Spoilers ahead…
Read the full review on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/devarattam-movie-review-muthiah-gautham-karthik-manjima-mohan/
Inside the Devarattam that we currently have, there’s the Devarattam that could have been. Vetri (Gautham Karthik) is a lawyer, whose family wants to shield from violence. (In this hypothetical line of thought, let’s ignore the fact that the hero-introduction scene is itself a stretch of violent action.) But when Vetri, in a fit of rage, ends up murdering the son of the villain (Ganesan, played by FEFSI Vijayan), the latter swears revenge. And he means it. He butchers members of Vetri’s family, which is a little unusual for a Madurai-based masala movie. These films are all about the hero’s valour. But what if the hero’s methods of vigilante justice cost him his family? What if a lawyer had to resort to extrajudicial means? It’s a solid knot.
But almost every aspect of filmmaking is an abject failure. Gautham Karthik is convincing neither as a lawyer, nor as a “mass” hero. He has a tousled-hair look that says “I just got out of bed and I need to be on the sets of my next sex comedy”. The heroine who has nothing to do is played by Manjima Mohan. Her look says “Crap! I thought my career would be in a different place after a Gautham Menon movie”. The comedy duties go to Soori, whose look says “How much longer can I get away doing the same thing before the audience wises up”! The writer-director is M Muthaiah, who’s been insisting that this film does not glorify any caste. I suppose the fact that Vetri is found standing in front of a poster of Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar is entirely coincidental. Had we been able to see Muthiah’s look, it might have said, “I know my audience, you English-review-writing urban idiot! After Kutti Puli, Komban, Marudu and Kodiveeran, don’t tell me how to do my job.”
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2019 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
bart
May 1, 2019
It somehow sounds like this year’s mini “Kadai Kutty Singam” to me :p 🙂
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jaga_jaga
May 1, 2019
I started reading this review. Towards the end I felt I was reading Astrix!! Really really enjoyed the “and the…” paragraph.
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sanjayshankar
May 2, 2019
Every time I watch this trailer, the Kannagi/Kaantha line makes me angry. Even if we look past the prejudice against Kaantha, what did the ‘poranthavan’ do? This is a shallow mindset (that there is privilege by birth) and shows in their work of filmmakers who think like this.
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kaspar
May 2, 2019
Man wanted to watch this film. Will have to pass this one over.
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Prasanna Kumar
May 3, 2019
Muthaiah be like ” Review pannavana kooda vittudalaam, aana comment pannavana vidave koodathu.”
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Srimugunthan Rishithan
May 9, 2019
You know what I find shocking more than the pro-caste and that disgusting Kantha/Kannagi line??? YouTube comments supporting this pro-caste agenda AND there being 28 or so likes to such comments. It baffles me. I understand the internet is filled with hate but my lord, I didn’t the internet was also filled with like minded backward thinking people. Genuinely freaks me out.
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Srimugunthan Rishithan
May 9, 2019
The sad thing is, Gautham seems like a fine human being but the scripts he chooses really makes me question why he chooses to say dialogues that are rightfully politically incorrect.
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Srinivas R
May 10, 2019
@Srimugunthan Rishithan – Gautham may or may not be a fine human but he is a product of a deeply casteist society, so i won’t be surprised if he believes in a lot of the caste pride non sense.
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Srimugunthan Rishithan
May 10, 2019
That’s quite interesting because I live in London and even though I am fully aware of the caste issue in India, I feel like it is slowly but surely dying out considering how modern India is rapidly becoming and these millennials like Gautham Karthik being the first generation to not see caste… but who knows, I might be wrong.
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praneshp
May 11, 2019
@Srimugugunthan: Have you been away for a while/not been back home for a while? My observation, at least in Tamil Nadu, is that it’s somewhat anti-Brahmin, as well as deeply divided by caste.
I’m not saying I resent it, just that it’s my observation of the state of things.
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praneshp
May 11, 2019
Also the “Gautham is a fine human being” part screams “citation please”.
Unless you bucket people into the fine category by default, in that case more power to you.
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Srimugunthan Rishithan
May 11, 2019
Hi there. I was born in London and I’ve been living here so I’m not aware of the state of Tamil Nadu. Everything I know about Tamil Nadu comes from movies and to compliment that the media whether it is celebrity interviews or just news stories about honor killing due to caste issues. As you can see, you could consider me quite ignorant in regards to the topic of caste and how Tamil Nadu functions so apologies for anything I’ve said wrong.
