Read the full article on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/southern-lights-heroines-tamil-cinema-sayyeshaa-kadaikutty-singam-baradwaj-rangan/
Our filmmakers are artificially creating a demand for “north Indian” heroines by withholding opportunities from local actresses.
My review of Kadaikutty Singam, starring Karthi and Sayyeshaa, got a fair bit of social-media flak, so I thought I’d have an imaginary conversation… No wait! Been there, subjected you to that. Anyway, this is the line that people took objection to: “For a film that extols the produce of local soil, why transplant a heroine from Mumbai? Why relegate the Mayiladuthurai-born Priya Bhavani Shankar to a secondary role? (She was a news anchor on Puthiya Thalaimurai, so she also knows the language.)”
One reason for this statement was the galling hypocrisy in the film: Given its (glancing) focus on farming, if the hero is a “son of the soil,” why not go for a heroine who is a daughter of the same soil? But what bothered me even more was this statement by Sayyeshaa in an interview to Film Companion: “[Kadaikutty Singam] was a new and painstaking experience, as every day I had to put on makeup about four shades darker than my original skin colour. I also had to spray my hair black as I have naturally brown hair. It has taken a lot of effort to look the part.”
The usual logic for using a maida–maavu-colour heroine (thanks, CS Amudhan and Tamizh Padam 2, for the coinage) is that they fit the urban, loosu-ponnu prototype to the T. They don’t know the language, so their lip sync is weirdly off (though Sayyeshaa, to her credit, seems to have worked on this aspect in this film), and their parts are so outlandishly written that they look “bubbly” (see definition below) in a way our home-grown heroines can never be. (“bubbly”: adjective: effervescent; enthusiastic; reminiscent of a Hansika character opening her eyes wide, clapping her hands, and jumping up and down after a raindrop falls on her nose…)
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2018 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
sanjana
July 19, 2018
Valid points. The film makers should introspect than taking the easy way out.
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MANK
July 19, 2018
Very well written Brangan Sir. A point that we have discussed many many times on this blog. its appalling what tamil and telugu film industry is doing to their native actresses. i hope some of the makers will see some sense after reading this piece
For now, all we seem to want is the flavour-of-the-day heroine, and a few years later, the next young and pretty thing
Yup,At least people like Khushboo had some staying power. not just that even during the times of Khushboo , Naghma, simran , there was also Meena, Roja, sukanya ,soundarya etc who got ample opportunities. but now its just worse .
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k1rithika
July 19, 2018
Wow! Just wow. This is exactly what I thought when I saw Kadaikutty Singam. You nailed it, BR!
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MANK
July 19, 2018
Thanks for sharing that short film. Induja Ravichandran looked (and acted) fabulous in the short film. As you said, there is no dearth of talent in the state. they should be provided opportunities
P.S.Reg. Indru Pol Endrum Vaazhga, MGR had some of the most horrible wigs in the last half a decade of his career 🙂
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Dracarys
July 19, 2018
Brangan, if the hero is the son of the soil, he cannot marry a heroine who is the daughter of the same soil! Its incest!!! 🤣
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Jaga_Jaga
July 19, 2018
You left one more consideration for casting lead actresses…that of casting couch! What if that decides the cast???
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நவீன்
July 19, 2018
One of the reason I wasn’t too keen on watching KKS last weekend, nailed it.
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Uma
July 19, 2018
@Jaga Jaga:
I actually was thinking along the same lines. What if casting couch is playing a part jn casting North Heroines.
Every single point that BR has made is valid.K can understand if North Heroines are cast in South movies for their acting prowess like say Radhika Apte in Kabaali. For a long time, I thought the point of casting Maidha Maavu heroines in Tamil films was to fulfil fantasies of our youth that a not so good looking guy can end up with Hansika Motwani or a Tammana. But why do need a North Heroine or someone like Amy jackson and then apply dark makeup?
Also on a side note BR: Can you ask this question during your interviews with directors and actors? Maybe if this question is asked over and over, we will see some change…. one can hope.
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Arjun
July 19, 2018
Timely article. Most of these directors, especially people like Bharathiraja are pure hypocrites when it comes to this point. Fact is, though they may not say it out loud all these directors believe that a true dark-skinned Tamil actress will not be attractive to the masses. Pathetic I know, but deep down that is what they must think.
The other reason could be that import-heroines are caste-neutral. If they cast a tamil actress, her caste would no doubt come up immediately and fatwahs could be issued if she romances a lower caste hero on screen.
Now that you say it, I am struggling to think of one true tamil origin actress in all of tamil cinema. Even the ones Mank and you point out as examples from the past are not tamils.
Meena – Malayali
Roja – Telugu
Soundarya – Kannadiga
Sukanya – Malayali
Radha, Ambiga – Malayali
Radhika – Telugu
etc
Even Sridevi was of telugu origin, at least partially, if I am not mistaken. Aishwarya Rajesh is also Telugu, btw. That way, even other south Indian states, esp. Kerala, are far ahead of Tamil Nadu when it comes to casting their native language actresses.
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Arjun
July 20, 2018
“But if the role demands a darker-skinned heroine and you are still getting someone from Mumbai, where are the opportunities for any Tamil-speaking heroine, then? You won’t give them the fair-skinned heroine parts. (Of course, this is assuming that we don’t have fair-skinned heroines in the south, which is mind-bogglingly untrue.) ”
I don’t understand why you use Tamil and south interchangeably here. We’ve already established that there are plenty of opportunities for actresses from other South Indian states in the industry, right from the time of Saroja Devi to Nayanthara today. So that’s a moot point. And “mind-bogglingly untrue”? Come on. It is a fact that the overwhelming majority, perhaps 99% of tamils are dark-skinned, no need to be wishy washy in stating the obvious, as if tamils would be offended if you didn’t say that there are also some fair people among them.
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Vinod
July 20, 2018
I think your article answers itself. It says something about ourselves in Tamilnadu, doesn’t it? The first thing most folks say about a new born??? “Kozhandha sevappa irukku” to show happiness and “kozhandha konjam neram (color) kammi” otherwise. I guess it’s deep rooted.
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Neo Meister
July 20, 2018
For me it has always comes down to talent….So say there is a northie that can do justice to the roll then I don’t usually bother….. But when there is a half decent role and the actress just eff it up and you know there are so many other actresses that could have done a better job it really pisses you off…. But those are rare instances and the female roles are so shabby that these non-talented,easy on the eyes automatons(to borrow your word) seems par for course ….
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Neo Meister
July 20, 2018
I really do think it’s that fair skin that makes them so appealing to everyone…. And the main job as the heroine in most of the Tamil films is to dress in skimpy clothes and dance every 10 minutes for no particular reason…. And since it’s hard wired into our brain that fairness=beauty ,we just pick the new one off the rack till she loses her one quality that made her an attractive proposition and find the next one…. Rinse,repeat Ad infinitum
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Ravi K
July 20, 2018
Heroines and villains in South Indian films are usually from the North, meaning that South Indian men want to kill North Indian men and marry North Indian women 😛
Shreya Saran playing a character named Thamizhchelvi in “Sivaji” was bad enough, that too in a movie that had all that shadeism with Angavai and Sangavai. But the worst casting was Amy Jackson in movies like “I” and “Ek Deewana Tha,” in which she played full-on Indian characters!
Is there any clearer sign of how poorly Tamil filmmakers treat female characters than the constant casting of women who don’t even speak the language? They Frankenstein their performances together with a light-skinned North Indian in the visuals and the Tamil dubbing by someone who doesn’t get the recognition for essentially providing half the performance.
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Eswar
July 20, 2018
Dear BR, should knowing the language be a criteria to act in a movie? As long as an actor can fit and do justification to the role, does it really matter what language they speak or where are they from? I assume Nandita Das does not speak Tamil but was very convincing in Azhagi and Kannathil Muthamittal? Similarly Ben Kingsly playing Gandhi?
I can see the irony in making a fair skinned actress darker to suit the character. But if an actress from anywhere in the world who can be convincing in the role being played, than that should be sufficient right. No?
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Enigma
July 20, 2018
Very well written as always. On the question of why Sayyesha, I hate to say this and I hope won’t moderate me out, have you considered the possibility of ‘other factors’ coming into play? Anyway, Tamil Nadu is a deeply racist society. Despite the rationalist movement, people are obsessed with skin colour.
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Madan
July 20, 2018
@Ravi K: Just stretching that North Indian conquest angle a little more, is it a Lanka Ramayana thing? Like kill Rama and capture Sita? I am joking. It’s nowhere as complicated but it’s fascinating that northies are preferred for heroine as well as villain roles.
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Tina
July 20, 2018
Flak? On social media? For saying this? Kali mutthipochu. All valid points Rangan sir, nice article.
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sanjana
July 20, 2018
Import is due to novelty factor. Not fair skin alone. Making a handsome akshay unrecognizable is also part of the game. Of course he willingly accepted it.
Maybe the light skinned girls of tamilnadu prefer becoming doctors and engineers to filmstars.
As long as the audience dont protest on the streets or some self respect movement wont force the producers, things wont change much.
Bollywood likes the fairest dancers to dance or cheer the leads. Have we ever seen blacks dancing like that in any bollywood film except to provoke amusement?
