stalker ? What about behaviour where a female says no while meaning yes, how do you portray this naturally ? What about situations where a female keeps saying no and then changes it to yes , and yes that happens in real life ?
There is no end to these variations and we already have a censor board with too much power manned by gents with the collective brain power of a drug addled fish.And in all fairness, the test of “Stalker behaviour portrayed in cinema” is extremely subjective. So, no.
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Rahul
July 5, 2016
BR -” What I don’t get is this selective targeting. One man’s irresponsible film is another man’s classic. It is SUCH a slippery slope.”
Well of course, it is a given that OPINIONS will be SUBJECTIVE, that is true BY DEFINITION.
But reducing this argument ENTIRELY to subjectivity is , well, reductive. Are you saying that there can not be a REASONABLE CONSENSUS , (not a UNANIMOUS AGREEMENT) in MOST cases ? There will always be BOUNDARY conditions that we will always split hairs about , and there will be situations that we largely agree are reprehensible, and should not be glorified.
Taking this ahead preemptively, there will be people like us, and there will be people like them ( the institutionalized religious brigade) Can we not build a consensus between people like us? After all, we are not going to pass a law on this, we are condemning on a blog , and wherever else we can.
( Caps do not denote shouting, just emphasis)
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Iswarya
July 5, 2016
Shalini: I can’t on any level buy “the movies made me do it” defense. At least not from an adult. Children are a different matter, but even there the responsibility falls on me, the parent, to filter for appropriateness, not the filmmaker.
But parents need to be equipped with the right kind of information about upcoming movies to make the proper choices right? Do you think our current certification standards are any good? We don’t have the IMDB-level information on any Tamil movie that comes out. And further, how much control do you think the parents of these misguided teenagers have on their movie-watching choices?
Agreed that all these factors are outside the filmmaker’s control, the filmmaker still has control over what s/he chooses to celebrate and a rough idea of which “target audience” s/he intends to please.
P.S. I used that “s/he” as a matter of habit, but realised that women filmmakers are such a rarity here that the usage only smacks of political correctness or virtue-signalling! 😦
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Gowtham Sivakumar
July 5, 2016
Yes, people do get influenced from art/movies and Art/movies should be made without any censorship.
But are movies being made as it should be?One of kodambakkam’s popular filmmaker in a reality show asked a young aspiring filmmaker to watch more movies to get cues (he was referring to content and form). Why not ask him to read literature or observe everyday life.
When a scene(good/bad) clicks with the audience, there’s a tendency to beat that trope to death. I don’t know what makes filmmakers think that some scenes are necessary for a film’s success, or do producers demand it. Scenes are inspired from content that’s already been on screen(good and bad). The countless misogyny, sarakku and ava emathita scenes that we see on screen aren’t any different from one another. More often than not you know what’s coming. Your mind gets conditioned on what to expect and probably makes one, growing up around this kind of cinema, believe such trash is the norm.
I think the misogyny depicted on screen aren’t inspired from reality. Arguably it might be a case of the opposite, an oft depicted ill trope being thought of as the norm. Much like the thali and haunted house.
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sachita
July 5, 2016
I am having trouble to refer to this whole this thing as repeatedly just art. This is just commercial template.
Stalking of a fair skinned girl by a dark skinned boy with no reliable qualification followed by rejection which is followed by tasmac song followed by her realization of his love( as you know depth=love) is a formula. This formula is repeated in so many films – it is not one off incident.
This is pandering for commercial purpose to please an audience that is bound to do repeated viewing.
If it is one off a film like Kadhal kondein or few films that is ok. But this is pretty much only type that exists.
And I am not asking for a ban on them.
But really hope there is social protest enough to call the filmmakers out on their opinions on this. Just like they enjoyed the box office success by pandering let them also answer the critical opinions on this. A democratic protest.
Cinema is a commerical medium if there was enough opposition they would modify the story line to do that too. It is just one template, modifying it once in one film should be enough to carry out to others.
Does that mean no stalking will occur after that? ofcourse no. but you try every bit to reduce it, isnt it?
And what is wrong with PSA films? Not all films should be PSA films but if some films are PSA what is wrong with that?
The film still should be well made, engaging. Not an excuse to be a boring one. Not referring to the radhamohan/ prakash raj/ samuthrakani types do. Their PSA itself is extremely flawed. On top of that, they make it boring too.
Even open critical thinking.
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Shalini
July 5, 2016
@Amit Joki – You seem like a thoughtful young man and I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but your comments diminishing “following” are disturbing. I’d wager that almost every woman reading or commenting on this blog has been a target of that sort of behavior at one point or another in her life. I’d also bet that none of us would describe the experience in terms even remotely connoting enjoyment. Having a guy following you around is scary, dude.
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ThouShaltNot
July 5, 2016
Is it open season on characters played by Dhanush? Let me pile on 🙂 Watch this clip from “Thiruda Thirudi”. No matter that Chaya Singh here gives as good as she gets. In its entirety, is there a song with more abysmal lyrics than this ?
Rasanai-kku Govindaa dhaan!!
On the issue of censorship, here is an excerpt from a 1971 article on the topic by Irving Kristol.
“…After all, if you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you have also to believe that no one was ever improved by a book. You have to believe, in other words, that art is morally trivial and that education is morally irrelevant. To be sure, it is extremely difficult to trace the effects of any single book (or play or movie) on any reader. But we all know that the ways in which we use our minds and imaginations do shape our characters and help define us as persons…”
It should be possible to get to an approximate point on the spectrum (different for each) instead of answering the question of being for or against censorship.
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Shalini
July 5, 2016
@Anu – I think we’re in general agreement, just quibbling at the corners. If I may distill our respective arguments – you’re saying that misogyny reached its nadir in Hindi Films in the 90s, while I feel they were starting to turn the corner on it. We may both be right! 🙂
I do disagree with the contention that there was something new or unprecedented about how misogynistic behavior was rewarded on screen in the 90s. Mads falls in love with pretending-to-rape-her-Aamir in Dil? Well what about “Chor Machaye Shor” with it’s actually-attempted-to-rape-Mumtaz hero Shashi Kapoor? Is he not rewarded with her love? How about “Khilona” where hero Sanjeev Kumar does rape Mumtaz(poor Mumu!) but still gets her and a bow-tied happy ending? Or let’s go to the granddaddy of them all – 1954’s “Amar” with the great thespian himself, Dillip Kumar as the rapist hero. Certainly no punishment for him. Again, I think romance became significantly less hostile for women in Hindi films circa “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.” But we can agree to disagree on this.
@Iswarya – I think your suggestion for a more rigorous certification process for movies is a good one. In the US, film reviews not only give you a movie’s run time and rating, but also provide short descriptors of why it received that rating. Something like – rated PG-13 for mild language, adult themes, and cartoonish violence. Would something like that help in India?
I wasn’t getting the reference to Tanmay Bhatt/Sachin/LataM till I poked around on the blog and found BR’s post. Holy, cognitive dissonance! So, BR takes an absolutist, no-constraints-on-art-or-artists-ever stance – except when a low-grade comedian lobs lame insults at insanely privileged and powerful individuals like Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar? My head needs to go lie down.
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Iswarya
July 5, 2016
Amit Joki: Here are a few definitions of stalking/stalker etc. See how much the average Dhanush movie matches this behaviour:
As per the entry in Oxford dictionary:
Stalking – the crime of following and watching somebody over a long period of time in a way that is annoying or frightening
Stalk – 1.1 Harass or persecute (someone) with unwanted and obsessive attention
This is from the Cambridge English Dictionary:
Stalker – a person who illegally follows and watches someone, especially a woman, over a period of time
Or here is Merriam Webster’s:
To stalk – to follow, watch, and bother (someone) constantly in a way that is frightening, dangerous, etc.
See, the focus is on “annoying,” “frightening,” “dangerous,” “unwanted attention” etc. So, you will pretty much have to take the woman’s word for it when she says she feels annoyed or threatened. But think of any movie like Thiruvilayaadal Aaarambam, Padikkadhavan, Aadukalam, Kutty etc. I have not watched all Dhanush movies, but you get the idea. It is really, really hard to defend Dhanush on this particular count and if you take the liberal doses of misogyny, with Devathaiyai Kanden as Exhibit A, you will see why people are so outraged with your favourite hero. Frankly, I think he is a good actor too, but that’s not where the problem lies. His fan base has not been built on people’s objective admiration of his acting skills. If that were the case, Maari as you pointed out would have tanked as just a lazy job and Mariyaan would have been a box-office hit. The bulk of his fan base constitutes deluded youngsters to whom he is the aspirational model for all the wrong reasons.
Just to give you a perspective on the gravity of the problem, think of how many “killer pick-up lines” (according to Kollywood wisdom) have been spouted by Dhanush (and other heroes too, of course) on screen: “paaka paaka dhaan pudikkum,” “I am love you,” “engala love panradhu unga kadamai,” and so on. These catch on with the quality of memes. Now, look at the other end of it: how many effective put-downs can you find in the movies that women could readily use to repel annoying advances? I’m casting my mind back to the days when we (silly schoolgirls as we were) thought saying, “Poyaa, po!” with a hand stretched out a la Sadha in Jayam was the ultimate catch-all phrase of dismissal. cringes 😀
I am not saying that women in general have such impoverished vocabulary that they have to resort only to quoting movie lines to drive home their point. But think of what else these movie-crazed idiots with no reality-check would understand.
And finally, since you brought up Thegidi of all films, the hero there is not an unemployed/uneducated wastrel stalking a woman around and harassing her. He does “follow” her (using this word as per your suggestion) because it is a professional assignment given to him. Even there, he regrets creating a bad impression about himself even when she is a complete stranger and no romantic feelings have been hinted at. Most significantly of all, Thegidi released exactly during the time when I was stuck in the small town I spoke of earlier and I even asked some of the boys whether they would watch a film like that. The answer came out unanimously: “Adhu mokka padam madam, waste hero, no mass…” I did catch the film in that small town theatre in a nearly empty hall. Four days after release, the movie was taken off the screens in that theatre and they went back to running shows of Veeram at discounted ticket rates. Make of that what you will. 🙂
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Madan
July 5, 2016
Rahul: I agree. But hand in hand, isn’t it high time more native Tamil actresses got roles? Why exactly does TF need Punjabi imports? I have nothing against actresses speaking another language acting in Tamil films but I think we all know the ones in question were mostly hired for their skin tone. So what can be done to discourage this trend? Boycott, that is the only solution. In an earlier thread about misogyny in Rajnikanth films too, I had proposed a boycott of his films to drive home the message and people were reluctant to go along with it, mostly because they are needy and would like to have entertainment from their favourite superstar but also on their terms. Sorry it doesn’t work like that. If you really have strong convictions on this subject, you should not watch films that celebrate misogynistic attitudes and contribute to their success. And it is not a given that such films will succeed even so. If the entire ‘liberal’ middle class doesn’t watch, it will dent their numbers. And hand in hand go out and watch films that handle the female characters in a sensitive way.
But if people don’t actually feel strongly enough about this subject to be able to even curtail a guilty pleasure, then they cannot also bloody well ask for bans and what not. Just as somebody else cannot be held responsible for an adult’s choices, nobody is forcing you to watch such films. There are ample avenues of entertainment today. Practice a boycott for five years. It will bear fruit. The most powerful form of feedback is voting with your feet.
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Madan
July 5, 2016
@ Iswarya: “But why provide tax cuts to films that typically glorify criminal behaviour” – Well, let’s take this a step further. Why provide tax cuts for having pure Tamizh film names in the first place? Why tax cuts for films at all? It’s an entirely capitalist venture done to provide entertainment; is entertainment really an essential good? I think this sort of ties in what BRangan has also been saying. We don’t really need to pick and choose here. The fact is some of the laws pertaining to films in the state of TN are very irrational and need to be done away with in toto. In Maharashtra, the govt only stepped in to support Marathi films when they were at the brink of getting obliterated by Bollywood and even then the subsidy remains very low at 30 lakhs (that is that it doesn’t encourage producers to splurge money). Now of course that 30 lakhs could be better spent on so many other things but at least the need for such support is better established in the case of Marathi films. What is the big threat Tamil films are facing? Mostly just the non existent strawman of the Phoren/North Indian assault. An industry that makes films on a multi crore budget can’t seriously be in an existential crisis and doesn’t need govt subsidies or incentives of any sort. If at all they want to support smaller filmmakers, they can provide a subsidy for films made within a 7 digit figure budget or something along those lines.
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sanjana
July 5, 2016
Do they provide tax cuts to such films? On what basis?
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venky
July 5, 2016
I found this update doing the rounds in Facebook:
“An average Ramkumar is born in a modest suburban town in the interiors of TN. An average Ramkumar goes to a boys school that segues into a co-ed college, but with severe “boys-girls-no-talk” restrictions. The average Ramkumar hasn’t spoken to girls, doesn’t understand the aspirations and ambitions of a modern urban bred girl. That average Ramkumar has grown up watching films where an uneducated hero woos a fair skinned, educated, urban woman by relentless stalking and pestering and he comes to believe he certainly stands a chance. The average Ramkumar is brought up in a highly patriarchal and misogynistic society, where the status of a woman is a notch below that of men and the women are brought up only to be married off. Also the average Ramkumar listens to post breakup songs like “Adi da Avala, Odha da Avala” and “Indha pombalaiga ippadi dhan purinjupochu da”. To the average Ramkumar, a “no” coming from the girl, infuriates him to no end. An average Ramkumar isn’t a serial killer, he is no terror threat, but he’s just a by product of this fucked up society. And mind you, there are scores of such Ramkumars dotting the country. Would the jails hold them all? Should we build more prisons? Or do we build a better, free thinking, educated society?”