Are you from/do you live in Tamil Nadu? If so, do you mind telling if there are any student lessons where the teachers talk about why caste system is wrong, the same way in London we have had many lessons about why racism, homophobia, internet etiquette (even-though this has massively not worked)? I’m asking because, because if you teach student lessons on why caste is wrong than they are more likely to grow into being anti-caste.
Also, yeah, I just tend to categorize anyone that hasn’t committed a heinous crime as fine haha.
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brangan
May 11, 2019
I don’t know if we can discern the belief system of a young, still-growing actor based on the scripts he/she chooses. Maybe Gautham believes in this. Or maybe he just thought it would be an easy hit (and he was right).
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Srimugunthan Rishithan
May 11, 2019
@brangan I see what you mean sir and I very agree very much with your line about easy hit espicially when I look at the success of IAMK and the probably success of Deverattam considering Muthiah’s other mediocre movies where also a hit. But I just feel like that Gautham should have some integrity or the maturity to discard such offensive scripts just so that he can feel better about himself at the cost of feeding into the backward nature system of homophobia and caste and even pre marital sex. I wish he had the decency to pass on such scripts and carry on acting in unoffensive mediocre movies until the day he gets a fantastic script that will change his color the same way Poove Unakkaga or Thirumulai changed Vijay’s colour and let’s face it, he’s not far off. Anyways, I still have hope for him.
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Kay
May 11, 2019
Interesting question on what is taught at school. I’m trying to remember but apart from the prints like ‘Untouchability is a crime’ in the first page of every single text book, I can’t remember if we were taught about the implications. Of course the history books had lessons on how the caste system developed and all that, but I think it was always like sex ed. Everyone was told it’s wrong but never really in detail. Waiting to see if there are other opinions, especially from those who finished school in the recent past.
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praneshp
May 12, 2019
It’s been a while since I was in school, but I definitely had civics classes in which they taught us that caste based discrimination is against the law/morally wrong, etc. I’d say it is about as effective as the 10th-standard biology lessons are in educating students about sex. But it’s better than nothing.
In any case, what’s the difference between this movie and say, Devar Magan? Devarmagan was probably slightly better movie-work, but in the end both are movies that are based around characters of a caste, no? While BR had several problems with this movie it doesn’t look like talking down some other caste wasn’t one of them. IMO that’s head and shoulders above something like Thodari, that came off as petty and angry against non-Tamilian.
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praneshp
May 12, 2019
I meant “While BR had several problems with this movie talking down some other caste wasn’t one of them. “
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Srinivas R
May 12, 2019
@praneshp – agree with your observation about anti brahminism and caste divide in TN. Things have become worse in the last few years. Instances of parents refusing to send kids to a certain school because the mid day meal is cooked by some one from oppressed caste. Students wearing color threads on their wrists indicating their caste etc. I am not very optimistic about the future
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Srinivas R
May 12, 2019
In any case, what’s the difference between this movie and say, Devar Magan? – yes it is about people of a particular caste. It is also a a comment, a critic about their violent ways. The outsider, the educated son wants no part in this clan, but forced to take it up. He tries and tries to stay above the violence but is sucked in anyway. I thought the movie was trying to say get away from this madness and at least keep your next generation safe.
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brangan
May 12, 2019
I have a question.
In my view, a lot of movies get a bad rap for “glorifying a caste” when the only caste-related thing about them is the title. Like this film. Yes, it makes no bones about the fact that its characters are Thevars, but that apart, there’s no “pottri paadadi ponne, thevar kaaladi manne” type glorification.
Correct me if I am wrong, but even in THEVAR MAGAN, only Nasser (the villain) keeps talking about Thevars in a superior way, right? And he loses his head at the end. When Sivaji talks about the community, it’s more from a class POV than a caste POV — when he tells Kamal “we have to do something to uplift the lives of our people who are less fortunate.”
Or are there other lines that do some glorification?
Take other films.
CHINNA GOUNDER is about a man who happens to be a Gounder. MOTOR SUNDARAM PILLAI is about a man who happens to be a Pillai. That apart, there’s no “glorification” here.
Could the same movies have been made about men whose caste was not indicated? Sure.
Yes, you’d be absolutely right if you say the reverse hasn’t happened — i.e. the ‘casteless’ haven’t been made protagonists until recently.
Also, you’d be right from a “social responsibility” POV, where you could say a filmmaker should ideally name his protagonists “Ramesh” or “Karthik”, where they could hail from any community.