Songs with words like gori praising a pretty girl are in abundance while there is not one song praising the beauty of a kaali.
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Siva
July 20, 2018
I was all ready to retrospectively suggest Aishwarya Rajesh for the part. And then the last paragraph of the article kind of took that away from me.
Damn you, BR! 😀
I really liked her educated-enough-village-girl performance in Dharma Dhurai. She did nail that one, especially in that Aandipatti song. 🙂
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rajashree11
July 20, 2018
Very valid arguments. But I don’t feel that all of it is because the women from the south are denied these roles.
May be our girls don’t want to be the dolls. Maybe they don’t want what is currently offered to them. May be talents like induja, and the aruvi girl, will pick roles that they value and leave the rest for the lesser (fairer) mortals. If that is the case I’m not sure if they are missing out on anything or actually being smart.
I was also wondering if the Tamil families find acting a safe/ promising career for the women of their family. I believe that is also what came in a Gautam Menon interview with Anushka.
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praneshp
July 20, 2018
@Ravi K : I’ll see your Tamizhchelvi, and raise you Tamannah as Koperundevi from Veeram.
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Rahini David
July 20, 2018
There being 99% dark skinned people in South is based on what color you think is fair/dark. If you want to compare against a tammanah. The count may well be 100%. If you accept a wider skin color range to be fair. Then perhaps a 75% is dark.
But the assertion that BR used that line to pacify South Indians, and that it is a wishy washy line is an offensive line in itself.
If anyone saw that line reassuring in anyway it is their own bias that showed its ugly head. Unless someone sees “fair” as a complement and “dark” as an insult, they’d hardly find anything either reassuring or hypocritical about it.
Yes there are fair Tamil women in existence. We dont need to cling to that point for reassurance and validation. Yes I know Arjun says Tamils do not need such a reassurance. But the very thought that BR used the line to avoid hurting any Tamil ego is very biased.
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Sifter
July 20, 2018
Tamilians males and their movie heroes, mostly, wear their dark colour as their honour, their pride, their imperiousness, their crown, their indulgence, etc., And the deserve their fair skinned lover, wife, heroines. Their right, natural, God-given entitlement.
You make very valid points. But not sure about this—That level of performance is possible only when someone thinks in a language, and isn’t just mechanically mouthing lines.
How so? Savithri for example, is not from TN, yet became one of the best performer around then. Maybe the fact that she invested in knowing the language, dubbed herself helped. Some of the movies she made had some very poetic, powerful dialogues, but she was brilliant as heck. I am thinking in what language did she think while acting in Tamil movies.
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Sifter
July 20, 2018
A role that needs a fair skinned actress to play that faired-skinned heroine? Is that even really 10% of the story requirement in Tamil Movies? Or does it just get added because the director/producers think it gives them a free pass?
And I can only shake my head at what followed that line of thinking in the article. A hint of prejudice rears its head in that paragraph and when i read the whole article again after that, most of the article doesn’t sit well with me. It seems to put up a point for mediocrity in acting.Yes, Ambika and Radha were popular, but by no means had much scope for showing off their acting skills or shining on their own. Though, they did well with the scarce opportunities that were provided to them,
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Aadhy
July 20, 2018
The obvious hypocrisy of tamil directors aside, I think it’s also got to do with the casting process of Tamil cinema. Very few directors conduct auditions, proper & fair. They just look at photos, spot models in a TV commercial or an interview and go for them. After all it’s not like the roles they write for women are worthy of an audition process. So for female actors, it’s all about visibility and being in the limelight for directors to spot them.
This is where the the Mumbai models outshine any aspiring local actor, I feel. They have a well-oiled PR machinery and social media handlers who make sure they don’t escape the eye of directors on the lookout. If you’d been following Sayyesha on social media, she’s basically all over it, posting cute stories, dance videos and templated messages about environment. Whoever is handling them is doing one hell of a job. Whereas the local heroines seem to either not have a PR at all or have managers that double up as PR handlers.
I remember Rithvika saying at the inauguration of Biggboss that shé’s entering the house only to get more visibility and audience traction. But the fact her popularity on that show isn’t even remotely close to Yashika’s or Aishwarya Dutta’s, has been the story of Tamil heroines so far.
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Arjun
July 20, 2018
@Rahini David: Of course everything in life is relative. Here the comparison is relative to north Indian imports. I guess I should have made that clear. In that sense it is fairly obvious that 99% of tamil women are dark. I mean, there was this movie where Tamannah was “typecast” as a “Theni ponnu” spouting Theni pride. Having lived around those parts a bit I can vouch that 99% of Theni women look nothing like Tamnnah…or Hamsika…or for that matter even Jyothika or Simran. It’s utterly ridiculous.
My main objection to that line was the phrasing. “Mind-bogglingly untrue” that we don’t have fair-skinned heroines (relative to the Tamannahs and Hamsikas)? Clearly not. Not to mention it is a clumsy turn of phrase by BR’s standards. Which is why it looks like reassurance to me, although that may not have been the intent. In which case I apologize for wasting everyone’s time.
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amrutha97
July 20, 2018
It’s internalized colourism with a heaping of sexism to go with. Heroes can be dark-skinned and pretty much any age, and that’s alright because the only perspective really considered for the audience is that of the young male. As far as the film industry (which is male-dominated) is concerned, beauty=fairness, but beauty is also pretty much the only use women have if they’re not busy being doting mothers and obedient wives. The talent that a dark-skinned actress may have is useless for most moderate-to-big-budget productions, because what they want is eye-candy to play some part in the hero’s life, not a full-fledged human being with her own significance in the movie. Male actors get a pass because the worth of the man isn’t in his physical beauty anyway-in fact, most movies reiterate the point that the man’s worth is not in his looks but in his maleness. The dream that films try to sell to the audience is that of the unsuccessful man who overcomes obstacles in his life to become successful, and women are just a reward for the man to collect. It makes sense that fair-skinned heroines would be cast, because the perceived physical beauty of a woman decides her worth. And there’s also this hypocrisy in society wherein the men will happily gawk at fair-skinned women in bikinis on screen but will degrade one of ‘their’ women who wishes to act in those roles. It’s still considered a shameful thing for a woman, especially a “thamizh ponnu”, to show her body as she wishes and own her sexuality, so the male-dominated audience and industry prefer north-indian women for that reason as well-they can get their eye-candy without having to face their hypocrisy.
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Kasthuri
July 20, 2018
Finally some one says this out loud. THANK YOU. Tamil films are really unlucky with their heroines. I feel even if the actors are not really Tamil (like Jeeva or Jayam Ravi), they atleast have decent command of the language and that has a influence in how a person can internalize the emotion conveyed through language.
I dont care where you are from. But you need to be fluent in the language you are acting in. I have no problem with Kalki acting in Hindi films (as long as she is not shown as the village belle like say a Gracy Singh in Lagaan). But she plays these urban characters that fit and works hard on her acting enough to make up for the lack of fluency in it.
But these maida maavu heroines never seem to etch a lasting memory like Revathy did or Parvathy does.
I also hate dubbing for (male and) female actors. It needs to stop. Voicing for your character is half the job of an actor. If you cannot do that, you need not apply for the job. This is half the root cause for Tamil films having bla films. Thats perhaps why I do not consider even someone like Nayanthara at the same level as any of the former tamil actreses.
I miss having actresses like Bhanu priya and Revathy who felt “ours”.
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Rahini David
July 20, 2018
Arjun: “BR, that maybe untrue but not MIND-BOGGLINGLY untrue” is something I almost typed yesterday. I mean if BR had stopped and inspected his mind, he’d have found that his mind did not really boggle all that much.
I’d have done that (without insinuating this and that, of course) if it hadn’t been for the climate he seems to have found himself in. I mean look at the line that seems to have generated flak this time. I am sure that people would have ‘liked’ and ‘shared’ that line if a female movie critic had written it.
Writing a coherent piece isnt an easy joke. Anyone can take offense to any line you write even in a short comment and insist you have low-brow biases and I merely demonstrated that.
He merely overdid an adjective there. Dont people do that?
There wasn’t anything MIND BOGGLINGLY offensive about what you wrote anyway. I inspected my mind. It did not boggle.
😊
Peace.
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Vivek narain
July 20, 2018
The dark skinned tamil women have the kind of figure and face that can make a Trappist Monk abandon his vows of celibacy. It’s not the color but rather race that decides a stunner.
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rsylviana
July 20, 2018
Like someone mentioned above, I am actually surprised that BR received flak in twitter for pointing this out . So much for all the regional jingoism going on there.
Tamannah and Hansika must be the serial offenders in this case. Hansika hasn’t managed to even learn to lip-sync properly after all these years of being paired with all the top heroes.I thought it would be easier for them to lip-sync for songs than actual dialogues since they must hear the song over and over again to get the steps and timing right. But in the recent Heartukulla song her lip sync is beyond terrible .
Tamannah is a bit better atleast in this department. But she hasn’t managed to get even the most basic reactions right. They are almost always over the top and downright weird. Watch her in Ayan in the scene where Surya accuses her brother for pimping her out(or something to that effect).Seriously, just catch that scene in youtube or somewhere if you can. Its a laughter riot I tell you.