As a matter of fact, I was an average Ramkumar as well, when I was growing up.
I was born in Chennai, not in the interiors of TN. I studied in a Government Boys school in which “co-ed” meant 3 girls for 65 boys. I did look up to women as Unknown Living Objects. May be, I knew little bit more, as I had an elder sister at home. I grew up watching Tamil Movies, especially Rajini’s movies. By the time I finished my 12th, I decided, enough of Tamil Nadu. You know, It was that “What-the-Fish-in-a-small-pond-thing”.
I went to study Engineering at NIT Surat. However, I did go to my college carrying all the troublesome cultural baggage I had brought from Chennai. I carried regressive beliefs like a) If a women goes out with a guy, definitely, she is in love with him b) A woman’s “No” is a post-dated cheque waiting to be encashed as “Yes”.
Thankfully, I unlearned and learned and moved on to become someone else.
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Rahini David
July 5, 2016
Amit Joki: Thanks for the English classes. Nice to know that if I am not harmed I am not stalked and that I am only followed and all is well and good.
And don’t resort to fancy words but to politically correct words which mean what they tend to mean and have a clear mind of what stalking is, and what it is not.
Well ok. Thanks.
Dear others,
What do the rest of you make of this comment? And for the record, I never said that movies are not reflecting what the society already has. Only that it glorifies ….um… following.
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sanjana
July 5, 2016
The girl is no more. The controversy is still brewing. The perpetrator is spinning stories to get off the hook. The judges may take a lenient view because it is his first offence. His caste people may support him. Some film makers must be already thinking of making this a film and earning some quick bucks. Only the poor father has to bear the brunt of losing a daughter and getting unwanted publicity.
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sanjana
July 5, 2016
http://www.bombaytimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Rating-no-bar-Family-outings-at-Adult-movies-with-cranky-kids/articleshow/53049154.cms
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P
July 5, 2016
I was 5 when I watched Darr. Came home and told my mom that I want to be just like Rahul cause his was the purest love. One tight slap and lecture about “what true love is” later, my mom decided to never let me watch the film again.
I watched it again very recently as an adult, and was absolutely creeped out by Rahul. SRK’s most maginificient peice of art- no doubt about that- but I found the character itself both pitiable and sickening.
I now know why mom policed the art around me so very strictly when I was a kid. Wish all parents did that. I recently went for a 11.30 pm show of Hateful Eight and there was an 8 year old kid in it. I saw him walking around shocked senseless during the break. What parents are these?!
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sanjay2706
July 5, 2016
Excellent debate and interesting comments! I believe that the movies that have been constantly filled with “stalker” love stories are slowly but surely influencing the youngsters in TN.With that premise, how do we solve the problem? There are multiple ways and different stakeholders here.
1) Government needs to step up security. We need more cctv cameras and more security in railway stations. Is it achievable? It is. Let the government increase their budget spending on this aspect. Less freebies and more security sounds like a better approach right!
2) We need to be aware and conscious of stalking incidents that we witness at times. Most of us are ignoring the fact that the young woman could have seen saved if someone had acted quickly. There is an ominous combination of fear and a lack of care of strangers in us. This is as serious an issue as stalking.
If you notice something or see something wrong, please report it to the police. Maybe discuss with the woman and get to more information on the stalker before jumping to conclusions. We need to be proactive in order to stop these crimes.
3) Finally, can the real film industry please stand up? Let the thalaivars,thalapathies, thalas, thalaivis, revolutionaries, rowdy police, siripu police, nermayana police etc, and others take a stand on this and have a discussion with all the film makers. Remember some “nadigar sangam” election that was conducted with a laughable hype? What are these sangams for? Can they have meetings and discussions where they can ask the film makers to be a little, just a little sensitive about these things. If a leading actor can give up smoking in order to be socially responsible, then I can think actors can give up stalking, or at least reduce these stalker plots and subplots from movies. We can’t ban any movie. I understand that there is freedom of speech in this country, but having a discussion and trying to make films that don’t influence youngsters in a bad way is an important step that the film industry needs to make. Why is it that the industry stands up for “Macro” issues like the SL genocide or the Kauvery water issue? But shy away from “micro” issues? Are they naive to think that films do not influence these acts? Or are they too smart to accept that films inspire these acts and it’s better not to do anything about it?
Maybe because there is a profit motive and they need to pander to the youth of TN.
Can BRangan and other educated people take this up with the industry? We need some sane voices! We might not end up reducing these kind of violent acts, but the least that the industry can do is to have a discussion?
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sanjay2706
July 5, 2016
To add to my points, One must analyze why we have the “stalking” plots or subplots? One of the reasons could be the one that I mentioned earlier that the film makers pandering to the masses. There could also be one more reason, lack of good screenwriting skills. It should be a no brainer that one needs conflicts in scenes to make it interesting. So when we talk about conflict, the only conflict that film makers can think of is “boy meets girl, girl don’t like, boy pursues, girl like”. The conflict can never be the fact that she might be in an abusive relationship, she just isn’t interested in love, she is into girls. None of these real life possibilities. every leading actress is single and available at that point, and is dumb enough to succumb to the stalking. Notice how the “loosu ponnu” syndrome, misogyny and the purity of the woman leads to the same stalker plots which in turn influence youngsters. God save Tamil Cinema! I cry out “Intha aniyayathai nidatha oruthan varuvan da!” Unfortunately no smash cut to the hero after this dialogue! Coz there ain’t one!
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Aditya (Gradwolf)
July 5, 2016
I am with venkatesh on this. Once you start arbitrarily enforcing rules like levying tax or giving a different rating for “films that glorify some criminal behavior” it becomes too much of a slippery slope. As it is our censor board is arbitrary. This will lead to more arm twisting from the political side of things and curbing of FoS on the creative side of things. If there is a tax based solution to this, someone like M. Rajesh is going to find a loophole in it and continue to make the same mistakes or same kind of films. He is not going to learn or correct his ways. But seriously, at the risk of repeating myself, all we can do is take the long but not so scenic route – educate, register dissent. It rests with the audience – from all walks of life and all classes – for the kind of films they appreciate or want to see, it may also rest with critics and analysts and intellectuals to comment on what is consumed, how it is consumed and what is right or wrong with a piece of art. You have to deal with this problem the same way people of a peaceful, democratic country deal with their government and the way a country is run (in the ideal case :), this hardly happens is another thing!). It’s about going for the bigger picture – a time when we DON’T have to talk about censoring or levying higher taxes on such subjects because we have the confidence in our artists and the people who consume it. For example, now we talk about effects of plastic consumption and disposal or the problem with noisy firecrackers or – like a discussion I was having with a friend – the use of the word “raped” in sports headlines that has markedly reduced or outraged at, when it occurs. The aim is to evolve, not to respond by tying our hands and legs so that we don’t end up doing something stupid. There is also how we deal with it in our daily life (just like the examples mentioned above) – We had one Rajini/misogyny post in this blog. Something like that has to become routine in conversations – when we see Padaiyappa on KTV, everyone starts tweeting – YES! YAY! Padaiyappa on KTV, oonjal scene5 exclamation marks. But there should also be a conversation about the dialogs of Padaiyappa or Baasha when the films are on TV. In case someone blames me for bias, same thing for Singaravelan, like Rahini said. Talking about the problems, the realization of those problems after growing up, after education. And not just on the internet. In households, with family, with friends, with colleagues and subordinates or people who work for you. The same thing when we celebrate Goundamani’s jokes for example and celebrate his genius – enjoying the harmless jokes are all fine but when you find an offensive joke, talking about it and pointing out the problems is a start.
(Also, I did say I strongly oppose mixing ideology and criticism and I stand by it. Like Venkatesh said, what if the movie is about a stalker. Or the movie is about a misogynist. It is very important to realize where ideology ends and a more transparent, creative universe begins. It is important to recognizing when a piece of art is telling a story, what it is condoning or not condoning etc.)
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Iswarya
July 5, 2016
Madan/Aditya: We are all on the same page w.r.t the bigger picture. On the one hand, the society in general has to grow less regressive, get over the usual hangups and move on. Great. I think I have already emphasised this, and the focus on films here is only because that’s the topic of discussion. If this had been an education-related forum, I would probably be spending my energies making out a case against the gender bias in colleges and so on.
On the other hand, we need some serious steps to be taken to put some sanity back into the filmmaking business by ensuring the following: a) That ticket prices are not controlled by any regulatory authority (It’s a free market, for goodness’ sake!) b) Films need to be only rated, not “censored” – with IMDb level specification on the reasons for the rating c) Ratings need to be enforced seriously: Theatres and TV have to have clear rules of admission/primetime airing regulations to keep adult/dubious content away from impressionable kids/youngsters d) People need to boycott films that they believe to be abhorrent. Voting with our feet is what really works e) No exemption must be made for movies of any sort – it’s not a threatened business that needs public subsidies f) Loopholes in the revenue channels of filmmakers need to be plugged so that indie filmmakers who are sick of formulaic fare have a chance at bringing something new on board. Look at what Karthik Subburaj is going through and we see how the overall movie industry actually works like a crime cartel!
Having said all of that, I want you folks to recognise that we are talking about an ideal, if not utopian, solution. Please don’t think I’m pulling out the woman card here, but even as I engage in this kind of an intellectual(?) exchange with completely decent people like you on board, I am constantly aware that the larger world around me doesn’t give a shit about what lofty thoughts I might be carrying in this head of mine, attached inconveniently to a woman’s body. [Pardon my French.. Those who know me can vouch that I don’t generally swear.] When I log off and step out on the street, I have to look over my shoulder for any two-bit retard who might start “following” me around, having had his fantasies stoked by movies that brainwashed him into thinking he had a chance of impressing me.
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anon
July 5, 2016
I am the father of a college going daughter. Like many parents, I want to bring-up my daughter as a confident , brave, ready-face-life challenges-person. I encourage her to have wide variety of life experiences, under parental supervision ; she has been growing up to be good brave ponnu (opposite of loosu ponnu); she is also a voracious reader.
I want to share a recent incident. I have encouraged her to bring her class friends (boys and girls) to come home on occasions , play games , cut (home made) cakes, have good home made food; I and my wife play the role of genial hosts (GVM parents like) and take a back seat during their energetic celebrations; some times, I am also asked to their chauffeur, drive them to malls / movies and drop them back in the to hostel , after a good home-cooked food.
One of the boys turned out as a stalker; harassing my daughter for commitment , asking her not to be friendly with others etc; my daughter politely and firmly refused; this boy became more strident – stalking her in virtual and physical worlds, with higher degree of vengeance.
When things were getting worse, I met the College Principal (belongs to S V Ranga Rao Gen) ; I narrated the sequence and requested for his help in giving safe and secure environment for my daughter to come to college. He told me this : ‘ romba liberalla irukkaathinga ….intha friends ellam veetuku kooti vandhu , sappadu podaratha niruthunga….(stop being liberal, stop feeding them home food)…..and he went give me lecture on how difficult helpless he is as the Principal…
With incidents like this, I am just wondering…what more I need to do as a parent ? become a vigilante (anniyan?)
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Rahini David
July 5, 2016
Iswarya: As I was listening to “Hello miss imsaiyea”, I was heard the line “Time enna ketta, alaiyura manamea; Oru murai ketta; alaiyura thinamea” and I remember thinking this is the FIRST time apart from “Mothu mothu nu mothanum” where a woman’s thought of the whole stalking/eveteasing situation is given a rhyming line set to music. But we get “Oh party nalla party thaan” type songs every other week.
And the popularity of the line “Love Panra Mathiri Paapingalam Love Panra Mathiri Pesuvingalam …” was astounding. I heard that the line became popular before the actual release of the movie. Not sure if that is true.
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Srinivas R
July 5, 2016
@anon – very sad to hear that, you do your best to create a good environment for your daughter and end up at receiving end of “useful advice”. I think, and I know it’s easy for me to say this but difficult to follow, you should register a police complaint. You need to let the world know that you are not going to “adjust” and let it go.
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Iswarya
July 5, 2016
Rahini: True. That’s why I feel the need for more women filmmakers CANNOT BE OVEREMPHASISED.
anon: Bravo, sir, for the kind of father you are. May your tribe increase! And frustrating as it is, we can only wait for the rest of the moronic world to grow up. But we could demand, for a minimum, that taxpayers are not obliged to subsidise the toxic garbage that comes out in the name of movies. When a JIgarthanda, Onaayum Aatukuttiyum, or heck, even, Kalyana Samayal Saadham could be made boldly foregoing tax benefits, there is no reason a Boss Engira Baskaran or Kutty should be exempted from heavy taxes!
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shaviswa
July 5, 2016
@anon – that is scary indeed. Despite the precautions you took, it is sad that the kid had to resort to this.
