She Says She Says: Tamil Cinema&nbsp;Heroines

November 19, 2018

The manic pixie girl is just an urban extension of the innocent rural ponnu who goes around with underage kids that speak adult stuff. Eg. Urvasi from Mundhanai Mudichu.

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November 19, 2018

” I haven’t seen many of the kind in Malayalam and even Hindi films at its worst didn’t seem to use this trope much.” – As she correctly observes, I am not sure MPDG existed even in Tamil ere Genelia in Santosh Subramaniam. Find the trope super annoying.

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Siva

I couldn’t make parts of what she was saying in certain sentences. This could well be just me, but here is what I felt. I believe certain parts were not audible/understandable to me because:

1) She was speaking too fast at times, that it was hard to ascertain what she was saying even after rewinding a few seconds. — She needs to maintain a steady pace in order to reach a wider audience.

2) She was speaking in too low a voice at times. The end result was almost the same as earlier: it was not audible/understandable — She needs to keep an eye on the tone of her voice and try to speak with a steady voice level throughout the video.

I tried to turn the YouTube auto-generated subtitles on, so that I could understand certain inaudible parts. Turns out, the only auto-generated subtitle language available for display in the video was …. Portuguese(!) 😀

And hey, what’s with the hat? Is it going to be her identity or something, for the whole series? 🙂

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How is Shreya dancing in the rain different from Revathi doing the same in Mouna Ragam or Punnagai Mannan? When we can accept Revathi, why are we raking Shreya over the coals? Genuine question.

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Anu Warrier

Madan, I would have said Amala in Agni Natchathiram was the quintessential MPDG. So was Revathi in the initial scenes of Mouna Ragam (as Kay points out).

@Kay, Namita probably hasn’t watched those films. She looks like a youngling – was probably born after they were released. So her points of reference are all the new films.

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Revathy character in Mouna Ragam definitely does not qualify as loosu ponnu. She has fun with her siblings but is serious enough to think about not agreeing to her father’s choice of groom. She is immature in trying to go home – has fun with friends and gets home drenched to see the visitors still waiting for her.

She tries to avoid the marriage by giving all possible excuses but does not have the courage to talk about her lost love.

So the scenes in Mouna Ragam we’re quite in character. They did not show Mohan watching her dance in rain get smitten and then trying to woo her.

When asked by Revathy why he agreed to marry her despite all that she told that evening – he says he found it ironical that she spoke whatever he wanted to speak. And then he liked her….. that’s it. He had no reason to say no.

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Anu Warrier: I don’t know that MPDG and loosu ponnu are necessarily the same. Loosu ponnu seems to trend more towards vayalli to me. I would classify Amala in Agni a loosu ponnu type to some extent. Revathi in MR, no. The difference is Mani builds a context for her behaviour throughout the film. Her dancing in the rain/bus can be interpreted as open rebellion against her parents wishing to marry her off. This is not who she necessarily is as we see in the flashback where she is upright and maybe a little prudish. It is the Karthik character that teaches her to rebel and live life to the fullest so the Oho Megam Vandhadho song could be regarded as her trying hold onto that dream (which was shattered). Whereas Genelia in Santosh Subramaniam is just like that only. No explanations given with perhaps the underlying assumption that girls are like that only.

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Even in Agni Natchathiram, Amala is a bit of a loosu ponnu but thankfully, MR saves us from extended usage of that. There are only a few scenes for her – plus that lovely Thoongatha Vizhigal song – and you barely notice her in the film otherwise.

And I agree with Madan on how Revathy’s character is portrayed in Mouna Ragam.

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Srinivas R

The problem with Shreya dancing in the rain was that, it was her single character trait. She loves rains and talks to rain. Revathy in Mouna Ragam and Punnagai Mannan, had more shades than just manic pixie girl.

All that said, I do like most of the actresses who play these character types. When the leading men in the industry can’t care to improve their craft, it’s a bit unfair to blame the largely voiceless leading women to drive a change. The likes of Shriya and Tamanna are extremely fit and dance like a dream. Trisha has been in the industry for close to 20 years and still has an aura of youth.I have been guilty of mocking them too, but realise I may have been harsh.

P.S. my comment has no connection to the video as I have not watched it yet.

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First of all, my question is very specific. I’m just comparing both the actresses’ rain dances. Not talking about the overall character. Many times I have seen Shreya’s character called loosu ponnu for dancing in the rain. (Even I have believed it’s stupid to just start dancing in the rain.) But not Revathi or Reema Sen in Minnale or that actress who dances at midnight in Anjali (forgot the song) or Aishwarya in Guru or……… Arvindsamy in Chinna Chinna Mazhai Thuli

They did not show Mohan watching her dance in rain get smitten and then trying to woo her.