I think even if we bring this to the notice of the directors or the casting directors they would just bring up the usual ‘This is what people want’ excuse. How and from where they came to this conclusion is something only they might be able to tell us.
P.S. Another instance of Ms.Tamannah bringing unintended humour in the theatre was in Bahubali-2. Towards the climax of the film , there is a single frame where both Tamannah and Anushka are present. Anushka would just be doing her thang and Tamannah would be huffing and puffing behind her(read ‘is looking angry and ready to pounce on the villain/his men’). Our entire gang of friends just burst out laughing saying ‘Ithu serious scene ma, yen ma inga vanthu sirippu mootitkittu iruka?’
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Madhu
July 20, 2018
While we hold banners for Tamil speaking, dark skinned heroines, can we please not assume that Mumbai-imports are being cast only because of casting couch. It sounds so similar to the allegations that women in film industry get – “oh, she must have slept around right eye roles”. I personally find it extremely insulting!
Casting fair skinned girls has been an integral part of.movie making industry. It really doesn’t matter whether or not the girl can speak the language, understand the lines.
Trisha was cast not because she is Tamil, but because of how fair and pretty she looks. She did not have command over the language initially, atleast not enough to dub for herself. And she is pretty maida-maavu coloured too (again, relatively, like Rahini said, there should be relativity in these comparisons).
So, please, let us concentrate on this producers/distributors/directors thinking that audience can ONLY prefer a fair skinned girl (not woman, the roles are definitely not for a woman, but a girl) as heroine, even if she has to be painted dark.
And painting dark reminds me, this is something that annoys the hell out of me with Directoe Bala. Let me use Sai Dhansika in the movie,who is naturally dark and can actually act, BUT, never, ever, ever as the heroine. For that, let me use Vedhika and paint her unnaturally ashen. Before I rant further, don’t directors, atleast proven and established ones, have a say in who they can cast as heroines?
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shemz
July 20, 2018
May be it has to do with our movies’ hang up on child-like women, looks 18 acts 8, that’s supposedly cute!! But when you get the language it’s hard to do, you loook 18 and speak 18. Also, it is hard to lord over women who understand the language at stage shows, TV programs, interviews etc. They are more likely to speak their mind when they are in a setting not intimidated by language.
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Dhrjf
July 20, 2018
I lived in Chennai for 21 years. I came across the most beautiful tamil girls, various skin color tones. These girls were not from other states, I am talking about true blue tamil girls. They could sing, dance, walk the ramp, act in stage plays etc. etc. Some of them even got feelers from the industry, however, very few of them went into acting. The reason was very simple – the price for entry is the casting couch. They were not interested. The few that did get in through family contacts did not last long. I don’t want to name names. You definitely know them.
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Siva
July 21, 2018
Kasthuri: ” Thats perhaps why I do not consider even someone like Nayanthara at the same level as any of the former tamil actreses. ”
I believe she dubbed for herself in Naanum Rowdy Dhaan, Dora and Iru Mugan.
While I felt that her dubbing for Naanum Rowdy Dhaan was okay, the one for Dora was a little off. The weirdness that I felt in Dora might as well have had to do with the writing, at least in part. As for Iru Mugan, well, I am unable to recollect any part of that movie, let alone the female lead’s dubbing. All I could recollect from that drag is that the female lead had a kick-ass stunt sequence, which was edited out in the final cut because …. Quelle Surprise …. it undermined the male lead’s heroism.
I wish she dubbed for all her movies. She could only get better with practice. For now though, I guess we are stuck with Deepa Venkat’s dubbing artistry. Who is not doing a bad job at all. 🙂
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Arragorn
July 21, 2018
Great Article, thats why its high time that telugu and tamil industry should get casting directors so that directors n producers have access to local talent. the directors n producers dont want to waste time on casting so they just go the easy way out. probably bombay imports have better pr n managers to get these films for them. its not gonna change unless producers n directors spend time on casting and want to make authentic n stay honest to subjects. Seriously how many filmmakers r there who r true lovers of cinema. for most of them its just a job thats it.
PS: Back in 80s we exported sridevi, jayapradha, hema malini (tamilian), etc so there was a trade deficit so now we r importing from Bombay to make it even ;).
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Madan
July 21, 2018
One point I would like to make is to it does not matter per se an actor has to wear face paint (or what have you) to change his/her natural complexion for a role. Kamal did it for Guna, Alec Guinness did it for Lawrence of Arabia. And therein lies the rub. If you are NOT casting an actor for his/her acting ability, there is a problem. And this is a very acute problem when it comes to actresses in Tamil cinema. However, it is also the case that the big stars are not necessarily cast for their acting ability anyway. Nor for their son-of-the-soil authenticity (Rajnikanth being a prime example of how hollow this authenticity really is). It’s simply ‘box office draw’ and box office draw is both a function of which actors ACTUALLY bring the crowds and which actors the producers THINK will bring the crowds. In the case of actresses, the producers have decided that skin factor is paramount. Even if a fair skinned actress has to darken her skin for a role, that is deemed more acceptable as she would at least be continuing to grab eyeballs of the audience. Not fair indeed, but this is also not very different from white actresses invariably getting preference over their black counterparts. Cinema is indeed a reflection of society and irrespective of whatever thoughts people may hold in their head, what they are willing to pay top dollar for is what dictates film industry decisions. If the audience didn’t want the Hansikas being cast in Tamil films and decried her bad acting and lack of knowledge of Tamil, this problem would be gone tomorrow.
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Arjun
July 21, 2018
“If the audience didn’t want the Hansikas being cast in Tamil films and decried her bad acting and lack of knowledge of Tamil, this problem would be gone tomorrow.”
Indeed that’s what it comes down to. It’s a brutal capitalistic industry. The market understands what people prefer and that is maida maavu loosu ponnus. Ultimately the directors or producers are not philanthropists and not really interested in social justice, however much they try to portray the opposite image. Even the otherwise brilliant Pa Ranjith is yet to cast a tamil leading lady in his movies (Catherine Tresa in Madras is a most unconvincing Vyasarpadi girl).
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e,hari
July 21, 2018
BR – Good article and a timely one. Just one observation. Should the tile be – Tamil heroines are doomed or South indian heroines are doomed. Most of the actress you referenced are not from Tamil Nadu. Barathi, Latha, Manjula, Radha, Ambika, Revathi are all from other southern indian states. Fact is it applies to most of the leading Tamil heroines from 50s. Two tamil actress stood out in recent times were Varalakshmi and Abirami ( was aptly cast in Virumandi). Though upto Kushbu, it was ok and manageable, But starting from Jodhika it was trending into Cringeworthy territory to now unbearable. Equal blames to go around ( Directors/producers/actors), But I put the blame on the fans. There is a significant male population in TN who hates anything related to North India except the girls in movies.
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jaga_jaga
July 21, 2018
@Uma, Madhu – Casting Couch definitely plays a role, not just in hiring North Indian “talent”, but also with hiring South Indian actresses.
And for one, I firmly believe that this aspect connects all the dots left unconnected by BR in this article. Else it makes no sense at all!
Having said it, I don’t at all oppose casting couch, as long as it is consensual. I mean, some Director with a super-active soldier down under, and some actress (or even an actor, in general) with a super-ambitious head up above; if they are both fine with copulation being just one more step in the ladder of success, who are we to oppose it?
Point is, exploitation should be avoided at any cost, that’s all!
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"Original" venkatesh
July 21, 2018
+1 Madhu.
Its insulting to imply that its Casting Couch that these North Indian girls are acting in Tamil films.
I just think its a sort of inertia, thats all
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brangan
July 21, 2018
e,hari: Just one observation. Should the tile be – Tamil heroines are doomed or South indian heroines are doomed.
So that’s why I had the title as “Tamil-speaking” heroines…
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Madan
July 21, 2018
“I mean, some Director with a super-active soldier down under, and some actress (or even an actor, in general) with a super-ambitious head up above; if they are both fine with copulation being just one more step in the ladder of success, who are we to oppose it?” – Because it then becomes the baseline, there are enough aspirants, especially the strugglers, who will sell their soul for a foothold in the industry, leaving those actresses who would like to be judged on merit high and dry. Most actresses who were able to oppose the industry’s exploitative practices and ‘get away’ with it have either been from film family or sufficiently well to do otherwise that they didn’t desperately need the film roles. And no, that’s not not wanting it badly enough. Nobody should be asked to give up their dignity to perform their art. Of course it happens but it’s shameful all the same and every actress who consents to it ensures the industry remains a terrible place for actresses.
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sanjana
July 21, 2018
“Because it then becomes the baseline, there are enough aspirants, especially the strugglers, who will sell their soul for a foothold in the industry, leaving those actresses who would like to be judged on merit high and dry.”
This sentence is relevant not only to film industry but to other spheres as well. Exploitation of the strugglers male or female in any field by the powerful. Nepotism is also part of it. Level playing field is a myth most of the times.