And that Principal needs to be educated. Seriously lacking in identifying the issue and he has ended up solving the wrong problem.
BTW which state/city did you face this? Chennai? Just checking to see if this problem is restricted to Chennai or it is countrywide.
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Anu Warrier
July 5, 2016
Holy, cognitive dissonance! So, BR takes an absolutist, no-constraints-on-art-or-artists-ever stance – except when a low-grade comedian lobs lame insults at insanely privileged and powerful individuals like Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar? My head needs to go lie down.
Yup! Mine did, as well. 🙂
Shalini: The greater picture – yes, I think we’re more or less on the same page where ‘stalking masquerading as love’ is concerned.
As for Amar, Chor Machaye Shor, Khilona et al are concerned. I’m not saying it wasn’t there before. Or that they are exempt from revulsion. I’m saying they were few and far between. Of the lot, Chor Machaye Shor was completely misogynistic; Khilona, I found horrible because she essentially falls in love with her rapist. Of the lot, Amar is one that I can excuse completely because it was a psychological drama, and looked at it from the perspective of the man who committed rape. There was no glorification of what he did; there is guilt, there is admittance of fault. Yes, it was a morally weak hero, but I definitely didn’t see misogyny there.
Iswarya: Since I can’t ‘like’ any comment here, I’m taking the liberty to write it out – I liked your comments, and as a woman, I know where you’re coming from. Both from the ‘ideal’ world you would like to inhabit, and from the real world in which I have to look at a stranger with suspicion. I don’t think it’s ‘pulling out the woman card’ to say that the situation is very hard to understand if you are not a woman.
Gradwolf:: I agree with you that the long, not-so-scenic route is the way to go to teach our young men and women how to consume cinema. In an ideal world, yes. What are we to do in our present, flawed world where hundreds (and I’m not exaggerating) of women are targeted by men who think they are owed something? How many Nirbhayas, how many Swatis, how many other nameless women should lose their lives before we say, ‘Enough’?
In general:: Like Iswarya, I’m not asking for a ban. I’m not saying censorship. I’m asking, sincerely, what is the solution? Do we have intellectual discussions, debate this up one side and down the other, when there is another young woman out there who is getting acid thrown at her because a young man is furious that she ‘betrayed’ him by not accepting his love? Do we sit back and say, no, films are not responsible, individuals are, when another woman is brutally gang-raped? Do we say that films reflect society, not the other way around even when we are faced with many hundreds of examples where films subliminally endorse the message that this is the way ‘real men’ behave? That this is the way a ‘real woman’ should behave? How long do we keep quiet because ‘Art’?
What is the soiution?
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Anu Warrier
July 5, 2016
Amit Joki: I wanted to call out your first comment itself, then decided against it. But no, I didn’t skip past it. I found it disturbing, especially because you are, self-admittedly, a teenager, and of the demographic that we are talking about. You diminish stalking and following because the girl is not harmed? Do you know, from a girl’s perspective, how annoying, how irritating, how creepy – and after a few times, how frightening – it is to be followed around? Do you think any normal girl likes this sort of attention? Most of us here, whether from rural or urban backgrounds, have been followed when we were in schools and colleges. Quite a few of us have been stalked to our homes and working women’s hostels when we were working. It is NOT fun, it is NOT playful, it is NOT acceptable. I don’t care if it is the men’s idea of ‘love’. It is not mine, and I’ll wager it is not most women’s.
When a woman (many women here) tell you that ‘following’ with or without physical harm is annoying, please do us the courtesy of accepting that we mean it. And if you don’t believe us, please read anon’s story above of being the father of a daughter who is being stalked. His daughter is not being ‘harmed’ either, if you think ‘harm’ only means being assaulted, raped or murdered. Yet, I will argue that she is harmed in many, many ways that are not apparent to you. Anon is living the consequences of the harm that his daughter is going through.
Anon: I applaud you for bringing your daughter up in such a way. I applaud you for your support of her. I’ll add my voice to those who advise you to file a police complaint. Please don’t take this stalking lightly.
Rahini: Just because I didn’t call this out, didn’t mean I thought Amit was right. I was trying to respond to too many different points at the same time. I appreciate your calling it out, and I agree with you. I wanted you to know that, not just as a private email.
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Raj
July 5, 2016
@BR: You should have added Stalking in your previous article ” Crime Does Pay”. In Tamil movies “Stalking” a crime IMO does pay big time for the hero and he never repents about it…
Sethu IMO was one of the most dangerous stalking movie– The hero almost throws a stone on the girl to force her to fall in love–How much more violent can you show the advances?
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Amit Joki
July 5, 2016
Shalini: You make a great point. I would be afraid if a guy followed me too. I seem to have been shadowed by the way our heroines react.
Ishwarya: Your comment is making sense to me now. I would agree that those dialogues are there to appease the male section of the audience.
But I am love you is making fun of his English I guess.
Also, there are lines for girls too. “Hello brother, enakku already aal irukku” and saying “anna” with a poker face would put off me.
So an ideal director’s checklist is
1. Make sure the love interest is next door girl, so stalking is out of equation.
2. Leave her if she says no the first time.
3. Or make the girl fall in love at first so anything is acceptable.
4. Best is to not have a romantic angle at all just for touching the 2 hour mark.
So if love is portrayed as per my checklist, is it okay or not? Please feel free to add more.
Rahini: I was just putting my point across. I will never be of your stature to teach you anything.
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Amit Joki
July 5, 2016
Anu Warrier: Okay okay. The collective comments by you, Shalini amd Ishwarya and Rahini have made me realize that I was wrong.
I didn’t read your comment earlier so putting out another one to state that the general reactions our heroines show like vekka padrathu is bullshit.
Okay following is wrong too. I might be too late understanding what it is from a girls perspective because I have had no girl tell me her experience of being followed so I had banked on the heroines, which turned out to be dismal lack of realistic portrayal of what a woman actually feels.
Thanks and sorry.
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Madhu
July 5, 2016
Okay following is wrong too. I might be too late understanding what it is from a girls perspective because I have had no girl tell me her experience of being followed so I had banked on the heroines, which turned out to be dismal lack of realistic portrayal of what a woman actually feels.
Thanks and sorry.
@Amit: Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Thank you for reinstating my belief that young men when given enough proof and when explained to, do listen and understand and apologize when necessary and try their best. Thanks a lot. I don’t comment here much anymore, but this comment of yours made me to. In case I come across as condescending or sarcastic, I am not. It is easier to read and judge, a little bit more difficult to call out and question, but more so to understand and apologize and be sincere about it. So, kudos to that too. As for your ideal director’s checklist, I am sure you will have many more people tell you about that 🙂
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Madan
July 5, 2016
@ Iswarya: Great comment. I would only add that I don’t consider either freeing cinema tickets of price control or doing away with subsidies for films as utopian ideas at all, except in the handout/needy-nanny state culture prevalent in this nation. I don’t even think asking for films that depict (emphasis on depict, positively or neutrally doesn’t matter) stalking to be certified as A is a big ask either. Logically speaking (of course we know logic is far outside the realms of the CBFC’s imagination), that is. Every one of your suggestions is actually very practical and sensible and sadly unlikely to say the light of day anytime soon because, as our soon to be ex-RBI governor said, we believe more in creating noise than deliberating and exchanging views. I mean the fact that he will soon be an ex-RBI governor kinda says it all anyway, but that’s another story.
@ anon: Sorry to hear about your terrible experience. But from what I can gather about the way boys in TN regard girls, inviting them to your house may be misconstrued by them as a signal that plate-exchange and maalai mathurdhu in due course are to follow. There is one type of male who, like me, was friendly with girls in college but never had girlfriends and never got intimate enough with any of the friendly types to visit their home. The other type is literally scourging for opportunities to get laid (sorry to say so in such blunt words). I have had one guy basically tell me that after all, what does one get close to girls for than to get laid. One solution to this is that we encourage casual sex because collegemates wanting to get intimate (without necessarily progressing to an alliance) is really not such an outlandish idea per se. I know friends (in India) who did indulge in it but as with so many other things, this is also considered a taboo in this country (even PDA is frowned upon if it progresses from holding hands to kissing). But in the meantime, while we wait for the nation to catch up with such liberal ideas, keep opposite gender friendships at arm’s length. That to my mind is a healthy middle ground between not letting them interact at all and shooting straight for ilthakasaiya with the first girl who wants to be friends with you.
On another note, Amit Joki’s last comment is itself very revealing (and frightening) about the extent of influence that films exert on young and impressionable minds. All the more reason to encourage interaction between male and female students right from primary and all the way through to college. The idea that following would not be considered malignant makes my head explode.
Lastly, yeah, I too noticed the dissonance between urging restraint in the AIB case and vehemently defending FoS in the case of stalking. I did not support censorship then and do not now but I do admit I am far more willing to condone AIB than this. I really wish they did not make films showing the hero stalking the heroine and find it more and more difficult to buy the standard excuse of the superstar that they are just ‘acting’ a ‘role’ they are asked to perform. We know how much clout the superstars command so all it tells me that they either don’t think it’s a big deal (insensitive) or, worse still, tacitly or otherwise approve of stalking.
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Iswarya
July 5, 2016
Amit: Glad to know you are open to feedback. If I could push my luck a little further, let me see if this works..
Also, there are lines for girls too. “Hello brother, enakku already aal irukku” and saying “anna” with a poker face would put off me.
Since this thread has come up in connection with the Swathi/Ramkumar case, let me ask you some questions. There have been a lot of dirty speculations around the subject and I don’t want to repeat any of it, but one hearsay idea is that she insulted him by calling him “thevangu.” I don’t know if that is true and don’t want to conjecture. But for the moment, if we assume that is true, do you know how many people would be judging her? And that judgement sort-of stems from the same attitude as yours. Let me explain:
Q1: Why should a girl in Swathi’s position call somebody like Ramkumar “brother”? Does he have remotely any of the qualities that she would imagine a brother of hers to possess?
Q2: If she calls YOU “anna” with a poker face, that would be a turn off, you say. But how is the girl supposed to know this? How will she be able to get into your head and identify that exact word which will be a turnoff for you?
Q3: As a decent guy open to feedback, you at least provide some exit clause (like calling you “anna”) for a woman. What about the stalking morons who don’t? Please also see Q6. There are complete retards who don’t understand “NO.”
Q4: Assuming the girl doesn’t have a boyfriend already, why should she fib that she has one, just in order to appease you? What sovereign bloody right do you have to demand an explanation out of her in the first place? (OK, not YOU, but you get the point.)
Q5: Since the discussion here is about movies and the helpful ruse you are pointing out is from that abysmal movie Raja Rani, how effective is that line as a deterrent in that movie itself? Does Arya stop stalking her after she calls him “brother”?
Q6: Do you also realise that lying to another man that you have a boyfriend is actually a no-win situation? As happens in Raja Rani, your stalker would be tempted to verify your story. If it turns out that you have no BF, he will take that as open invitation that you are in need of one and will want to fill the place. What if you do have a boyfriend? Refer to your favourite star’s Kutty.
Q7: Do you recall that in the Nirbhaya case, some dimwit talking through the wrong orifice suggested the same remedy of calling your potential rapist “bhaiyya”? Do you think the word “brother” would deter rapists too?
Q8: And another disgusting fallout of the movies: Girls had the last weak refuge of using “brother” as the ultimate heartbreaker term when nothing else worked. After Raja Rani came out, that last ‘safe word’ was also lost. I’ve personally seen guys laughing when girls resorted to this desperate B-word by retorting “Raja Rani paathurukkiyaa?”
Q9: Once a girl has become the unfortunate object of such a man’s attentions, what only is she to do? Kill herself? Or wait for the man to kill her?
And all this is a way of asking one simple thing: why are we placing the burden on the woman to somehow successfully communicate to the stalker that she genuinely doesn’t “lowe” him? Why is it her responsibility? Why do these morons develop their ideas of women and their responses from the closed echo chamber of movies made BY and FOR men? When will you all hear the voices of real women, and how many women have to die before you do?
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Iswarya
July 5, 2016
Amit: I have a slight misgiving that your checklist is pretty tongue-in-cheek. If you insist that it is not, I am open to giving you many other really decent, plausible scenarios for how a man and woman may fall in love. As it is, it sounds sarcastic to me. Please correct me if that is not your intention.
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Rahul
July 5, 2016
The sad thing about anon’s recounting is that virtually every girl I know in India (friends , cousins) have faced a variation of this. One of the reasons we do not hear that much about it, is that not all fathers are like anon and there is victim blaming involved. Girls are concerned that they will have to suffer more restrictions on top of their already restricted existence if they bring this up.
The least we can do is acknowledge (and convince others) that movies do have a role, and that we will hold people related to such movies responsible for this in whatever we can.
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Rahini David
July 5, 2016
Amit: That is very sweet and mature, thanks. It means a lot to me.
Anu: I quite understand. Commenting is rather time consuming and I am very alive to this. It is also emotionally exhausting at times and so I requested others to pitch in.
I should admit that this is the most emotionally exhausting thread I have ever participated in.
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olemisstarana
July 5, 2016
Amit, I am late to this thread and Ishwarya is doing such a wonderful job of voicing my frustrations and concerns that I wish I could split universes to like her comments twice. I’ll refrain from saying too much here because I am afraid it might feel like a pile on, but is there a slight chance that in your defensiveness you are being a little intentionally obtuse? (this coming from someone who seeks your comments out on these threads.)