So that is Shreya’s fault?

Anu: I feel even otherwise we would have all agreed Revathi’s character in MR was definitely not a loosu ponnu. She might have been one in the initial scenes in Punnagai Mannan, but later she was not.

As I type this reply I’m having more thoughts on this topic now. Will take some time to do some research and get back.

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Just wondering, how much more whacked out the heroes must be for falling for girls dancing in the rain, those that help children cross the road or need help crossing the road themselves?

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brangan

I don’t think it’s the actress as much as the characterisation/writing. If I don’t think Revathy was an LP in Mouna Raagam, it’s because the rain dance is a stalling tactic. She wanted to go home late. She could have stayed back in college, visited a friend, gone to a movie… But this being mainstream cinema, it becomes the opportunity for a song situation.

This is very different from random rain dances where the heroine doesn’t do much else but get wet.

Revathy was much more of an LP in Oru Kaithiyin Diary, where she didn’t have much of a characcter to play than “generic love interest”. But even there, it didn’t grate SO much because it was not a love story/romance.

I get most annoyed with LPs when they are the female lead in a romantic movie, where they’re 50% of the relationship. Which means, the only reason they are fall-in-love-able is because of the LP-ish tendencies, and that’s pathetic.

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I think the rain dances are used to showcase how carefree the heroine is…..not afraid to get drenched, not afraid to dance freely in public gaze, etc. But unfortunately, this appears more as loosu ponnu to us. 🙂

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Sifter

@ Kay– or need help crossing the road themselves?

I burst out laughing at this part of your comment even though your comment in its entirety was bindas!

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Spandana

Could somebody explain what the term loosu ponnu means? I have two ideas – one is the ‘loose’ woman. She is supposed to bad news because she is bold and sexually uninhibited, which according to 90’s cinema is when a heroine wears western clothes and probably smokes or drinks. The second is the ‘screw loose’, a crazy/stupid MPDG type person who can barely function as a normal adult.

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brangan

Spandana: The latter 🙂

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Spandana

@brangan: Thanks Sir! That clarifies this discussion for me.

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S

My pet theory about Mouna Ragam is that Karthik/Manohar is a figment of Revathi/Divya’s imagination. “I had an ex-boyfriend who was an anarchist, and who died tragically right before he was supposed to marry me” is the kind of tall tale that I think someone like Divya would very well say to get out of an inconvenient marriage 🙂

This is the kind of boyfriend she would have liked to have, the kind of romantic fling where the ex is conveniently out of the picture, and exactly the kind of reason someone like MikeMohan/Chandrakumar would consider letting her go. Otherwise it is so hard to imagine how someone who must be grief-stricken can prance about in the rain singing “Oho megohm vandhadho”…

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@Kay: But the context of the character overall in the film affects how we look at the rain dance too, so it makes no sense to look at it in isolation. It’s not about audiences being partial to Revathy and harsh towards Shreya. It’s about that Mouna Ragam role being much better written than most mainstream female lead roles in Tamil today.

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S – People lose their loved ones to death. They grieve and then get over that and move on, leading happy lives. But deep down the grief remains.

In this case, Divya is able to lead a normal life but the moment the topic of marriage comes up, she is reminded of the painful loss and she opts not to marry. When CK however marries her (despite her plea), she is now angry and feels slighted by the man. She asks for a divorce now. But then, as they spend time together, her ego mellows down, she has already had a closure on the Manohar issue after narrating the past to CK, and slowly she falls into the groove of her now married life.

I felt the movie was perfectly logical almost everywhere.

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Anu Warrier

it is so hard to imagine how someone who must be grief-stricken can prance about in the rain singing

This! So much.

Madan, point taken. But I would have thought ‘loosu ponnu’ and MPDG are the same? No?

Again, thankfully, we don’t have too many instances of either in Malayalam films. A couple of movies, yes, but it was never a recurring trope. Small mercies. 🙂

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But the context of the character overall in the film affects how we look at the rain dance too, so it makes no sense to look at it in isolation

Madan – I thought about that too. But isn’t it actually out of character for a level headed woman to break into a dance In the middle of the road? I would expect that from a LP.

To put it simply we are okay if an otherwise well written character does these silly things but don’t accept it from characters who are actually meant to be silly.

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