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Vidhya M
July 21, 2018
Even the homegrown maida mavu color (edho on par with Tamannah color code) Tamizh actresses like Mohini, Sivaranjani, Sangeetha, Janani, Shruthi couldnt make much impact here. Mohini even had a swimsuit scene in her first film and Sangeetha had a bold image. Still they found few takers. This has to be a real conundrum that very few tamizh heroines have managed to make a mark in this industry. (Keerthy Suresh will probably go the Sneha route)
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Eswar
July 21, 2018
I feel there are huge assumptions being made in the comments section:
That casting couch is ubiquitous in the cine industry
That North Indian or Non tamil speaking actresses are probably getting the opportunities because of casting couch
That the predation, if it happens, is one way
I find these assumptions problematic and dangerous. Unless there is evidence to show that these practices exist and is prevalent in the cine industry it is unfair to make these judgements.
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Madan
July 21, 2018
“That casting couch is ubiquitous in the cine industry” – If you really doubt that, please watch this video where Tisca Chopra outs a director (who goes unnamed) as a predator. And it’s not about THAT director. As she says in the video, outdoor shots are intended for the hero to do whatever he wants to with the heroine. So it is a generally pervasive practice in the industry.
She now produces on her own and hence can speak out. Most actresses don’t do that and therefore are understandably afraid to speak out.
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kk
July 22, 2018
Priyamani gave an astounding performance in paruthiveeran and in any other industry that would have earned her at least a dozen other strong roles in the twelve years since then . But she was unceremoniously whisked away from tamil cinema . Then there was parvathy in Mariyan . I couldn’t take my eyes off her . That is saying something considering she shared screen with Dhanush. She is doing great in malayalam but why did the tamil industry choose hansika over parvathy. The decision makers of tamil cinema , the ones who are calling shots represent a section of people who believe that women are nothing more than eye candy and sexual objects . Anything more than that like personality and intelligence are not just undesirable but frowned upon. Then she may not fall hopelessly in love with the good for nothing hero . I guess once filmmakers start writing strong woman characters,they have to seek talented actresses to carry the role . That brings us to the question why they are not writing strong women characters . My guess is that the hero doesn’t prefer a strong female actor and the producers are compelled to abide by the rules set by the him .
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Arjun
July 22, 2018
“I find these assumptions problematic and dangerous. Unless there is evidence to show that these practices exist and is prevalent in the cine industry it is unfair to make these judgements”
Because of the nature of the industry and the price for speaking up, hard evidence will always be scarce. Even in Hollywood, note how long it took even top actresses like Uma Thurman to open about Weinstein, so one can imagine how much harder it must be in India. And by the way, some actresses have accused him (Weinstein) of RAPE,not merely trading sex for opportunities. Which brings me to what someone said above – that casting couch is ok as long as it is consensual. That’s an absurd argument. The unequal power dynamics means that these cases more often than not are purely exploitative, although one of the parties might not consider it as such. That is why company bosses cannot date junior employees (refer Intel CEO Brian Krzanich’s recent resignation), advisors are not allowed to sleep with their students, media moguls cannot have affairs with junior reporters (refer to the Tarrun Tejpal case), presidents cannot screw around with interns etc etc….
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Anu Warrier
July 22, 2018
A friend of mine is right now writing a script for a Hindi movie based on one of her original stories. One of the scenes – a large one – was nixed after a long back-and-forth, because quote unquote ‘the heroine can’t be more heroic than the hero.’ And this is the state of the industry. How can we expect ‘strong women characters’?
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Siva
July 23, 2018
Anu Warrier: ” because quote unquote ‘the heroine can’t be more heroic than the hero.’ And this is the state of the industry. How can we expect ‘strong women characters’? ”
Exactly!
Directing you back to my reply above to Kasthuri.
Do anyone of us remember that stunt sequence?
Well, one that never made it to the silver screen!
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jaga_jaga
July 23, 2018
The rhethoric about how what appears to be consensual being actually exploitative is indeed theoretically sound. However, so long as there exist actors who are willful colluders, nothing can be done about it. And I wouldn’t blame them. If there are only “n” limited ways of acheiving success, and casting couch adds the “n+1” th way, a person opting to succeed that way is not at all wrong.
And how many new comers actually speak out about it? Isn’t it almost always like, “ok manage somehow to climb up; once enough security/success is attained, now I can preach what I did not practice!”
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Srinivas R
July 23, 2018
@Anu – What is suprising about what you said is that it’s a script of a Hindi movie. I was imagining that Bollywood has gone beyond these norms. I mean the industry has a lot of women behind the camera, genuine female star power in Deepika, Alia, Kangana etc., but still this norm holds sway is baffling.
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Srinivas R
July 23, 2018
jaga-jaga: the point is they may not be “willing” colluders, more like “pushed into a corner” and “forced” colluders. This practice needs to be called out to ensure everyone at lease gets a fair shot at the Industry. Way easier to say than do, but still something worth pressurizing the industry on.
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Madan
July 23, 2018
@jaga_jaga: Newcomers in any case cannot speak out because of the unequal power equation. What they can do and have done in some cases is to privately say no to such offenders and wait for opportunities from those who do not make it a requirement. Vidya Balan said in the aftermath of the Metoo campaign that whenever she got shady vibes, she would just politely get out of such situations and avoid working in the project. For an example from abroad, progressive rock singer Annie Haslam said she used to receive many offers from producers promising to make her an overnight success in return for you know what and she said no. We can disbelieve her but I am sure if she hadn’t said no,she wouldn’t have spent her career in a second tier prog rock act. Just to add, she has a wonderful voice, a huge range and is classically trained so it’s also a myth that nobody will subject you to casting couch if you are talented (and also an insult to the talent of those who chose to put up with the system). I agree with you to the extent that perhaps we can’t blame the newcomers but not for the reason of their being consent as you said. Rather because the producers, directors etc who wield power choose to abuse it and put the aspiring actor in a difficult position. A lot of aspirants run away from family to try their luck in the film industry so it’s not surprising they compromise. That still does not absolve the abusing party of blame though. Rather, I would say a good producer ought to spurn advances from a struggler and insist on an audition. Sorry, do women interviewing for a boring corporate job have to sell their body for it? Why should it be acceptable for the film industry (or show business per se)?
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Ruminating Aesthete
July 23, 2018
The milieu i feel is ingrained with patriarchy. The so called tamil audience or for that matter most of the indian audience seem to desire a “soft” and “tender” woman and not an assertive and intelligent “trouble maker”. I am not sure if the audience truly appreciate this “bubbly” phenotype or it has been engraved into thier sociocultural conscience by filmmakers who have always tried to stay with a working “formula”. Anyways i do feel it is the ingrained patriarchy. At the least we hear muffled voices of female rebellion from our neighbours, un fortunately, i am sure we shall never live to see such a day happen in our state.
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sridharraman
July 23, 2018
As someone mentioned in an earlier comment, even Pa Ranjith feels the need to import heroines from the North. It doesn’t matter if some can act very well (e.g. Radhika Apte) and some can’t (Catherine). It seems to be a much deeper malaise.
I mean, look at this list – Reema Sen, Jyothika, Sameera Reddy. Not really Tamil-speaking, but the heroines of GVM.
Shankar started with a good choice of Madhubala. After that? Nagma, Genelia, Manisha, Aishwarya Rai, Amy Jackson.
Heck, looking at Mani Rathnam’s list of heroines is so disappointing! Multiple Aishwarya Rai, multiple Aditi Rao Hydari, Esha Deol, Girija. After a point, one can count the number of non-fair, Tamil-speakable heroines in his movies using a single hand.
I think if one were to look hard at most Tamil directors, we might unearth very similar disturbing patterns.
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Madan
July 23, 2018
@Ruminating Aesthete: From the success of both Queen and Tanu Weds Manu Returns, we can infer that at least occasionally the audience likes spunk in a female lead and won’t mind if she enjoys top billing with no other major stars driving the film. But the establishment’s paranoid reaction to Kangana and their relentless attempts to paint her as devil incarnate suggest that the film industry is very patriarchal and not comfortable with an aggressive, dominant actress (or maybe any other such female presence but the only others have been the Mangeshkar sisters).
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Ruminating Aesthete
July 23, 2018
If suspension of disbelief were a qualitative/ categorical variable then casting would surely be a factor that would have a heavy influence on affecting the tone of this all important entity. If the audience has to engage, in other words, be drawn through the wide open doors – the art form in some way should find ways to provide a false sense of reality – the most common way of doing this is by introducing a human element. The element’s physical appearance and screen presence play a vital role in making the mise en scene a secure abode for the audience’s imagination.
It is understandable that some times one has to cast against the grain, just to add another layer to the entire cinematic experience. For example Karthi’s casting as VC, I felt, was one such move, some time’s these experiments work at other time’s they don’t. However when one sees a pattern – filmmakers casting fair complexioned, non-Tamil speaking, “bubbly” actresses – one just starts to wonder how they came up with this stupid formula. I am not saying that north Indian actresses cannot act – I felt Radhika Apte nailed her part in Kabali and so did Aditi Rao Hydari in KV, yet the question dangles, don’t we have south Indian actresses with similar, if not better, acting skills. Why did Aditi have to go through the pains of learning a new language? Or was it one of MR’s ways of priming an actress so that he could get the traumatized, insecure and confused demeanor. These are questions I guess only the filmmakers can answer. I truly loved Aditi’s performance in KV, to bits, but always wondered if MR ever thought of making Shraddha play Leela. Just a thought
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sanjana
July 23, 2018
Not aggressive but we have outspoken ones like Shabana Azmi, late Nutan, Preity Zinta and some others like Pooja Bhatt and Sushmita Sen.