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Anu Warrier
July 5, 2016
Amit, thank you for your response. Let me say one thing more: as a woman, I don’t want to have to make a man my ‘brother’ for him not to stalk me or follow me or profess his love for me. By saying so, you’re also assuming that there are only two relationships that a man and woman can have – either fraternal or romantic. I have two blood brothers, and umpteen male cousins. I really do NOT want another ‘brother’. I also am not in love with any of the other men I’m friends with. I am friends.
Also, agreeing with Iswarya that I don’t have to have another boyfriend in order not to love you (general ‘you’). I just don’t love you is enough reason for me to say ‘no’. I am not being coy when I say ‘no’. I generally mean it. I don’t need to give you any explanation. (Disclaimer: All ‘yous’ in this paragraph so far are meant to be general ‘yous’ and are not directed at Amit.) And it scares me, Amit, that you’re still putting the burden of responsibility on the woman. How many different ways can she say ‘no’ before you (general you) can accept that she means what she says?
And if there are women who think saying ‘no’ when they mean ‘yes’ is some sort of a test of romance (and I’m sure there are – women can be as susceptible to the ideas of cinematic ‘romance’ to think that is how the real world is) or ‘playing hard to get’ means the guy will chase her if he’s really interested in her? Well, as the mother of sons, I will advise my sons to run far away from such women. They are safer that way. No one worth loving is worth playing games for.
It is a shame that gender plays such a role in healthy friendships that we cannot see a man and woman be friends. Just friends.
A piece of advice for both genders. Be direct, be kind, mean what you say, say what you mean. Accept a ‘no’ as graciously as you would accept a ‘yes’. It is what it is. Their ‘rejection’ is not a referendum on your worth as an individual.
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Aditya (Gradwolf)
July 5, 2016
Anu Warrier: I was purely coming from the angle of what needs to be done with respect to films and their influence. The issue is obviously larger than that. But I believe BR started this topic to discuss only the film angle of the whole thing and since then it has mutated into a larger debate and in that respect, more has to be done. It was time to say enough a long time ago. But as BR said, “The comments here are terrific, but most of them are about the commenter’s discomfort with the stalker scenario, rather than how this radiates and becomes the cause for a Ramkumar.” How it becomes a cause, why, how it radiates and what we must do for that (all wrt cinema) is what I tried to outline. I agree with some of Iswarya’s points to that.
Iswarya: Yes I agree with almost all your points. About the censor board only rating, yes, there was a committee set up consisting of Shyam Benegal along with people like Kamal Haasan, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra et al to revamp the workings of the board and they came up with their suggestions. Here, for reference: http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/04/27/shyam-benegal-committee-r_n_9783646.html Not everything is agreeable or makes sense but it is definitely a step in the right direction but the board/govt has been sitting on it for months now.
The one point I don’t get is about the free market and no regulation of ticket prices. I am all for it, don’t get me wrong there. There are several problems – even bureaucratic ones like Chennai having two IMAX screens, one still unopened, another opened with political support and a special allowance to charge higher prices because, hey, someone close to the ruling government has a stake in it – with this pricing regulation. But I would like to know how this would help. Do you mean to say this will lead to better subjects, better class of films? Partly yes, but this is a short term solution. Bollywood has the wider market by sheer reach whereas regional language (other than Hindi 🙂 ) films don’t have that luxury. And also, this very multiplex trend has led Bollywood to become a one tricky pony over the last decade – It had completely given up on the interiors and almost every film is city based, about the 1%. Lot of good films have been made within these subjects but it had also plateaued a few years ago when they started dealing with only first world problems kinda films. Only recent years have changed that. So we go from one kind of status quo to another.
I am basing my thoughts on Madan’s comment from earlier that I just noticed:
“At the time, you had only single screens so there was really not much elbow room for Hindi filmmakers at the time (one reason why Hindi films in the 90s were generally quite terrible). This changed with the advent of multiplexes. As the tax holiday ended and multiplexes began to price their tickets higher, filmmakers could also afford to market their films for the ‘upwardly mobile’ audience. From what I understand, in TN there is actually a ceiling on the price of cinema tickets? If my understanding is correct, then this should be done away with forthwith and theaters should be allowed to charge the price they see fit. This will allow filmmakers to also make films for different segments of the audience rather than targeting only the young low class male because they will turn up in big numbers (thanks to the affordable tickets).”
This is the problem. Isn’t this classist? Especially considering how we have already established the fact that these stalkers are not restricted to “young low class male” (for which Dhanush seems to be the stand-in) and they have occurred and existed in urban films too. What this will lead to, in Madan’s own words, is films made only for the “upwardly mobile”. As if it is the purer, blameless lot. This way, we may not get a Madras. Or a Subramaniyapuram. We don’t gain parity. We lose voices.
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Aravindan Rajaram
July 6, 2016
Such a complex problem.. several excellent comments!
Art and society may reflect each other. However, the problem here is that some of them are not arts. They are deliberately designed “products” to be “consumed” by the demography in the age 15-25. This demography unfortunately is much larger now than that in the last several decades.
Censorship change is a long shot.
@Iswarya/Rahini/Anu, may I suggest to start a petition (www.change.org) addressing Tamil movie industry to at least be “responsible” by avoiding misogynistic depictions. Will it work? May not. But, doesn’t hurt to try.
May be one director / mass hero could take a decision to be cognizant of this.
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Raj
July 6, 2016
ஈன்ற பொழுதின் பெரிதுவக்கும் தன்மகனைச்
சான்றோன் எனக்கேட்ட தாய்
Thiruvalluvar summarizes the key issue beautifully in this Kural.
My interpretation of the Kural. The male child is the problem child in the society- reasons for most issues in the society if not for all and they are also the easily influenced one..
The Kural emphasizes 2 things – 1. The Mothers in the world shape the society and 2. She knows that the society flourishes only if it is made sure that the male child ends up being a noble person. Hence, her happiness level is higher when the society hails her son noble than at the time of his birth. She gets the satisfaction that the society is a lot safer place.
Valluvar being the visionary he was anticipated the kind of problems a male child can pose to the society and makes an appeal to the Mom’s that her highest priority should be to discipline her son
As with all problems, the solution starts at HOME… The movie makers are not from Mars they are a subset of our society and don’t expect them to glorify the Girl child or find fault with the Male child, while our family and friends does the exact opposite..
If the society changes Cinema will change—Not the other way around–Cinema as it is today is a byproduct of the society–Cinema will not glorify stalking if it knows there is no market for it but as of today it is the # 1 selling product and our young generation heroes will attest to that…
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udhaysankar
July 6, 2016
I can very easily see a magical solution right in front of my eyes.
1) Introduction of the concept of ‘asking a girl out’, DATING, ‘Responding to a date request’, ‘Dealing with the same response’ to parents/students/teachers/etc.
Reduces a lot of complexities and makes the entire process of approaching a girl/boy, developing a relationship, etc very easy and straightforward. ( so, if something fails rendu sidekum sethaara will be low, and it will also reward those who are willing to go the distance.)
Soon, the instances of casual stalking will disappear, as men will start realizing that it is futile to do so. Men/Women will also learn how to deal with rejections, by then.
There will be couples who go on consecutive dates and go all the way forming a successful marriage/relationship.
Looking at these two or three couples, men and women will try to follow in their footsteps. Parents will be more open and allow their girl/boy to go out on dates.
At this point of time some screenwriter will notice this concept of dating in his society.
They will write/make love stories/romcoms on couples who date. Those films will become hits and slowly but steadily, our society will be more willing and receptive to this method. ‘Stalking’ will become taboo.
Soon, every man/woman, boy/girl in TN will be aware of what ‘DATING’ is, and will try to go out on dates with their crushes.
As TamilNadu becomes a society that endorses ‘DATING’, there will be growing demand for the abolition of arranged marriages, say 40 years or 50 years from now. Heated debates will be held.
Soon, the problem of stalking, hate crimes will be a distant past, a ‘past’ that the next generation will laugh and ridicule at.
I seriously believe all the above can happen, and ‘DATING’ can be the western solution, the same way ‘Economic Liberalization’ was to India in 1991. People were at first skeptical about it, but they slowly opened up to the idea of globalization, realizing its benefits. And now it is regarded as a pioneering move that should have come earlier that it had. I don’t see why the same cannot happen with ‘dating’ in India.
If ‘economic liberalization’ is extraneous, consider the concept of divorcing. It was taboo at first even for the upper class, elites of our society, but now we are more open to dissolving a marriage if things don’t work between the couple
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Iswarya
July 6, 2016
Aditya: I do understand the disadvantage at which all languages other than Hindi stand in this country. But then subtitling can help significant movies in crossing language borders. Through initiatives such Anurag Kashyap’s enthusiasm for Ameer, Bala, etc., we can begin looking to other regional, or even international, markets. With the appeal of better ticket revenue in multiplexes across the nation, films like Aaranya Kaandam may finally stand a chance. So, the harm done by this protectionist market and narrow-minded theatre owners and distribution networks can be countered to some extent.
BUT, you say..
This way, we may not get a Madras. Or a Subramaniyapuram. We don’t gain parity. We lose voices.
This was the only part of your comment that I have to seriously disagree with. Allowing filmmakers to target different kinds of niche markets (not only by doing away with pricing restrictions, but also enabling multiple content distribution channels to tackle piracy) would lead to the silencing of some kinds of voices? That is based again on the assumption that movies such as Madras/Subramaniyapuram will not be watched by the “upwardly mobile.” But pray why? Are we going to simply reverse the ‘classist’ assumption that only-low-class-unwashed-masses-patronise-movies-with-low-class-heroes and claim that people who can afford to pay higher prices for film tickets would also watch movies only about themselves? If I remember correctly, BR’s take on Pudhupettai was that it was a high-quality film about a lowlife, and he was vocally in support of such movies being evaluated on their craft and not just the class of the characters. Why wouldn’t such a movie’s audience be across all classes? It is precisely the cap on tickets that is making it a zero-sum game, somebody had argued in another earlier thread (I think Madan). Surely, allowing freedom of pricing is only going to open the ground to all people?
Another question: What chance does an Aarohanam or Vidiyum Munn stand against a Kaththi or Raja Rani now? With the same ticket prices, limited screens and obviously unequal footfalls, is the current situation healthy for diversity in filmmaking?
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Shalini
July 6, 2016
“I should admit that this is the most emotionally exhausting thread I have ever participated in.”
@Rahini – I can imagine. I can’t discuss issues that I’m emotionally invested in and have only admiration and respect for the courage, lucidity and resilience you and Iswarya have displayed throughout this discussion. I cringe a bit at the arrogance and stridency of my “Viva FoE” stand. You and Iswarya (and others) were speaking of your on-the-ground reality as the prey population in TN and it behooved me to listen. The only (feeble) excuse I can offer is that my own encounters with harassment happened in a time and place where cinematic influence was not a contributing factor. Thank you for persisting with your attempts to educate and forgive my slowness in appreciating.
@Iswarya – I think your six-point proposal is supremely reasonable and squarely on the side of enabling informed decision-making by consumers of entertainment. I was going to suggest implementing something like Hollywood’s Production Code from the 30s, but that would becensorship and simply a bridge too far for my FoE loving soul.
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Amit Joki
July 6, 2016
Ishwarya: Usso. No. That was not my intention to place the burden on women. You said boys had killer pick up lines. I just said woman had these put downs, never said they were effective.
As you say, the put downs won’t work as would the pick up lines.
If I go and say “enna maari pasanagala paatha pudikaadhu paaka paaka pudikkum”, she would definitely burst into laughter. Don’t imagine those morons in my place but just saying.
Anu Warrier: I was not placing any kind of burden on women. See above.
Olemisstarana: You have no idea how it is like to have your comment stand with no likes and the ones which confront you have piles of likes(well piles include starting from 1 like, adjusted for number of active commenters here). It is completely depressing, saddening and disheartening. Frankly, I thought I was bejng hounded by many like minded people at that point of time.
Never in my life would I place myself in such gloomy situation. So I was not being intentionally obtuse.
Until my last comment justifying my stand against Rahini, I had no real experiences and had read into the expressions of Sonam, Tapsee, Shruti and their kind.
But after that the men and women came together to make me understand how it actually feels to be followed by a man.
I would be the first to apologize if I know I am wrong. I am never reluctant on that account. My ego doesn’t hurt to apologize but definitely hurts when I continue discussing when I know I am wrong.
Thanks for the word obtuse. Had to search for it. Also ennayum oru aala madhichu andha bracket la kadesiya sonnadhukku nanri.
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Madan
July 6, 2016
@Aditya (Gradwolf): It is classist, I agree. It has already had the negative fallout of making Hindi films very glossy and at times downright superficial. But if the only way filmmakers can appeal to low class audience is to reprise the same old stalker routine, then there is no other go. Yes, I agree that stalking is definitely not a low class problem but ALL or even majority of films made for middle and upper class don’t seem to be hung up on the stalking routine. There are several pertinent subjects that can be taken up w.r.t the low class so why is it only the preserve of Madras or Subramaniyapuram now? It’s not so long ago (or maybe it is) when Aarlinthu Arubathu Varai starred Rajnikanth.