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Ruminating Aesthete
July 23, 2018
One other factor that affects this socio-cultural malaise is the business interest. Art in itself is an unpredictable entity. The insecure businessmen who seek to market and sell art are constantly trying to identify characteristics in a work that would secure its popularity. If only they had employed a shrewd statistician to check the veracity of their assumptions! This fair complexioned, north Indian heroine factor, I guess, is one such flawed assumption.
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sanjana
July 23, 2018
MR and others may have wanted a face that is closest to their character. They could have searched for that face locally but it would have taken time and hardwork. When there is readymade one available, the temptation is to go for it. You can prepare pickle at home or buy the readymade one available in the mall. If there is a thriving theatre culture then actors can be sourced from there. Or one can even look at tv stars who have promise. When there are so many career choices available why will middleclass girls opt for an uncertain career in films where they have to dance in skimpy clothes and do uncomfortable scenes with the heroes?
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Uma
July 23, 2018
What is baffling to me is that even for homely, non-glamorous roles in the 90’s, the go to actress was Devayani- another North import. Devayani did not really have any screen presence and was more suited to TV serial weepy lead roles- yet even for such a role, our producers/ directors couldnt think of casting someone from Tamilnadu who could speak the language. In the 90’s, 2000’s we had North Indian actresses who had done a couple of movies in Bollywood and didnt quite make it like Nagma, Jyothika, Simran but these days any North model/ fair skinned girl seem to be the producer/ director’s choice.
Also like someone else mentioned in the comments thread, south Indian female leads who could actually act and gave strong performances like Abirami in Virumandi, Priyamani and Parvathy wouldnt be really interested in wearing skimpy clothese and blink and miss appearance in hero driven movies and probably just wait it out for strong roles/ movies.
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Arjun
July 23, 2018
@jaga_jaga: “However, so long as there exist actors who are willful colluders, nothing can be done about it. And I wouldn’t blame them. ”
“And how many new comers actually speak out about it?”
Ok, let’s break this down. How old is the average newcomer in let’s say Tamil cinema, 19,20? And how old is you average well-established director/producer? In their 40s? You expect a still-in-college, 19 year old to speak out about some of the most powerful men in the industry? And for what? It’s a lose-lose situation for the girl. a) Unlike in rape/molestation cases, the director/producer in 99% of the cases will face NO legal consequence because it is admittedly a grey area in the law and these people can afford the best lawyers. b) The girl who spoke out will be slut shamed by the public. The only reason Weinstein’s case even captured attention was because of the #metoo wave – a black swan event, so to speak. So the best one can hope for is a boycott of the said director/producer by the rest of the industry….which rarely happens. I mean just look at the case of Dileep in the “progressive” malayalam industry and how top stars are rallying around him- and that is not even a casting couch case but a much more serious cold-blooded kidnap-rape case. So under normal circumstances, even in Hollywood, the men will get away with absolutely no consequences while the aspiring actress’s career prospects will be forever destroyed. So no again, the actresses are not colluders, they are victims.
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Vivek narain
July 23, 2018
When a guy sets up the casting couch, he may think he’s on to a soft touch, but sometimes he could be on a fatal course. Maybe the first time she seems to be a pushover, a mellifluous dish. Infact she whets a guy’s appetite and then holds him off. It comes kind of costly the second time, and if the guy can’t afford it, he climbs the wall and gnaws his way across the ceiling. Women get into a guy’s blood like a virus and then the sap has to shoot himself to relieve his agony. I have learned to go blind whenever i confront a tiger lily, because it doesn’t add to anything to act otherwise, except a strained eyesight and a stiff neck.
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Rahul
July 23, 2018
kk makes a very good point. What happened to Priyamani? It is such a waste. Her acting in that movie should have got her at least one good film a year.
In case of Mani Rathnam and Pa Ranjith, I think they star non Tamil actors because of their pan Indian ambitions. For example, Nana Patekar in kaala.
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Eswar
July 24, 2018
@Madan, @Arjun – Sorry haven’t been following the comments section last couple of days. Regarding the points you have mentioned with respect to my earlier comment, I can understand why artists cannot name the predators and why the evidence can be scarce. Said that, for the same reason it is easier to make incidents that happen in pockets as something widespread in the industry. The experiences of these artists are probably true. The question I have is, is this what most artists experience in the industry? To make that judgement, as an outsider, I would need more evidence. This in any way does not deny what these artists have experienced or being unfair to them. In the same ways, to be fair to other artists/directors/producers who are honest and uncorrupt, I would refrain from making the judgement that casting couch is ubiquitous. I would rather wait and change my view when I see that evidence rather than extrapolate with the numbers we have.
Thanks.
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kaizokukeshav
July 24, 2018
Felt like the review is too focused on anti-Sayyesha commentary. For eg. there is an attempt to justify a Rakul Preet Singh with Sayyesha Sehgal, who is probably 2-3 yrs behind the latter. It sounds as if, just because SS got 2 flops, she should never act in South Indian movie and just because RPS established the market (which is SS trying to do), she is “some-what” justified. So what should we assume, stick to regionalism or give way to eye-pleasing stuff ?
As a Telugu film guy, I see this same problem in AP/TS too. It would be interesting to see this debate from a film-industry perspective whether local-heroine-career-developing-phobia is real. Frankly speaking, as an audience I don’t care where the heroine comes from if she is doing justification to the role and story.
Btw where is Kajal Agarwal in all these, buried in controversies 😛 ?
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Siva
July 24, 2018
Madan: ” A lot of aspirants run away from family to try their luck in the film industry so it’s not surprising they compromise. That still does not absolve the abusing party of blame though. Rather, I would say a good producer ought to spurn advances from a struggler and insist on an audition. ”
Seriously? :-O O.o
I mean, does it really happen the other way around? If it is already hard for me to take in the very high level of accused exploitation from this thread as a fact that could actually be happening daily in the industry, this is a whole other angle and an even harder pill to swallow. Are there aspiring new comers who are that extremely ambitious, who make advances to an industry person, just in the hope of securing an acting job? It is baffling to me that someone would go that far. Yes, there could be exceptions. But I am intrigued here. What do you think the would be ratio of this as opposed to the actual predators going for the prey?
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Madan
July 24, 2018
@Siva: That was more a response to jaga_jaga’s formulation and an attempt by me to fix the onus on the producer/director/male star as applicable. In an organisation, if a top guy promoted the attractive lady making advances to him rather than a hard working professional – male or female- then he would be doing a grave disservice to the organisation and the other, more deserving employees. This happens by the way though it’s not super duper regular! In the same way, a director reciprocating the advances of an enterprising starlet by giving her a role isn’t merely engaging in a consensual relationship; he is compromising his film and betraying other actors who ought to have been given that role.
Now, I have no idea how often it happens and what is the ratio as between such cases and those where the director just demands outright as a quid pro quo. But does it happen? Yes. I will not speculate about what might be specific cases of such behaviour but Shobha De had also made a reference in an article about sexual harrassment in the film industry to starlets undressing the moment they saw a particular big shot in the industry. We can maybe guess who she means from the description (and I believe she intends that we do) but can’t definitively put a name to it.
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Siva
July 24, 2018
Ruminating Aesthete: ” If only they had employed a shrewd statistician to check the veracity of their assumptions! This fair complexioned, north Indian heroine factor, I guess, is one such flawed assumption. ”
I agree. But I’d like to digress. Here are a few other assumptions that our Tamil film directors put us through very often:
1) TASMAC / Drinking Scenes: It appears as though the CBFC has made it mandatory for every Tamil movie to have at least one TASMAC or general drinking scene in order to secure the Entertainment Tax Waiver. And the directors make sure they show everything to the core here,
from how to open the bottle to
using plastic glasses to
pouring it slowly into the glasses to
exactly replicating and somehow elongating the pouring sound to
mixing the drink to optimum level with aerated soft drinks to
a variety of side dishes.
I mean, these scenes are absolutely detailed, I often wonder if the Tamil Nadu Government (viz, the TASMAC owners) are secretly behind this agenda, threatening the filmmakers to forcibly include these scenes. May be they double down on the entertainment taxes if a film does not have at least one such scene.
2) Stalking Scenes: If I am not incorrect, it seems that the right to passage to becoming the quintessential, MASS Tamil Movie Hero these days, is to relentlessly and shamelessly stalk the heroine in at least one movie. I am not sure if this, or donning the infamous police uniform and shouting in high decibels (~150 db, which according to the below website causes an eardrum rupture).
http://www.industrialnoisecontrol.com/comparative-noise-examples.htm
Note: In the older movies, only the bad guys used to drink this often in movies. Again, only petty thieves and villains used to stalk the heroine in older movies, whose day the hero would save by doing a dishaal, dishaal fight sequence. On the contrary, today, only a few movies have been an exception to glorifying stalking and/or drinking. Even a critically acclaimed movie like Maanagaram glorified both these things. Hell, the heroine even falls for the guy in this one too. You know why? Because … her roommate(!?) forces/suggests her to! 😉
3) Heroine/Ex-Girlfriend Bashing Songs: This has been happening with such regularity in recent times, that even BR — even though he does not promote it — actually felt a relief when the female did the honors for this in Thamizh Padam 2. Enough said.