Further, the solution I propose is in any case a free market based one. If that prices out a section of the audience, that really can’t be helped but price control creates many distortions including of forcing films to target a certain audience that is gregarious in number but has very base tastes in cinema. It won’t as such price out films completely for them anyway. What it will lead to is segmentation of films into A, B and C instead of making films on an A class budget with a C class mentality. C class films still cater to the palate of an audience that only wants to see hero and heroine screw each other. Some old single screen theaters in Mumbai still cater to them. But they don’t HAVE to be forced upon all segments on the audience with a pan-territory release. I mean, if they achieve success with that kind of film, fine, I have no objection but they don’t need state govt support through price controls to achieve that. That is just a perverse distortion of the art market, in more ways than one.
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Madan
July 6, 2016
The other thing is while Bollywood because of the size of its films may be more interested in targeting upper class, this does not hold true even for competing regional film industries. Sairat did very well in Mumbai competing with Bollywood films. I did not watch Sairat but I have watched Marathi films as have many others (non Marathis, that is) who have lived in Mumbai for a long time. It is for each regional industry to take up the tab. They are made on smaller budgets and can focus on a different segment of the audience from what Bollywood caters to. I really don’t understand this distrust of free market forces even in entertainment but perhaps I should by now having lived long enough in this country.
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blurb
July 6, 2016
Regarding brangan’s stance on the Tanmay Bhat controversy, if I remember correctly, he didn’t say such jokes shouldn’t be made. But that they were insensitive.
Much like what I feel about this issue. Of course there should be no restrictions to the kind of movies made. Even if the majority of them show women in very poor taste.
I just find it very insensitive.
I am unable to write much about this without getting emotionally riled up. But to those who think movies are not to be blamed, I wanted to say this: I think can say with some amount of certainity that for most people on this blog, movie watching is not a superficial experience. We tend to get pretty involved. Now, let’s do a thought exercise.
Imagine someone make the worst type of judgement about you. About the choices you make (which pretty much define who you are). Someone who barely knows you compartmentalizes who you are in a jiffy. Takes the liberty to tell you how you feel.
Now imagine the above being done out loud. And gets cheered by 200 people.
Watching certain heros on screen and certain Tamizh movies is like that for me.
Also, when it gets cheered, such judgements get reinforced. It may be true that the causalty of whether movies created a Ramkumar has not been clearly established. But movies have certainly served as positive reinforcement for such characters.
Also, stating that since good messages from movies haven’t been imbibed by the society, so movies might not be the cause for the bad things either is a little reductionist. I cannot imagine a message like “exercise daily” getting any cheers in the theatre. They just don’t get reinforced. That’s just how we humans are. So stating the converse doesn’t hold here.
If we do a simple analysis: “movies are to blame” – for and against. I wonder if all the female population on this blog will be found on the “for” side.
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Madan
July 6, 2016
“It had completely given up on the interiors and almost every film is city based, about the 1%”
The more I analyse this statement, the more I find it is a sweeping generalisation and not very accurate. I wouldn’t ordinarily want to break this down in detail in a film blog discussion but if we are debating price control v/s free market, we have to be objective here.
I will go along with the first part of the statement that almost every film is city based. However cities account for 30% of the population of India so films catering to the cities do not account for the only the 1%. Even if we only aggregate the population of the big six, it would come to around 10%.
Further, I looked for income distribution charts, i.e, % of population that earns a level of income. These are harder to find and most charts only break down % of population that holds a certain % of aggregate personal income in India. I did find one that dates back to 2011; a more recent update is welcome:
http://blog.shunya.net/.a/6a00d8341dd33453ef0147e3b81a02970b-pi
As of 2010, there were 31 million households in India earning between Rs.3.4 to 17 lakhs and 71 million earning between Rs.1.5 to 3.4 lakh. While the numbers of the lowest income class, coming to 135 million, may have also gone up in the years since, the numbers of the second highest and middle layers of the pyramid in the link would also have gone up. Suffice it to say that films catering to the urban middle class target a larger share of the population than is commonly presumed.
Now, let us look at what kind of Bollywood films (successful ones) target which segment of the population:
Bhai films – Er, mostly the same class as the misogynist Tamil films being discussed here? And they are by far the most successful on a consistent basis so this genre is very much intact in Bollywood, only the number of films have gone down (which is also what I said earlier).
Aamir Khan films – Depends. A film like Talaash probably caters to a narrow segment of the audience to begin with. But not 3 Idiots. Not PK either. I watched PK in Sterling and the audience was definitely middle/lower-middle class. Definitely not upper-middle (which turned up, ironically, for the very middle class-looking Neerja). Of course, that was in Sterling and the audience that the movie attracted in other cinemas may have been different.
So, speaking of Neerja, there is another variety of films. Neerja, Dirty Picture, Kahaani, Piku. These are also middle class films. They may not at all discuss the middle class and its problems (a la the K Balachander genre which Cheran carried on for some time) but they depict middle class settings.
Which upper class films really have done very well lately? Maybe English Vinglish and also Kapoor & Sons. However, even these are much less ostentatious, if at all, than Karan Johar films and the subjects were more universal so in spite of the posh settings they attracted middle class viewers too.
On the other hand, Dil Dhadadkne Do was decidedly upper class and did not fare well.
During the times when upper class films did well in the box office, one Mr Madhur Bhandarkar enjoyed reasonable amount of success as the counterpoint to the India Shining genre of Bollywood. We can debate the merits or otherwise of his films but the point is he included an audience that was left out by the 3K/YRF films.
So it is not true that Bollywood moved from one status quo to another. Yes, in general, they have become more glossy and yes the improved production values don’t hide their superficiality (but they were mostly superficial even in the 90s). But opening up the market to a wider variety of segments only broadened the variety of films that were now viable. I grew up in 90s Mumbai and it is that situation which was far more classist. Suburban theatres were in a pathetic state (I contracted malaria after watching Bombay in Bhanu Sagar, no kidding) while the well maintained SoBo theatres catered more to English films. There was a clear cut North-South divide that multiplexes have wiped out. I’d like to see more films made around the lower classes too but NOT if they insist on spouting the same misogynist tripe we have had more than enough of. But hey, there are Bhai films which I presume cater to this segment anyway. I presume – I haven’t watched Bhai films in eons and have no desire to ‘correct’ that as I dislike him more and more the more I learn about him and the more he opens his mouth.
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hari ohm
July 6, 2016
Anu if only what you advised “A piece of advice for both genders. Be direct, be kind, mean what you say, say what you mean” is followed, the world will be such a wonderful place.
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Marauder
July 6, 2016
//Start rant
The key issue here is Glorification of stalking in any and all forms. Why is it subjective ? Isn’t it objective or maybe inter-subjective ? Solutions to this problem might do sound Utopian. I am not well equipped with data about social or political movements, pardon me for ignorance.
Hasn’t there been movements/objections against depictions of certain class of people in the past. Of-course one can only speculate about how effective they were.
I would like to say that stalking to me is when a guy has talked to a girl about his interest and the girl has said No and he still insists on ‘following’ her everywhere and keeps pestering her. Also the situation where a guy stalks a girl without even talking/expressing interest is way more problematic and creepy.
Can’t we boycott, movies that do glorify stalking, as a movement. Or maybe there should be a conversation between say a women’s group and directors about why some depictions do reinforce the harmful effects.
I strongly disagree with the point “As for the few who pick up aruvaas or whatever, that is unfortunate — but the problem lies with that person and not with the work of art”
Even if there are (n-1) causes leading to the violence, I worry about the one cause that adds to n. I wouldn’t like say 1% or 2 % are actually influenced by films, and here are another list of “actual” causes and meh films may or may not have caused the killing .
If we can reduce that 1% or 2% by making better films and actively discouraging directors whose ‘artistic freedom’ can only create crap where they need and want to show misogyny in a good light. If that is the kind of freedom they want, I very well wouldn’t like to support it and hope more people wouldn’t either.
I am not against showing stalking , but against showing it in a positive light and as an acceptable behavior of a protagonist or hero or whatever. If a ‘mass hero’ is shown raping a character/heroine itself (which I am pretty sure has happened in the past) today would there be not outrage ? Would such a movie even be thought of or produced in the first place ? Would these same ‘mass heroes’ even accept doing a movie where as a hero he does something that has been viewed by our society as anti-social or unacceptable ?
Why is stalking subjective, isn’t it as objective as rape? Why is the onus on the woman to explain why,how and what of a ‘NO’? If the hero keeps pestering the woman after a ‘No’, he should be shown facing the consequences of his ways and maybe remorse/ regret/jailtime and realising his mistake. Have there been mass movies where the hero accepts the No and carries on with his life ? I don’t recall immediately.
Finally, the solution as seems to me is societal/political pressure against movies where stalking is glorified/depicted in positive light. I wouldn’t think this would lead to movies about ‘pure’ people, but rather a clear distinction between what should or should not be shown in a positive light / as acceptable behavior with no consequences.
//End Rant
P.S: I have been reading your work since ~2004/05. Following the blog for last 3 or 4 years. Lurker turned First-time commenter
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Glitch
July 6, 2016
It’s very simple. I don’t give a shit about some Utopian artistic freedom ideal when women are getting hacked to death in the streets. This formulaic nonsense is not art and the world is better without it. TN is brain washed by movies – there is no need to debate this endlessly – it is so. In no other state does cinema have such a stranglehold on culture. At the very least, any movie portraying stalking in a positive light, glorifying it (every mass movie) should be rated Adults only. When it comes to issues concerning women, this blog is as tone deaf as an average Tamil guy walking on the streets.
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P
July 6, 2016
This thread is such an eye-opener. Despite growing up in a small town, I guess because it was in Karnataka and it was a completely 50-50 co-ed school where we all played and grew up together, I always thought the situations in Tamil movies were grossly exaggerated.
I remember the movie Boys becoming a huge sensation back when I was in school, because JJ banned it in TN and all these Salem and Coimbatore boys came to watch it in Mysore over the weekends. I laughed at that movie, cause honest to god I thought it was highly, grossly exxagerated. Realizing now that it might not have been so.
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Vidhya
July 6, 2016
I was this close to becoming a prey to stalking, in 2003, when a colleague-cum-stalker landed at home – with a knife. My dad – my old fellow, who had me when he was 42 and was in his sixties then – the one I thought was way too orthodox to understand this stalking thing – did just this: He confronted the guy and spoke to him as a friend. Over coffee…over several chats he convinced him on the futility of his actions. And that guy, inspite of working in the same office, never tried to infringe upon my personal space after that.
To Mr. Anon – you are a good dad. Talk to that boy – not from your daughter’s perspective, but with empathy – man-to-man.
These Ramkumar types have none to talk to. So they end up communicating with their matinee idols. (My stalker quoted Sethu movie dialogs & Bala’s movies got struck off my must-watch list) However, if the right person (not necessarily the woman being stalked) speaks to them with the right tone and right temper, it could tone them down – atleast from not being a sickle-wielding-sicko.
After all, if someone is vulnerable enough to take inspiration from movies, he would probably be open to influence from other sources too, right?
Kodambakkam is enroute to Nungambakkam, but it is just one of the feasible routes and if one needs to (wants to?) get to Nungambakkam he/she will, even if Kodambakkam is blocked – if you get what I mean.
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brangan
July 6, 2016
Couple of things: When I say “art” I don’t mean to say that all films are “works of art”. I’m just talking about cinema in general — cinema is “art,” hence all films come under art. You may personally feel that some films are “products” and not worthy of the term “art” — i do too. But we cannot have different rules for different categories. We cannot say stalking can be allowed in Guna and not in 7G… Both are very valid representations of a kind of mindset.
Also, that Tanmay Bhatt piece too, I was not saying he should be punished. I was wondering if some restraint would be in place when you are talking about the looks and age of real-life people. Similarly, here, I am not saying films don’t ever influence people. I am just saying it’s not an easy cause/effect thing.
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sanjana
July 6, 2016
Amit, I can understand your point about the likes seem like disliking your stance. It is not so. Some points made by Iswarya are appreciated on their own merits. You are quite young and once you become a father of a girl, you will understand certain things. Experience is the best teacher. The other side. Cheers!
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naveenkrwpress
July 6, 2016
while we are discussing the filmi influences, i am hearing the life part ( real happening post the arrest of ramkumar ) is getting stranger than fiction what with claims/false claims and accusations making one feel scary. all details are not out yet,but in the next few days life part is likely to feat the fiction/filmi parts. i think this will be ‘sub-judice’ and out of the scope of the blog. we could find more parallels on the poice/investigation/judiciary parts
great comments from the usual stars Iswarya, Anu, Rahini, Amit, P et al, i think they are at their best in this thread.
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Iswarya
July 6, 2016
Glitch: Wow, that was strong (and much needed, I must add). I admire people like you and olemisstarana for the strident tone you people take when my kind is hung up on conciliation and tentative explanation. Reminds me of BR admiring somebody who would confront the idiots in a theatre who chatter or whip out a phone. I could never bring myself to say that, much as I feel this blog could do with some well-intentioned bludgeoning. 😀
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Iswarya
July 6, 2016
BR: We cannot say stalking can be allowed in Guna and not in 7G… Both are very valid representations of a kind of mindset.