4) Self-Serving Punch Dialaaaaks: When Rajinikanth originally started these (it was him who started these, right?) hero-serving-one-liners in the mid-to-late 90s, I felt that they were at first not so bluntly self-serving as it is the norm today, and that they mostly aimed to boost the movie’s protagonist more than anything. The self-servingness (I know, that’s not even a word 😀 ) was only a secondary purpose those days.
Examples:
Indha Baashha Oru Dhadava ..
Aandavan Solraan, Arunaachalam ..
The internet was only a beginner in India at the time. But at the same time, the major Tamil weeklies made the grave mistake of praising these one liners and guessing hidden-meanings behind them, thereby elevating Rajinikanth to an immortal. Only then the self-servingness(!) started to overpower the original protagonist boosting factor.
Example:
Yen Vazhi, Thani .. (I know Padayappa had some totally insensitive one-liners targeting women, but let us not get into those now)
And then Vijay and Ajith came and ruined everything (as if there was something to ruin in the first place 😀 ).
Protagonist boosting has Since then turned into total and complete personal gloating and boasting.
Post those two, starting from Vishal to follow, several others have beaten the dead horse to pulp. And then kept beating it. They still do.
Wake up Tamil Cinema, wake upppp!
Tidbit: Many of you may already know about this, but then hey, there would always be someone (like me) who wouldn’t know, or does not care to look-up these sort of things 🙂 Have you ever wondered what the acronym TASMAC actually expands to? Well, I wondered about that a few years ago, and it turns out that it stands for:
The Tamilnadu State Marketing Corporation.
I don’t see the relevance though 😀
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jaga_jaga
July 24, 2018
@Madan, @Arjun @srinivas:
Your points are very well taken! Agreed without reservations.
Nonetheless, there will be some actors (actresses), whose idea of self respect is different from how it is conventionally defined. They might not really feel that “selling their bodies” is such a big deal. It might just be yet another requisite step as part of succeeding. There are many ways to acheive what you want – sleeping your way to the top is just one more way, for them.
Now the questions, are these people to be blamed, or not? Just because their idea of “self respect” doesn’t fit-in with the norms of the larger society, due to these folks, there will be others who may/will get exploited. And like Madan alluded to, the onus then really lies with those in power.
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Siva
July 24, 2018
Grrrr ….
I really wish the Comments Section of this blog had options to:
1) Format with bold, italics, underline, et al.
and most importantly,
2) An option to edit our comments. Or at least an option to preview our comments before we actually post them.
First of all, for a nerd like me who likes to format everything and anything, it is rather painstaking to format with HTML tags. Uffff!
Second of all, even though I proof read multiple times before posting a comment, I often end up seeing a glaring, idiotic spell error or a stupid grammatical mistake when I read the post after I had posted it. Needless to say, I feel like an idiot when I see those. End result, I correct the error(!) and post the comment again. For longggg posts such as my previous one, I do it 2 or 3 times!
Poor BR is the one who has to review and approve all of these repetitive comments. Honestly, with the sheer number of comments flowing into each thread of this blog, how much of these posts can he really read before approving them? Actually kudos to him, more than once, he has even approved the latest(as opposed to the ones submitted the first or the second time(s) (!) ) of my repeated posts.
I wish I did not have to put him through that though 🙂
BR: Is there a way you can enable us the features for formatting and/or previewing and/or editing comments?
Or …. is it only me who is not seeing these options? I am using a Windows 7 Laptop & Firefox 😐
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Uma
July 24, 2018
@Sanjana: Regarding your comment about North Heroines readily available and it takes a while to find local regional Tamil Heroines- what has happened to Janani Iyer, Nivetha Pethuraj (Oru Naal Koothu female lead), Attakathi Nanditha, Anjali, Priya Anand, Manjima Mohan, Lekha washington. All these girls are good looking, look the part, can act, speak the language to a certain extent and yet will not be cast against top Heroes….
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sanjana
July 24, 2018
Uma, I get your point. Why not some journalist ask this question to the director or producer himself? Let us see how he will defend his choice.
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Madan
July 24, 2018
@jaga_jaga: Good point and I wonder if the Mariah Carey-Mottola affair fits what you described. I think Carey was talented (duh!) and also very ambitious and prepared to do whatever it took to reach the top of the charts. It was Mottola who should have been mindful of the inherent conflict of interest in marrying one of the hottest artists of the label he ran.
@Easwar: Fair enough if you would like to wait for evidence as long as you don’t hold others to the standard that works for you. As Arjun said, by its very nature, this is an offence in which there are grey areas and rarely have cases been successfully proven in court against the predators in question. Which does not mean they weren’t predators or that there aren’t predators per se. As I said wrt Tisca Chopra, she mentions that outdoor shoots (that is, a location like Ooty) were meant for the hero to climb all over the heroine and she mentions this as a reality that insiders are well aware of. So I am sure she is referring not to one or two stray cases but to an industry practice based on her experiences and those of people she knows. Is it possible that she is lying through her teeth? Sure. But in that case, where is the point by point rebuttal taking down that video and outing her as a liar? If there is one, I haven’t seen. Don’t you think if the establishment was concerned about wrongful loss of reputation, they would be interested in proving her wrong? But the ‘strongest’ rebuttal we have heard w.r.t sexual harrassment in the industry is from Saroj Khan who has only asked that those living in glass houses should not throw stones. That’s not very convincing. Why, as Arjun said, are they eager to slut shame accusing actresses rather than seeking to reassure people that the industry is a safe place to work? From all of this, I believe there is a strong enough pattern to draw conclusions about the industry (while I will refrain from making specific allegations without first hand knowledge).
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MANK
July 24, 2018
I mean just look at the case of Dileep in the “progressive” malayalam industry and how top stars are rallying around him- and that is not even a casting couch case but a much more serious cold-blooded kidnap-rape case.
There are 2 aspects to it. one, i call it the ‘salman Khan syndrome’. Dileep is not a mere producer. he is a very powerful movie star(some say the most powerful movie star in malayalam), with fan clubs, business interests including production,distribution, exhibition and financing , who still has the support of a large section of movie watching audience (for whatever reasons) irrespective of what anybody says. And like salman Khan ,He has been instrumental in launching a host of newcomers, particularly heroines including the actress whom he is accused of attacking. so a lot of people in the industry owe him for that and are steadfastly loyal to him no matter what crime he is accused of, pretty much like how the the whole industry comes out in support of bhaijaan no matter what his misdemeanors
Secondly the malayalam film industry is not a homogeneous monolith as a the hindi or telugu film industry . there is a new gen progressive faction which is now working rather independently of the more regressive old gen. true , the new gen doesn’t have the same clout as the old, but things are changing. the very fact that this attack case came out in the open, the actor was imprisoned , the case is discussed and is still in the public sphere and most importantly the big stars who supported Dileep is feeling the heat is itself a signifier of that.In any other industry, the issue would have been silently buried
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rsylviana
July 24, 2018
@MANK – Yes , the malayalam industry is definitely better than its Southern counterparts and Bollywood too but what is making me stop from being entirely happy about the “new gen progressive faction ” is the deafening silence by a major one among them over a number of burning issues where people close to him are actively involved . I am talking about Mr. Dulquer Salmaan who chose to keep quiet over the whole Kasaba controversy when his father’s fans took down his accomplished co-star in a nasty way and when his same daddy dearest came out in support of Dileep after Dileep was reinstated in the actors association. I didn’t see his statement regarding these issues anywhere in the media , though I would love to be corrected if he actually came out to voice his views.
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Rahini David
July 24, 2018
Why would a nerd object to basic Html?
Spelling mistakes be damned, this place will be hell with an edit option in comments. I guess an edit button until BR moderates it would be OK.
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sanjana
July 24, 2018
On a humorous note, it is like this.
Beta, I have showed you so many girls from our community who are goodlooking, accomplished and knew our culture. And they can converse with me in our language fluently. But you went and married that firangi. If every eligible boy behaves like you what will happen to our girls? Who will marry them?
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sanjana
July 24, 2018
Siva, I agree with your rant. But wordpress is like this. I am on Indiaforums too discussing daily soaps where all these things you wanted is possible.