Sorry, sir, but that’s shadow-boxing. The idea we have been mooting is one of financial incentives and certification. If stalking became a criterion for ‘A’ certification, both Guna and 7G would come under it (BTW, I like both those movies for different reasons), but so would a Padikaathavan and Boss Engira Baskaran. My bet is that the first two films would still be made under a punishing tax system, but the latter two probably not. If you want to remain intentionally obtuse to this distinction, I don’t know what else to say.
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Vidhya
July 6, 2016
The heroes that are supposed role models on screen, do lead sedate lives – atleast in the Tamil Film Industry. Rajini, Vijay, Ajith, Vikram, Surya, Jeeva, Jeyam Ravi…even Dhanush. Kamal – for all the bad press – has won respect for his openness with regards to his personal decisions.
Ramkumar had “liked” Surya in his Facebook page (came to know from another page I follow). Now Surya was an epitome of patience – he waited for years before joining the industry, before he could taste success, before he could get his parents’ approval for Jothika. Yet within 3 months, Ramkumar ends up jilted in love. This puzzles me more.
The misogyny in movies is appalling. But it has spread to other forms too. (Remember Clubbula Mubbula anthem by Hip Hop Tamizha? Or the absolute lack of support for Writer Thamarai in her struggle to make her estranged husband accountable and answerable. Or the recent drunk-drive case of Ayswarya that kinda generated huge public anger possibly due to the involvement of a rich, unconventional looking woman). So the collective sensibilities of the public need tinkering.
Ofcourse, there are sensible youngsters like Amit Joki who lend a patient ear to the “other” views.
I hope Swathi’s death would invoke atleast a small blip of reason in the ponnungaley-ipdidhan-purinjupochu-da tribe of men.
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Rahini David
July 6, 2016
BR: I don’t remember the first comment I made here but I was talking about eve-teasing and the effect songs like “Nee paathutu Ponaalum..” had on the people who perpetrate them. I remember that many immediately jumped on the comment saying that I was the sort of people who curtailed artistic freedom and all that even though I had not mentioned ANYTHING about banning them. But it is not a 1% influence on these men. Eve-teasing INCREASES a lot with the release of those songs and they are a HUGE influence on eve-teasing. And just because I don’t statistical data, it does not stop being true. Being aware of just HOW much an important part those songs are should not be the same as banning them. At the same time, belief in artistic freedom should NOT be the same as downplaying the influence of an extremely influential factor.
Especially as someone who is NOT a part of the victim group, you should deliberately try to be more understanding of the travails of the victim group. I am not of course saying this to you alone. But people who stress that “It is only one guy did it” are essentially saying “Only one woman’s throat was slit.” And even if cinema was only 5% influence, you should remember that a small influence is an important life or death thing in the life some unknown woman.
So if movies are such an important factor and banning them is definitely NOT an option, what else can be done? That is what we should concentrate on, not denying that there is any pink elephant in your line of vision.
Amit Joki: Thanks for admitting in a public forum that your words WERE influenced to a large part by what you saw in the movies you admire. This admission from a sensible teenager is an important proof for the bad influence of movies. You are young and you are willing to think and as a consequence you have grown in the past few days. Congratulations for that. 🙂
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Iswarya
July 6, 2016
Amit: I am truly glad about the way our interaction has worked here. Rest assured, you were a much sought-after commenter for me too. Although it might have looked like I targeted you, it’s only because – as I have said earlier – I am genuinely interested in raising these questions with boys of your age. In your case, you gracefully acknowledged an error and were willing to change your stance. This is so satisfying because I know I have really reached out to at least one person. And you were willing to meet me halfway. When a sensible teenager like you feels that he has been screened out of the real responses of women, imagine the state of the rest of the boys I spoke of.
You said boys had killer pick up lines. I just said woman had these put downs, never said they were effective.
As you say, the put downs won’t work as would the pick up lines.
If I go and say “enna maari pasanagala paatha pudikaadhu paaka paaka pudikkum”, she would definitely burst into laughter. Don’t imagine those morons in my place but just saying.
Just to clarify: I don’t believe those ‘pickup lines’ are effective. But they seem to work within those movies. But the put-downs? They don’t even work in the movies. Now, you are smart enough to know that such a line would only elicit laughter. If on a silly day you really decided to give that line a shot and if a girl laughed at you, you would probably shrug and leave her alone. But what about the creeps who won’t?
You see, all the boys of your age are not interacting with other intelligent women to know the difference between reel and real. Those who are told often resist the knowledge. I have seen this happen in classes. That’s the danger we are talking about.
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Aadhi
July 6, 2016
While we continue to break our heads here, the Sivakarthikeyan-Anirudh duo has just released a single from their next film ‘Remo’. Unsurprisingly, it testifies to whatever has been spoken in this thread. Everything about the song reeks of stalker-ism. The girl walks by, throwing a random glance, the guy gets lovestruck, and then he starts the holy ritual of ….’following’ her while she continues to walk away. And he keeps doing that till the effing song ends.
“Porapokkula oru look-a uttu enna senjitaley
First-u look-a vechi bokkunu onnu vechitaley”
“Enaku ne easy ah laan vena, pesi pesi correct pannuven naana
Tholla panni alayama tiriyama kadaikura kaadhale vena vena”
It won’t be a long time before this song is on the lips of a majority of TN youth, while becoming a favorite, bagging a few awards, and participants in Super singer performing and play-acting to this song, with no one having an iota of problem with the lyrics.
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Iswarya
July 6, 2016
Aadhi: So true. What if we could offer some collective feedback to Sivakarthikeyan and others?
Somebody earlier suggested raising a petition using Change.org. That was the idea I started with even when I wrote my first long rant in this thread. If people could chip in with some solid data points to craft a meaningful petition, it would be great. Any takers?
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Iswarya
July 6, 2016
Marauder: Welcome to commenting here. 🙂
No mass movie I can recall has handled rejection gracefully, but there was Vasanth’s Hey! Nee Romba Azhaga Irukkey which was all about moving on. It was slightly PSA-ish, of course, like a Case-1, Case-2 documentary, but it did a reasonably good job of offering different perspectives on rejection. But the whole problem is that word, “Mass.” For the longest time, I had trouble comprehending what exactly it meant – as in what it meant to people, not just the dictionary definition. In the college episode I spoke of, those boys helpfully enlightened me that “Mechanical=Mass” while other departments were all “mokka”, probably meaning ‘sissy’ in their dictionary since those boys had a relatively free interaction with girl students. “Mass” seems that kind of a macho, bro-code to them, epitomised by Ajith in Veeram which had just then released.
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Ramchander Krishna (@ramctheatheist)
July 6, 2016
The purpose of art is to give you a perspective. Raise questions within you. Make you feel empathy. And art is always inspired from life. It’s a window to society. So that way I’d say art and life are closely knit and spring from each other.
Films and art are a part of the society. There’s no need to distance them from society and view them as a separate thing. So if the family, society, education and rules of the land play a part in making a criminal, films play their part too. There’s no need for any stats or research study to be done to prove this. This is like duh!
However, we shouldn’t be hasty and dismiss stalking / following a girl as a criminal or lowly activity. Every culture has its own mating rituals, its own processes for the males to express interest in the females and vice versa. Pa.Ranjith in an interview after Attakatthi stated he wanted to put on record how there’s the ritual among college students of trailing a particular girl while travelling by bus and if they receive a glance or smile from her, they proceed. If not they bitch about her to their friends and move on to the next girl. You could easily dismiss this behaviour as crass. But, in essence, it’s simply a mating ritual. You could also see this as Tinder playing out in real life. If both of them swipe right, their relationship continues. If not, then nothing happens. Attakatthi is a brilliant example of a guy who kept swiping right but received swipes to the left. He didn’t go murder the girl or rape her.
So the problem is only when it doesn’t stop. The problem is only when one person has said no (in a direct or indirect way) and the other person doesn’t stop his/her advances. And this problem isn’t just with India.
It was deeply distressing for me to read this comment thread. I strongly object to Ramkumar being used as a symbol for the unaware, confused, ignorant rural dude who’s a Dhanush fan. And I’m worried by the anecdotes being given here by certain commenters which is trying to portray youngsters from a certain strata of the society as being impressionable, naive and misogynistic. No matter what your social or economic background, no matter how educated you are, you can still be misogynistic. If you think about it and look at the people around you in your daily lives, I’m sure you’ll realize this. Let’s be honest here. The problem isn’t just with the guy applauding Victor in Devi theatre, it’s with the guy calmly clapping to a Hollywood film in Satyam cinemas too. So simply picking up a Ramkumar and creating a ruckus is classist stereotyping by people with a high class mentality. None of us know what exactly happened. The case is still ongoing. And freely using his name to stand for a certain male stereotype, based on media reports, is a truly cheap behaviour, million times worse than Dhanush saying “I am love you”.
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Anu Warrier
July 6, 2016
Iswarya, if you do make a change.org petition, please do let me know. As for data points, perhaps we should take this offline? Any way of contacting you?
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Iswarya
July 6, 2016
Anu, I am leaving my email address on your blog. Rahini and others, please do pitch in.
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Aravindan Rajaram
July 6, 2016
@Iswarya, yes. I suggested change.org. I pinged you in google hangouts. Please respond. We could do this offline with interested folks.
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Madan
July 6, 2016
@ Ramchander Krishna: I fully agree that all stalkers aren’t low class. I would still like to hear the explanation as to how either certifying films with stalking as A and/or removing price controls would stifle freedom of expression in any way. This has suddenly turned into a shrill debate over freedom of expression but Iswarya’s suggestions do not stifle freedom of expression. Unless we want to believe even a toddler should be allowed to view A Clockwork Orange without adult supervision. Are such ‘experiments’ really necessary? It is entirely possible that stalking may occur in a non malignant way in some settings (though it would still be considered a no-no in cities) but it is equally possible a child may interpret this depiction in the wrong way and may allow his worldview to be shaped by such films. We have had a live example of that in this very thread.
By the by, I posted a long comment demonstrating how the advent of multiplexes did not push Bollywood into a status quo of serving only the 1% but that comment seems to have disappeared and I don’t have the energy to type it all over again. Just making the point in short that (a) there is no reason to fear free market forces in entertainment and (b) it is incredibly amusing to hear controls being defended in the same breath that freedom of expression is defended in the context of misogynist films. Do people realise that freedom to price is also a kind of freedom of expression? Can’t have a socialist artist mecca, you know.
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Anu Warrier
July 6, 2016
Iswarya, have sent you an email.
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Enna koduka sir pera
July 6, 2016
Great comment, Ramchander Krishna. Unless proven guilty by court, it is not proper to use a person’s name and picture to discuss them as a convict.
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Aadhi
July 6, 2016
Iswarya : Do let me know if you have any ideas. You can drop a message at aadhithya.1991@gmail.com
Ramachander Krishna: The purpose of anecdotes people have shared (me included) is, in the absence of concrete data, to look at what kind of a person the killer would have been, what environment he grew up in, what kind of values youngsters from that locality imbibe, and how much from movies. If we don’t have this conversation now, we will end up losing more Swathis and keep rambling about retributive justice.
And I completely disagree that it has to do anything with class. If you consider economic status as class, then you have no idea about the sons of vessel merchants and salt traders in the population I spoke about. If you take social status, the dads of these guys enjoy a kind of respect that even district collectors in those regions don’t. And class divides are the last thing anyone would intend to bring, when fighting for an egalitarian society. So it is just about what kind of opinions about women young males in those regions form, and how much cinema feeds their thought process. The geographical specification is not to paint all of them with a misogynistic color (which I have mentioned in my comment as well), but just because the suspect happened to hail from a place, from where I’ve had a lot of classmates, for a period of 4 years. So no one is painting anyone with anything. These kind of losers are everywhere, in all societies, in all places. The problem we wish to address doesn’t pertain to a fixed geographical location but the general mentality all around.
Regarding the mating ritual, I understand that the way a guy asks a girl out might be different in different parts, but it’s not upto the guy to decide what is creepy and not. Being followed by a stranger in any society sucks. If I were to be stalked by a female (hot/not), my first line of thought would be to stop and see if she passes by, or if she comes up to me and says something. If none of this happens, she stops there and has a laugh with her buddies, this would freak me out. I would be anxious, confused, pissed but would walk away pretending that I don’t care. Now substitute that group of stalker girls with my classmates, fellow mechanical engineering guys, from the region where the suspect hails from. This is what they kept doing for four years. When there is a discussion about the ideas the killer might have formed about stalking or talking to women, when I do have some relevant experiences in geographical proximity to share, why shouldn’t I put them out here so that we could atleast start this discussion now? Tinder and stalking is not a good comparison. In tinder unless you swipe right, that stranger has no access to you whatsoever. If both of you have swiped right, you get to talk to the person before going out with him/her. In real life, going up to that person, talking and hooking up/making friends or moving on to the next person if he/she’s not interested would be the analogy of tinder right and left swipes. Definitely not staring at her, following her wherever she goes in the name of ‘avala paakaren’. For your attakathi example, Poornima herself says in a later scene “apo na china ponnu la, bayamma irunduchu”. And apart from a few outward glances, not once does she seem comfortable with all his antics. But to the film’s credit, when he does go up to her and talk, the hero does take no for an answer. And never ever does the film glorify him. The whole movie just reflects the life of people from a certain strata.