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MANK
July 24, 2018
rsylviana, you have your answer right there. he is the son of Mammootty. so blood triumphs everything. but he did answer those thorny questions as to how he does not like to get involved in controversies, knows his father best and how silence is sometimes the best reaction and so on in the recent spate of interviews for promoting Karwan. check out his interview with Rajeev Masand. i am not saying he gives the most acceptable of replies, but he articulates his POV very well here . if someone is going to speak out , he should do it with full conviction and that should be his nature. Like prithviraj does or Fahadh does sometimes
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Karthik
July 24, 2018
Not everyone is well endowed to get hep actors for their films. Many do not want to risk their monies also unwilling to upset the status quo. Hundreds of Tamil films do not get a theatrical release and not all of them have hep actors. Fair skinned actors might have been relevant during the black and white era but technological changes has not affected the choice sensibilities of the people in the system. Moreover women in the country are miles apart from men when it comes to building their profession. In films getting a acting chance and that too limited by age makes it a unattractive proposition for any sane person who does not have a family background in films. Women with a better qualification may not prefer a profession which is volatile. Gender and ethnic differences apart very few people in Tamil films act both internally and externally if that is what acting is supposed to be. If there is a way to recruit, formally train and deploy actors then a lot of people will sign up. But the conditions of the industry itself is obscure then how could the system worry about the demographics of it’s participants.
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Rahul
July 24, 2018
To add to what MANK has said about DQ, he still appears to be on good terms with Parvathy , I am not saying he should be given a medal for that, just saying, that he is doing a balancing act and not going full Michael Corleone.
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Siva
July 25, 2018
Rahini David: ” Why would a nerd object to basic Html? ”
For one, the nerd in question here is not that tech savvy. While looking-up basic HTML is not an issue in itself, the answer to your question lies in my rant (me likes that definition, Sanjana 😀 ) itself 🙂
To self-quote,
Siva: ” who likes to format everything and anything, it is rather painstaking to format with HTML tags. Uffff! ”
” For longggg posts such as my previous one ”
everything and anything — Just have a look at my reply to Ruminating Aesthete. The number of bold letters and italics are pretttty high, no? (and I know, unnecessary too 😀 )
painstaking, Uffff! and longggg posts — that’s because of the sheer number of opening and closing HTML tags one is having to use in order to achieve said insanity in formatting. Imagine having to prefix every word that needs formatting with these: <.b. >.<./.b.> and .<.i.>.<./.i.>. And sometimes a nerd has to double down with: <.b.><.i.><./.i.><./.b.> for a single word/phrase. Hence …. you know 🙂
Just to give you a fair idea, let me post a screen shot of this very comment before posting it. Hopefully then, thy highness could pardon me humble request? 😀 ( Plissss do, Okay? 😉 )
Rahini David: ” Spelling mistakes be damned, this place will be hell with an edit option in comments. I guess an edit button until BR moderates it would be OK. ”
Spelling mistakes be damned — That would be for normal human beings. Mind you, this is a nerd. And with an OCD, at that (well, most times 😀 ). And it is not just spell errors. I actually take care of almost all of them whilst typing and during my incessant proof reading (also, thank God, Firefox has an incorporated spellcheck feature). But then hey, with age comes wisdom — and the ability to make numerous mistakes 😀 . Meaning, when some sentences make absolute sense when I write them and even while I read them before posting the comment, they just happen to make no sense whatsoever when I read them after posting it. Plus, a number of grammatical errors creep in too. Meaning, I am still a novice/learner of the beautiful language that is English. And I soooo want to improve! This results in me having a spectacular lack of vocabulary. Which, in turn results in me wanting to replace a word, or rephrase a sentence — only after I actually read it as a comment. You know, without all the distracting HTML tags 🙂
One more issue while proof reading is that sometimes we easily tend to overlook the absence of the forward slash “/” in the closing tag, especially when there are a lot of occurrences. And then everything that follows becomes bold or italic. Trust me, it does not look pretty! 😀
this place will be hell with an edit option in comments — I agree. And I was too kind of skeptical on this one. Hence my request for the other option, and I self-quote again:
Siva: ” Or at least an option to preview our comments before we actually post them. ”
” Is there a way you can enable us the features for formatting and/or previewing and/or editing comments?
Well, the gist is …. the ability to preview comments before we actually post them. That is the reason behind the multiple “and/or”s in the final quote above. Because I knew, that allowing us to edit our posts would be ….
literally opening a Pandora’s Box! 😀
To surmise, this is a nerd who enjoys formatting stuff. But not one who is willing to go through the painstaking work of surrounding each formatted letter/word/phrase with HTML tags.
Okay, as promised above, here is a screen shot of this very comment. Do enjoy the HTML tagging in it 🙂
Please click the image to view it in the Imgur website. The embed code(s) from Imgur website are seemingly not working for me here.
https://imgur.com/9PFjFyf
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Siva
July 25, 2018
sanjana: ” Siva, I agree with your rant. But wordpress is like this. I am on Indiaforums too discussing daily soaps where all these things you wanted is possible. ”
Thank You, Thank You 😀 😀
Seriously, you know! My rant ( 😀 ) was more of an extension of me (too) being in forums (like the DTH forum DreamDTH.com and the city forum skyscrapercity.com ).
In a way , those forums are making me lazy to make the effort to use HTML here 🙂
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rsylviana
July 25, 2018
@MANK & Rahul – Seems like he is chickening out of talking in depth about the issues albeit because of his very nature . But something is better than nothing I guess.
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Eswar
July 26, 2018
@Madan I don’t know why the industry does not come out refuting the allegations. I can only speculate:
If the allegation is not targeted at an individual then probably its wise to keep their mouth shut, even if the allegations are mostly false, to avoid opening a Pandora’s box with other issues
Even if most of the actors, directors and producers are good and wants to come out clean and defend themselves, they wouldn’t want to do because:
– the culprits are their friends
– the culprits are too powerful to make enemies
– they will eventually have to work with the culprits because the industry is very small and monopolistic
– they need to cover each other’s back because of its volatile nature
being monopolistic and lacking an influential feedback loop, cine industry is not exactly a market place. So, the loss of reputation does not result in loss of monetary value or customer base. Not enough people stop watching movies because the industry is corrupt, exhibits misogyny or practices casting couch. So the industry as a whole has no incentive to self-regulate, defend and protect their reputation.
I am not going to speculate that the industry does not defend because it’s all good. An industry of this size and money is likely to have some dark secrets lurking in its corner at least in pockets. Just being a microcosm of a society at large is sufficient for it to exhibit at least some of the worst evils of the society. But for the reasons speculated above the industry will likely be mute even if majority of them is arguably good in nature.
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Madan
July 26, 2018
@Easwar: Fair enough but if you concede the industry has no incentive to self regulate, you cannot then blame people for speculating darkly because the industry by remaining opaque and shady allows such rumours to forment. They may even encourage such rumours as long as it doesn’t actually consume one of their own.
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Arjun
July 26, 2018
@Easwar: Have you followed the recent allegations made by Sri Reddy recently? Some links:
https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/telugu-actress-sri-reddy-accuses-kollywood-director-ar-murugadoss-of-sexual-exploitation-4725601.html
https://www.indiatoday.in/movies/regional-cinema/story/sir-reddy-makes-shocking-allegations-against-kollywood-1291520-2018-07-20
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/telugu/movies/news/sri-reddy-breaks-down-says-she-feels-like-committing-suicide/articleshow/65144742.cms
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/tamil/movies/news/sri-reddy-threatened-by-vishal-after-sex-allegations/articleshow/64987827.cms
Now I agree these are only allegations and as I already said, almost impossible to prove in a court of law. However here again you see how the rest of the industry gangs up against whistleblowers. Like you yourself said, a lot of industry big shots likely have skeletons in their closet and they have don’t want to let the genie out of the bottle. Self-preservation basically. Anyway the point is, it is not hard to draw reasonable inferences from stories like this and that of Tisca Chopra (link which Madan earlier posted). Where there is smoke there is fire.
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Arjun
July 26, 2018
Here, Sri Reddy almost repeats verbatim what Madan pointed out in the Tisca Chopra video –
https://www.indiatoday.in/movies/regional-cinema/story/sir-reddy-makes-shocking-allegations-against-kollywood-1291520-2018-07-20
“She then said that songs are shot in foreign locations just for the sake of taking advantage of heroines outside the country.”
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MANK
July 26, 2018
Ha! its super naive to think that there is no casting couching in the film industry. Take someone like Subhash Ghai for instance whose influence is much diminished today but was very much the Harvey Weinstein figure during the 80’s and 90’s, the actresses who were launched by him have all given more than subtle hints about his predatory behavior. someone like Manisha Koirala had even accused him of sexual assault once , which was swiftly swept under the carpet and was never mentioned again
Even Rajesh Khanna was accused of rape by a newcomer teen actress Sabeeha. but nothing came out of it either, not mention umpteen instances of domestic abuses that has been leveled against Khanna by his wife and live in partners. As it happened with a host of other movie personalities.
https://www.emirates247.com/entertainment/bollywood/take-one/bollywood-casting-couch-real-dirty-picture-2012-11-07-1.481903
Then there are are the more complex stuff. how do you define the Katrina-Salman situation. Katrina was a rank newcomer when she hooked up with Salman who is a very powerful man in the industry. Salman propels her career to the stratosphere by putting her in his own movies and in the films of his friends. was it an act of love, was it payment for services rendered. was Katrina using salman for her own ends. its difficult to say in such situations. there is no black and white way to look at it.
in the recent Netflix series Sacred Games, there are 2 characters, a superstar and his foreign actress girlfriend who seems to be modeled on Salman and Katrina, where the actor treats the actress basically as his property and his slave and stops her from doing films with other people – Ranbir Kapoor actually. Both Anurag Kashyap and Motwane who created the series knows a lot about the functioning of the industry
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Madan
July 26, 2018
“was it an act of love, was it payment for services rendered. was Katrina using salman for her own ends. its difficult to say in such situations. there is no black and white way to look at it.” – I’d guess Salman-Katrina was similar to Mottola-Carey. She used him to climb up the ladder at breakneck speed but in return faced subjugation at his hands. Because Mariah is actually very talented at what she does, she could break out of the shackles and was too successful for Mottola to cut her out of the recording contract after their divorce.