But I agree with you in using Ramkumar’s name to denote stalkers and losers in general. We could avoid using his name until the case is completely solved.
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olemisstarana
July 7, 2016
@Ramchander Krishna
http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/
Check your male privilege. What you are saying is dangerously close to boys will be boys/this is how it’s always done. Yeah whatever I know this tumblr is from the US, but if anything it’s worse at home.
Larger point – when you stop recognizing that women deserve agency, and lose the nuance of understanding that even though they do deserve agency, in many societies women do not even have the luxury of saying no without terror of repercussion, you are allowing rape culture to be the norm.
All that being said. I do not agree with censorship. However, I am not raising my flag on unrestricted free speech this time. There is always limit, and this bullshitty portrayal of “mating rituals” is coming far too close to being the proverbial fire in the proverbial theater. I would love to understand the process of distilling the lovely, brave voices in these comment threads into real wheels to the ground action. Please count me in… paging Anu/Rahini who both know how to get a hold of me.
@BR: I won’t address any of the other problems I have with the blog posts because I think you have helped me make some sense of this insanity and initiated these incredible conversations. (And honestly, I think I see where you are coming from).
However. (Please allow me a derailed/derailing moment of rage here.)
Why. Do. You. Have. The. Image. Of. This. Subhuman. Sewer. Filth. on here.
This man does not deserve to remain in active popular imagination. He deserves to be forgotten and consigned to the annals of time. Somewhere in his reptilian brain he must have harbored delusions of grandeur. No one walks into a crowded railway station to saw open another human being’s throat unless they think they are somehow attaining immortality by doing this. Suicide bombers do it. Mass shooters do it. This … thing… did it. I understand sensationalist newspapers do it, but not here…
I want to know more about this young woman. This independent young woman, who had the courage to say no, to speak her mind, to live her life. I want to see more than that one image that’s been doing the rounds. I want to remember her as a whole human being, as she was… is, not as the footnote in a tragedy.
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olemisstarana
July 7, 2016
PS: The image is on the other blog post. But my point still stands.
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P
July 7, 2016
@Ramchandar Krishna: I agree with you. I saw some comments that equated dark-skinned with loser-stalker and fair skinned with handsome(?LOL)/foreign-returned/mapillay and was quite surprised.
From what I remember it is the rich, upper-class spoilt brats who can’t take no for an answer. The “poor” and “dark-skinned” “local” guys will give up on you after a while because they realize you are way out of their league (a wrong realization, maybe) but if I remember right in the case of me and my sister it was the rich boys with “foreign” “gear” bicycles who used to write letters in blood, keep giving missed calls and blank calls to the landline and send tape cassettes filled with romantic songs anonymously home (to create trouble with parents!).
Or maybe that’s just Karnataka and in TN the upper class, rich boys are all uniformly awesome like Karthik and Aadhi in Manirathnam films, I don’t know 🙂
Still stereotyping is not ok
Madan: Interesting you bring up subsidized regional film-makers. The Karnataka industry is almost a cesspool for such people, and the industry(as a whole!) has not progressed at all for more than 2-3 decades since Shankar Nag’s death. Anybody good moves out.
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P
July 7, 2016
Also scary to see so many commentators endorsing censorship/guidelines to film-makers. First teach people around you to parent properly. The kind of parents who let their male progeny do anything (smoke but lie about it, drink but lie about it, fail but lie about it, take 8 years to finish engineering no matter what!) they want as long as they can be hypocrites about it, who put a lock and key on the female’s movements, sexuality, education, behavior etc, who endorse colleges which enforce male-female segregation, who force their then virgin sons to stay with them even after school, even after college, even after procuring a job, who bully them into marrying a woman of correct jatakam and appropriate dowry, who then force/emotionally harass the married couple to stay with them in a traditional joint family system with zero escape- these people are the problem.
Do you really think that policing/guiding Dhanush and his directors into making the films you want to see is going to change the mindset of these people?! Please.
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ThouShaltNot
July 7, 2016
Is stalking a mating ritual? Is there a court of law in India which will allow such a definition to stand? Here is the relevant section of the IPC. Stalking is a crime punishable with up to 3 years of imprisonment.
Here is the legal definition of stalking in the Indian context:
IPC 354 D – Any man who follows a woman and contacts or attempts to contact such woman to foster personal interaction repeatedly despite a clear indication of disinterest by such woman; …
Let us not confuse stalking and wooing. Intimidation is implicit in the former, whereas the latter is a tame custom generally accepted in many cultures.
As for exempting Gunaa from the discussion, the movie is about psychosis in the extreme – a deranged individual who eventually kidnaps a girl (a crime worse than stalking). Been a while since I watched the movie, but I recall no attempt by the maker/actor to glorify the act or make kidnapping sound cool. If any, Kamal became a butt of jokes after that movie (outside the circle of diehard fans). That Dhanush has done more roles as a stalker is the reason he gets fingered more, but he is not the only one that is subject to scrutiny on this thread. Stalking is stalking. Only that when there is class asymmetry, the odds of rejection increases with the greater potential to turn a wooer into a stalker. Otherwise, it should not matter whether an upper class bozo or a lower class bozo does it (in real life or the movies).
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Raj Balakrishnan
July 7, 2016
Thanks for opening this for discussion. Tamil cinema is definitely responsible for the stalking menace, specifically actors like Dhanush . I checked Dhanush’s twitter page, that guy does not even have the decency to condemn this gruesome murder.
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Glitch
July 7, 2016
@ Ramchander Krishna: “However, we shouldn’t be hasty and dismiss stalking / following a girl as a criminal or lowly activity. Every culture has its own mating rituals, its own processes for the males to express interest in the females and vice versa.”
Things that women should learn from here:
1) Stalking is a mating ritual. (Extrapolation – Raping is a consummation ritual). Women on this thread have repeatedly said that stalking by men of any strata of society that makes them feel threatened is bad. But what women need to ask themselves: “Am I being classist by feeling threatened if a lower strata guy is stalking me? Should I be more accommodating of that since it could be a mating ritual? Will I hurt his feelings by feeling threatened? Perhaps I should learn to put aside my feelings, sanity and physical safety, so men of a certain strata do not feel discriminated against?”
” And I’m worried by the anecdotes being given here by certain commenters which is trying to portray youngsters from a certain strata of the society as being impressionable, naive and misogynistic. ”
FYI- all of patriarchal society is misogynistic to some extent – all strata. Everyone is a closet misogynist,including women. That’s why women laugh at crass misogynistic jokes that lampoon them. Because it is ingrained, accepted and to not do so is harder than to just laugh at them. Nobody is trying to portray only one section as misogynistic.
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Amit Joki
July 7, 2016
Iswarya: I can understand. I am with you on this. That danger is for real. Anything that makes boys think they are superior to girls must be found out and destroyed at its root so they treat women like their equals. Don’t knwo when that would be feasible.
Ramachander Krishna: Excellent comment that one. You articulated it much better.
Raj Balakrishna: Dear sir, I don’t think it can get any worse.
When Dhanush made his debut, entire industry went bonkers and humiliated him as much as they wished. No one condemned that.
When Dhanush was hogged for non-controversy like smoking in films, no one condemned that there was a fine line between art and the need to portray a character and the real life.
He is an actor. He acts. He acts and spouts what the directors ask him to do. He is like the rest of us working hard day and night to secure his meal.
To condemn it is his wish entirely and I don’t see why you ask him specifically. Has Surya condemned it who someone pointed was whom Ramkumar liked? Did the great Kamal Hassan condemn it?
Dhanush has had no direct relation with the case. Also what would be the guarantee that if Dhanush had indeed condemned this on twitter and you would not comment along
“Just checked this Dhanush s twitter account. He seems to be fully aware that his films might have influenced the murder”
Please understand that film is a collaborative medium and actors just deliver it to us. These films and dialogues are not his ideas.
Start blaming the directors and dialogue writers who come up with the content for a start. It is their content not Dhanush’s. He just gives it a form because he is an actor and that is what he is expected to do.
If he had not done those roles someone else would have. So blame the directors and dialogue writers who come up with this.
Dhanush as an actor will do various roles. We may even see him in a feminist kind of role. But think of those directors who would find it hard to not use stalking to gain audience.
That needs to be changed.
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hari ohm
July 7, 2016
What is the difference between wooing and stalking? When does one cross that line from wooing to stalking? And has there been any girl or a boy who has fallen for without getting wooed?
And if I can take a guess from the way Ramachander Krishna commented, he meant wooing and not stalking. Probably I’m wrong. So hold on, before he clarifies, before u jump on him.
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sanjana
July 7, 2016
Until a crime like this takes place, everyone is ok with such films and with stalking. Because a crime of this magnitude took place, it is making us retrospect and condemn in harsh language the things which we ignored in the past. We might have expressed our dispeasure but not to this extent. Take Sheena Bora case. Or Sunanda’s case. They were not spared by anyone just because they belonged to privileged classes. Nirbhaya belonged to lower middle class and humble background. Yet crores of people rallied behind her, outraged and even now the outrage is simmering.
So please dont bring class or caste angles to heinous crimes.
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Marauder
July 7, 2016
All the following quotes are in the context of US, nevertheless found it interesting.
From this(http://crx.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/02/13/0093650215570653.abstract) paper
//
Results indicate that the romanticized pursuit behaviors commonly featured in the media as a part of normative courtship can lead to an increase in stalking-supportive beliefs //
//Stalking may be thought of as a type of persistent pursuit, a broad term that encompasses
more extreme behaviors such as stalking, but also more benign and even positively
regarded behaviors such as some types of romantic courtship. Although the
scripts people hold of “typical” heterosexual courtship often include a male pursuer,
they do not tend to describe male persistent pursuit (Eaton & Rose, 2011).
However,there is reason to believe that male persistent pursuit commonly appears in media
depictions of romantic courtship, which suggests that this type of pursuit may reflect
a cultural ideal. For example, Emerson, Ferris, and Gardner (1998) asserts that “the
core dynamic in relational stalking—persistence in seeking a relationship in the face
of continuing rejection—mirrors in the extreme the dogged pursuit of ‘true love’ idealized
in the culture and media” (p. 292), and Brewster (2003) argues that “movies, soap
operas, and other media often demonstrate to viewers that stalking equals love and
affection, and that persistence pays off; the stalker wins (or wins back) the desired
object of their ‘affection’” (pp. 9-8; see also de Becker, 1997; Dunn, 2002; Lowney &
Best, 1995, for similar claims).
Thus, although published systematic content analyses of media portrayals of persistent pursuit are lacking, there is reason to believe that the “persistent pursuit is evidence of love” trope is a part of our media landscape— and, further, that this type of pursuit is held up as a romantic ideal.
//
//
Romanticized media depictions of persistent pursuit may have especially problematic
effects on women, who may come to believe that if a man persistently pursues her,
it signals her desirability (Dunn, 2002). If a woman sees persistent pursuit as flattering
rather than (or even as well as) cause for concern, it is likely to affect her behavior toward pursuers, which in turn is likely to have implications for the successful prosecution
of stalkers.
Personnel at every step of the legal process subject the stalking
victim to scrutiny, and if she behaves in ways that suggest anything other than her
unequivocal rejection of the pursuer, her behavior can be—and often is—used as a
reason not to prosecute, or to find in favor of the pursuer if the case does go to trial
(Dunn, 2002; Kim & Spitzberg, 2012).
If a woman does feel genuine ambivalence toward a pursuer, which is especially likely if he is a former intimate, she is especially likely to act in ways that undermine her perceived credibility (e.g., trying to reason with him; giving him another chance; Haugaard & Seri, 2003). //
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ThouShaltNot
July 7, 2016
Stalking is pursuit after the wooing overtures have been rejected. What happened to Swathi was stalking. What most here have been arguing against is the movie depiction of stalking. The Hang-in-there-you-may-have-said-no-now-but-it-might-turn-into-a-yes-as-i-keep-after mindset.
There is no threat perception when wooing (generally) although depending on your upbringing,even that might scare the person being wooed.
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sai16vicky
July 7, 2016
Glad to see the discussions here. I thought we could play a game to lighten things up. Think of an arbitrary movie. Okay, I will go first.
The movie that came to my mind is “Kannadhirey Thondrinaal”. Let’s observe what the template of the story is: the hero Prashanth (in another ‘stalking’ story :P) meets the heroine in a railway station or something. She rejects his advances and he keeps pursuing even after she gives rude responses. Finally, after a lot of drama, she accepts him.
Shall we play it again?
This time, it is “Oru Kal Oru Kannadi”. The template of the story is as follows: the hero Udayanidhi Stalin meets the heroine in a traffic signal and continues pursuing her in different ways. She keeps rejecting his advances and finally she accepts him.
Ok, this is going crazy. Let’s give one more try.
“Rhythm” – A mature love story that blossoms between adults who have lost their spouses in the same accident. Even the Ramesh Aravind-Meena episode is handled in a mature way.
Nice, finally my pseudo-random generator is playing. One last try.
Ok, it is “Vidhi”. Mohan keeps stalking Poornima until she gives in (even though she gives him explicit rejections for his advances) and they end up making love. The movie, to its credit, has fairly gripping second half with the court scenes.
Game over. Stalking score – 2.5/4 (>50%?).
@Ramachander Krishna: You had mentioned regarding art being a perception. Agreed. But, why aren’t some perceptions never represented? And why are some perceptions represented in a skewed sense and end up being forced? This is precisely what I don’t understand. For instance, BR says movies are in fact a reflection of the society and as a result, what they show is in fact what is going on in the society.
Tell me this — let’s say we live in a society that is infamous for terrorizing the society. Would you want your movies in majority to be on how to terrorize people? Or rather you want your movies to talk about what are the tragic consequences of terrorizing people?
A final challenge to everyone in this thread – can you think of five Tamil movies that talk about the bad consequences of stalking (‘Alli Arjuna’ comes to my mind)? My dear friends, on the other hand, one could think of hundreds of movies that glorify stalking. If you don’t still see the skew, I would say we are blind!
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Iswarya
July 8, 2016
sai16vicky: On which side of the fence would Shah Jahan fall? Does it actually ask you to creepily, silently keep “following” her around rather than speak up to a woman directly, or is it about how the non-hero dude who approaches a woman directly and decently gets her in the end?
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Madan
July 8, 2016
“And why are some perceptions represented in a skewed sense and end up being forced? This is precisely what I don’t understand. ” – Nail on the head. Thanks much. Frankly, it’s felt like banging against a wall at times in this thread. You articulated in simple sentences what I wanted to get through but couldn’t find the right words for.
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sai16vicky
July 9, 2016
@Iswarya: Shah Jahan is a very manipulative movie when seen from a woman’s perspective. Think of the Vijay’s role – let’s say I like a girl X. I go to him. All I need to tell him is I am very serious about this girl and my love is true, pure blah blah. Tada! he will make the girl fall in love with me 🙂
How can someone make some other person fall in love with another person? And on a broader note, how can one guy be serious about a girl without even knowing her feelings?
@Madan: Thanks!
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Sifter
July 14, 2016
I am not taking any names here that equates stalking to mating rituals or those that cannot comprehend how it scars the stalked woman’s psyche. I would like to briefly touch upon what stalking or even benign stalking does to a woman (me) who does not want it. Years ago, in our nation’s capital, not yet out of my teens, I boarded a bus for my home. Shortly after a Gora Suvar (White Pig), middle aged sat next to me, immediately stated that he wants to marry me with my parent’s permission (Code for I want to have Sex with you? Lol) and continued with this line of discussion until my stop came. I was so un-nerved, terrified, not knowing the language, alone on a winter night, not knowing how to shake him off. Before the cellphone days. All this while I was patiently explaining to him about why I do not want to get married to him (didn’t tell him what a mental he was!) etc, etc…for the fear that if I didn’t he would not leave me alone. I walked for an hour to ensure he did not follow me before returning home.
Forward a couple of years. A colleague told me he can bash some sense to a stalker if I wanted it. He also told me that he would kidnap me to his home and keep me safe…
Fast forward to the recent present. To cut long story and history short…This friend who insisted that he only wanted a platonic relationship with me, scoffing at me when I voiced my doubts about that, insisting that talking to me keeps him sane, blah, blah, blah and not to get too big headed to think he had any physical thoughts in his mind. Then one day I called him out on how all his talk does not walk in his action. To which he responded that he is a hot blooded male and what else did I expect being a sensual, sexual, sassy, intelligent woman who is the whole package. So the onus is on me for his actions? Seriously???
It is terrifying, you don’t know how to react, how to protect yourself, your mind is not clear, confused, makes you doubt and question if you are to blame, if you have something that calls out to these morons. Yes, and anger and rage.
Seen so many conversations that she knew him, why did she even talk to him for that 15 minutes etc, etc.
The men in all of these examples weren’t teenagers who could be swayed by the movies that show stalking as something that has to be done for the girl to love(crush) them in return, as something that has to be first scoffed off by the woman stalked, then, after being subjected by all the insults thrown at her by the stalker, happily fall in love with him. These are ingrained in most people, cast, creed, age, stautus, money, race no bar including the women. For them there is romance in stalking and being stalked. Until it results in rape or the death of the woman. Even then it is still the woman’s fault. And the stalker who inflicted this horror on her needs to be counselled, guided so that he can be safely re-instated into the society. How can his future be harmed?
All or most of the comments talk about how these boys/men need to be educated patiently to bring forth a change in them (can never hurt their delicate male ego/pride/honour), how that they can’t help it, how they are influenced by movies to an extent, blah, blah, blah. They have a brain don’t they? Why is it expected of a woman to bring a change in a stalker? Why is that a woman’s responsibility to make him turn a new leaf? The same shite is also being ingrained through movies/society/parents/family/friends/all those stupid WhatsApp forwards/media/print/online at the girls/women too. We are being ingrained also to be afraid, be docile, expected to laugh at those jokes that put us down, forward them even to show how cool we are, with no self-respect whatsoever, with no sense of self, with no belief in ourselves. Everyone is so concerned for the poor-boys/men psyche and their future, but what about the women? Who even speaks about teaching them to stand up/not to be afraid/to believe in themselves/to not take this shite? If any woman raises a voice against such movies (which have become the norm), most will be preached to take it easy, it is only reel, enjoy the fun (?).
Apology this is a bit longish, but not sorry at all about the content 🙂 And yes, if there is a petition in change.org, count me in.
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Iswarya
July 14, 2016
BR: I’m so glad this whole discussion is documented on this blog. Becomes a ready reference when I get mails from people asking why they should sign the petition. 🙂
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rothrocks
July 15, 2016
@ sifter I just read your comment and am horrified. Did you report that colleague? Er more pertinently did the organisation have a sexual harassment policy (one that is actually enforced)? And I can do nothing but agree with everything you said. Sexual abuse is fundamentally about unequal distribution of power. The guy does it because he thinks he can. It is up to the guy whether he wants to abuse his greater physical strength or not and sadly many do. I don’t mean many in terms of proportion but absolute numbers. We can use law enforcement and social restraint to mitigate the issue but if we really want to ELIMINATE it, we should ask those genetics scientists to make the human race single sex! As long as there are males, there will be perverts and rapists. They may even know it’s wrong and still do it. It’s as endemic as greed.
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Sifter
July 16, 2016
@ rothrocks- Thank you for your concern. No, I didn’t report him. a) I didn’t think i could report it to my superiors. b) There wasn’t any such policy enforced then. c) I just responded with a sly Really? And he had the good sense to not persist. And that made me realise he understood and accepted I wasn’t in anyway showing an interest in him; that he simply made an off-colour joke thinking it would flatter me 🙂 I put in in the comment to just show how some people think that such flippant remarks may flatter a woman and make her conducive to be open to such thoughts.
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Madan
July 16, 2016
Sifter: Good to hear that. Still, the mind boggles to hear that people working presumably in a professional environment think they can make such jokes and the women won’t take offence. I think ten times before complimenting a woman on her dress. As a matter of fact, I don’t know that I have ever done that to somebody who was not a relative/my wife. If I am not sure of how the woman will take it, I am not going to say it, as simple as that. Of course maine toh kabhi luv shuv nahi kiya ; maybe if I had, I would be less intent on self imposed verbal filters.
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Madan
July 16, 2016
By the way, I am the same guy as rothrocks, which is just my wordpress id.
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Amit Joki
July 16, 2016
Ishwarya: Someone in here included me in “the stars of this blog” with the likes of you, Anu, Rahini, and P saying I was being at my best.
I was like, WTF? Really? The only good thing I did was to apologize and was wrong all along, so that comment didn’t make sense mainly because he likened me to the actual stalwarts like you guys and I still don’t get what he referred to when talking of me being at my best.
Your comment now makes me think I may have done something good for being a referential point for your petition.
Thanks.
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Iswarya
July 17, 2016
Iswarya: Apologising gracefully is an art. Apologising sincerely is even greater – it’s a moment of reformation. I believe you did both and so can count yourself as having contributed to the discussion in a very positive way. Cheers! 🙂
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Sifter
July 17, 2016
@Madan- Good to know you are rothrocks
I don’t think complimenting a woman on how nice she looks in a particular dress would be a problem. The problem could arise if that tone gets creepy when it is said. Most women sense the difference I would think. I for one will pay a compliment to my colleague; male or female…if I liked the way they dressed a particular day.
Interesting you said “Of course maine toh kabhi luv shuv nahi kiya ; maybe if I had, I would be less intent on self imposed verbal filters.” Do you think the experience of having loved or being in love with someone will loosen that filter for people?
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Rahini David
July 18, 2016
Amit Joki: You did something more than just gracefully apologize. You admitted that what you saw in movies had formed an important part of how you view male/female relationships. That is the most important point in this discussion. That is what some of us had been saying all along.
The others can only guess what a Tamil male teenager with think after he watches these movies. Only a real Tamil male teenager can say what he actually thinks/thought. Not many teenagers step into a discussion where most of the commenters are much older. Thereby, your voice here is a very significant one here.
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Madan
July 18, 2016
“Do you think the experience of having loved or being in love with someone will loosen that filter for people?” – Possibly. For one, I am much more comfortable reeling off so called ‘non veg’ jokes after marriage. I don’t know why, what has changed but something has for sure. I think the experience of actually making love would give a man a lot more confidence in making advances to women. In itself, it’s not a bad thing, except when this confidence is abused.
I have on the rare occasion received compliments from women for my dress (rare because I am NOT a great dresser, not even close). I tend to be cautious on handing out the dress compliment because each woman has a different wavelength. I am sure a woman who had a more liberal upbringing will distinguish tone in the manner you said and differentiate a sincere compliment from plain creepiness. But somebody who is more conservative might take serious offence to it. So I just play it safe.
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Blasta
July 21, 2016
Other than the odd ones out, Tamil cinema’s treatment of its women has long been cringe worthy. Much before Dhanush and his ilk, there was Rajini with his moronic misogyny. Kamal wasn’t much behind, or needed to follow if he wasn’t to be left behind. They had worthy predecessors too.
Imagine that MGR song, ponna porantha, and you get the general idea. It is just that Dhanush took it so far from comfort that we needed to squirm. In general, Tamil cinema, is for women, a sorry place to inhabit. Now don’t start on Balachander, please…
Romance, as coming of age, needs some kind of guidance if it is not to translate into inhuman behavior. After all, despite what the women may say, they are physically the weaker sex, and what better method than to settle issues by violence?
When cinema encourages the same kind of behavior, there is a multiplying disconnect between want and means. It seems clear that we need some kind of romantic education even before we need sex education.
Growing up is a difficult time to be. The first stirrings of love can send out conflicting signals, messages and understandings. Add to this troubled scenario, a class based disconnect, and this is the place where trouble proliferates.
Now we have a condition where there are repeated stirrings of love, and there is no story which tells us how to behave. Even if there were, the market for that is yet to be, and such a tale would fail.
Tamil cinema has long been anachronistic, right from when MGR decided to make it his personal propaganda vehicle and made us suckers for messages and sentiments. That sorry course has been well charted by his successors, sans a few who have dared to stand out.
The opening up of the economy has only increased the disconnect. Tamil cinema has long been aware that society has changed, but then it has a serious lack of makers who can adapt to the new normal. Perhaps the problem is not in the nature of the telling, but that of the teller.
For long, Tamil cinema has been populated by Bhagyaraj types, those who escaped villages into the wonderland of cinema and then proceeded to foster medieval ideas and stories on to an increasingly urbanizing milieu.
It looks like the next generation to follow, were those who skipped sub urban classes to imbibe themselves on what looked to them as excellent cinema, the subaltern who did not find much use for study. It is this generation that is at the forefront of much of current film making today, and it is their ideas that are driving Tamil cinema today. To expect much from them is too much.
The generation that has imbibed both education and the culture that supports it, is just beginning to make its mark, but until one of them makes a breakout movie that can tell the story of the urban, decently and successfully, they will be forced to careen out to whatever the current trend is.
Add to this the problem that urban stories can be seen as less powerful, or less moving. It is in response to this that the old village story with its powerful albeit medieval passions has been replaced by the story of the urban slum with its caged and angry, and somewhat contemporary passions, the post Selvaraghavan oeuvre.
A population that has been fed misogyny and has been told that stalking is right cannot be expected to wake out of it as if from a dream. They have to move out, and the new generation has to be fed right. The truth is there there is little hope that this will come true, at least in this decade.
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Madan
July 22, 2016
Good post, Blasta. In fact last Sunday I was watching the show Connexions on Star Vijay and I have noticed the anchor Jagan has a habit of making weird jokes on the female participants. In this episode too, he referred to the two female participants as rendu minis and then requested their male team members to alert him if he was getting distracted. It was entirely non-serious, goes without saying, but I doubt that such jokes would be acceptable for an emcee to make in programs on Sony TV/Colors anymore. I have heard that Kapil Sharma subjects the audience to a lot of misogynist quips but I doubt even he would dare address it to somebody actually present on the stage as a guest. The point is outside cinema too, the effects of this misogynist culture can be observed.
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anon
January 31, 2019
@BR: Have you deleted some of your comments from this thread?
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