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Naveen
July 29, 2018
did not have the patience to go through the entire thread. my few cents below
1. Balachander and Balu Mahendra presented great roles for non-maida maavu heroines like Sarita, Shoba, sujatha etc.
2. older time heriones ( Savithri, padmini, bhanumathy, anjali devi, kannamba ) started their career in Madras as it was teh base of all the south indian movies. with the prevalent technology during their times, they had to talk for themselves in a loud and clear manner so that the voice would get recorded well in a live-synch recording. they did not just learn Tamil, they excelled to teh level of speaking Mu Ka’s loaded dialogues with finesse. today’s heroines can just fly down for the shoot and get back to Mumbai or Hyd, there is no complusion to learn Tamil
3. I do not know why Geetha, inspite of being very very fair skinned, the konkani kind of milk fair, could not do well in Tamil though she did well in Kannada and Malayalam.
4. all sorts of isms exist everywhere.colur is what strikes ppl first and is part of teh first impression.
5. we cannot change the way ppl think or what they beleive in
6. casting couch should not be justified even if it is consensual
7. i really wish Waheeda Rehman and Rekha had worked in Tamil more. loss to the Tami industry
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Eswar
July 30, 2018
@Madan, yes the industry makes it easier for outsiders to speculate. Hence I find it important to exercise caution.
@Arjun, I knew about the allegation but was not reading or following. I agree that where there is smoke there is probably a fire. I see that AR Murugadoss is being accused among others. So in this case I would try to limit my opinion, speculation to Murugadoss and others who have been named rather than extending it. Because if we extend it, we can easily start accusing the artists, producers and technicians who worked with him as colluders. And if we extend it further we can accuse ourselves for being their clientele by watching/promoting their movies, interviews etc. Hence I am okay with casting doubts about the people being accused but not with generalising/extending it.
Apologies again to you both for responding late and resurrecting this thread.
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Siva
July 30, 2018
Meesaya Murukku‘s female lead Aathmika has retweeted Film Companion‘s tweet on this article, saying she couldn’t agree more 🙂
Interestingly, she stars next in Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru director Karthick Naren‘s next: Naragasooran
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Madan
July 30, 2018
@Easwar: I disagree. The onus is on the industry to come clean. That they are not interested in fixing how they are perceived cannot be MY problem. This is why I appreciate the MeToo campaign, because it has brought these issues out in the open. There should be no illusions about what an aspiring actor may expect to face in the industry. It does not mean that each and every director in the industry employs a casting couch but it means nobody should feign surprise that it exists. And yes, it’s entirely possible that these things also happen to say technicians. I don’t even find that a particularly controversial opinion. Starting with how the industry is financed, everything is murky about it. We do play a role in it as willing consumers. Something I already brought up in another context. That there is no point in blaming directors for casting North Indian actresses who cannot speak Tamil if the audience doesn’t mind it. As of now, the industry’s ability to entertain trumps whatever ethical issues it may have. Just as Trump being a male Republican trumped whatever he had to say about women, Muslims, Mexicans among others. Again, nothing very controversial either. We are in a small way enablers of how the film industry operates. That does not preclude us from criticising it; rather, that is the only way, short of boycotting films, they will know that viewers don’t approve of the casting couch.
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Eswar
August 1, 2018
@Madan. The onus is definitely on the industry to come clean. Irrespective of how the outsiders view it they should be doing this. It probably requires a wider cultural change across the society to be more conscious about one’s own actions and respecting others. Like G.Nagarajan said “What should prevail among people is mutual respect not mutual love” (மனிதர்களிடம் நிலவ வேண்டியது பரஸ்பர மதிப்பே தவிர , பரஸ்பர அன்பு அல்ல)
Said that, this doesn’t stop us, the outsiders, from trying to maintain the distinction. There is no doubt that the corrupt should be called out and the victims should be supported. At the same time if we can avoid bringing others, who have not been alleged doing wrong, under the same umbrella than that would be nice and fair.
Its likely that you will disagree with me and I can understand that. I feel I have come a full circle in this conversation, so I don’t think I will have anything else to add further :). If you do not have anything else to add and happy to bring this conversation to an end, then I am happy with that as well.
Thanks.
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Siva
August 1, 2018
3 prominent Thamizh releases since July 13, 2018.
Kadaikutty Singam
Junga
Ghajinikanth
It will only be a fortnight and a half when the 3rd Sayyeshaa starring movie opens on August 3, 2018.
Is there a possibility of …. I don’t know, may be …. a Sayyeshaa fatigue?
Don’t they say that regular consumption of Parotta (Core Ingredient: Maida Maavu) can be a health hazard?
What is this BR sarrrr? All because of you only!
It looks like someone from the TFPC or the Tamil Nadu Film Director’s Association read this article. Apparently they have passed a resolution as reprehension to us …. and also as an act of solidarity toward all current and future Maida Maavs(!). And now they are releasing only Sayyeshaa starrers,
Plissss Thamizh Cinema …. you guys are good guys, no? No more Parottas at least for the next few weeks (months?) pillees.
May be as compensation, in the upcoming weeks, you could bring forth a Pizza (Core Ingredient: High Gluten Wheat Bread Flour — essentially, a foreign version of Maida Maavu) starrer (Amy Jackson?!) instead of another Parotta starrer …. and we promise we won’t mind. Like, at all !!!!
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Arjun
August 1, 2018
@Eswar: “So in this case I would try to limit my opinion, speculation to Murugadoss and others who have been named rather than extending it. ”
The only extrapolation I am making is that there are probably many people involved. I even refrain from speculating about the director you mentioned because as I already acknowledged, it is only an allegation. That would obviously change if many other actresses start to come out against a particular individual, as in the Weinstein case, Notice that at no point have I mentioned any one by name. Also as far as I can see, no one here has said that each and every one in the industry is a predator or colluder,so I don’t quite understand what it is you are trying to argue.
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Eswar
August 2, 2018
@arjun I didn’t mean you were extrapolating. I was only using it as an example to explain how I would have preferred the discourse on this topic would be. Regarding your last comment what I am trying to argue — I was explaining my stance against the assumption “That casting couch is ubiquitous in the cine industry”. When I made this comment earlier, the response was that we can infer the ubiquitous nature from the claims made by some of the artists. I was responding why I would try not extrapolating the claims.
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Siva
August 25, 2018
rsylviana: ” P.S. Another instance of Ms.Tamannah bringing unintended humour in the theatre was in Bahubali-2. Towards the climax of the film , there is a single frame where both Tamannah and Anushka are present. Anushka would just be doing her thang and Tamannah would be huffing and puffing behind her(read ‘is looking angry and ready to pounce on the villain/his men’). Our entire gang of friends just burst out laughing saying ‘Ithu serious scene ma, yen ma inga vanthu sirippu mootitkittu iruka?’ ”
I happened to read a piece written today for The New York Times, by writer/film critic Glenn Kenny. And I was immediately reminded of this comment of yours. Bottom line, I guess it is safe to say that Ms.Tamannaah Bhatia has secured a new fan from New York.
Here is what he writes in this piece: (linked below)
” Every now and then the action stops so a character can make an impassioned speech about vengeance or justice. Or to allow the two romantic leads, Prabhas and Tamannaah — and later, others — to do a musical number, for which their everyday clothing is swapped for colorful, scanty costumes. Both movies are entertaining in that discursive way Bollywood movies are, and I was particularly intrigued by the appeal of Tamannaah, who’s formidably sexy and strong. ”
Even though he refers to it at the beginning of the section as a Telugu movie, he yet generalizes it as Bollywood. I soooo wish that the outside of India knew about the multitude of — the presence of — our own, different versions of woods!
Link to the article:
And oh, you can talk to him here in case you would like to congratulate him on his newfound dream girl(!) 😀
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Siva
August 25, 2018
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Uma
September 1, 2018
Even Kannada industry casts mostly their native heroines , it’s so sad that in tamilnadu there is no respect for Tamil speaking native heroines . Induja , Priya Bhavani Sankar , Nivaetha p are doing good job in their roles, even the so called “famous directors” (bala, Sasi Kumar, seenu ramasamy ) who strives to showcase the nativity of Madurai , Theni , Thirunelvi always goes for North Indian fair skinned heroines like Tammanah, sunaina, Laila etc , it’s the issue with the society , I have come across a lot parents looking for “fair angelic looking brides for their dark skinned sons” , basically it’s a corrupt society which reflects on the screen too . Let’s be frank it’s there in practice right from bharathiraja , Maniratnam , they are pioneer for this generations practice.
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