But I guess, in an Indian context, this rooting adds some specificity to the character. In the sense that many Indian names have caste names appended to them almost invisibly. Unlike the US, where a “John Smith” could come from any denomination of Christianity.
So my question to those who have studied more about this subject is this: When people say these movies “glorify caste”, are they saying that caste names should not be a part of the film at all?
Are they saying that audiences view a DEVARATTAM and think “Oh look, those are our people. So we are great because movies are being made about us.”? And this indirectly brings about an added sense of superiority? (Has this cause-effect been studied?)
How do you separate the fact that so many Balachander films contain Tam-Brahm characters but they aren’t brought up as often in this “glorifying caste” debate (at least, I haven’t seen these films being brought up)? Or even Sivaji’s famous TamBrahm characters? Is it because those were from a different time?
Would like to hear from you guys, especially those who’ve studied this phenomenon (wrt cinema or in other contexts, too).
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abishekspeare
May 12, 2019
I don’t even know if devarattam stands for the thevar caste.
When i saw the teaser with english subtitles back when it released,when the title comes up the subtitle reads “lords dance”. So maybe the makers itself meant it to refer to the thevar caste only half heartedly. When I saw the teaser again recently, they changed that part alone and it now reads “thevaraattam”. It still doesn’t mention the caste explicitly.
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Srimugunthan Rishithan
May 12, 2019
@brangan Good morning sir. My context is that I am ignorant to the caste issues as I have only lived in London since the day I was born in 2000. You have raised quite a thought provoking question. For me, I think film should have no boundaries even when it is something as scary as stalking AS LONG AS it serves a purpose where the characters step back and realize how they have messed up. Example, in 2013’s Raanjahana, Dhanush’s character couldn’t stop stalking the girl and that led to his ultimate, yet beautiful death monologue acknowledging his immanent demise. Likewise, (I didn’t know this until itis Prasahanth brought it up) apparently the title, Arjun Reddy has elements of caste to it but even the character himself has a dialogue where he dismantles the fact that his name has caste implications to it or something across those lines. I think even Uriyadi counts as well right? I’m not sure if Saathi is the same as Jaathi and if either of them is the same as the English definition of caste.
In something like Deverattam, I am fully aware that I haven’t watched the movie, and don’t intend to either so please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, I don’t feel like Deverattam is going to be about a guy who ends up talking about how stupid his caste name is and here, the problem is that, if it serves no real character purpose, why is there? We can all agree that caste is terrible,so why even have it in the first place? Even though people say the cure to racism is to educate people not to be racist which is somewhat true if you have racist parents, I think the real cure for most of us is to not talk about it because even by talking about it, you are giving it somewhat power. This is the exact reason why I don’t understand these films that have caste related titles is because no one ever spoke about it in my household or with in my relatives. By not having a real character purpose with these caste names, you are just feeding into the vitriolic system.
In regards to olden films having caste related stuff, 1. I unfortunately I haven’t watched them despite hearing great things and even a possible sequel about Devarmagan and 2. Times were different and I hate this whole cancel culture so I am more forgiving. How far back I am willing to forgive is a question for the philosophers haha. Thank you and in the case that you don’t respond to this, have a lovely day and I am still excited for the Selvaraghavan interview!
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V
May 12, 2019
@Srimugunthan: I agree with you – In his interviews & public appearances, Gautam comes across an affable, chilled out millennial. But the thing is, he is saddled with his dad’s (Navarasa Nayagan Karthik) legacy. Somehow Karthik was/is seen as a leader of the Thevar community, though he had never shown an inclination towards being one. He was made the Leader of Forward Bloc party (founded by Thiru Muthuramalinga Devar) & was considered a force to reckon with in the Madurai region back in the 90s.
Surprisingly Prabhu, who too had a huge following there, never went on to take on the mantle of a caste leader (smartly!). So his son Vikram is spared of the ignominy of having to act in such films. In Gautam’s defence, what Kadal did not do to him, Muthuramalingam/Devarattam did – the glorifying posters, the Thalaiva chants etc. Cant blame him but he definitely needs to step out of this cesspool.
As another commenter mentioned, we are seeing some sort of resurgence of caste-pride here. With colored threads, explicit caste surnames on Facebook (Facebook insisting on a surname did lead to Tamils using their caste as a suffix) & movies like Devarattam, Muthuramalingam targeting a specific group. Infact, the recent Ponparapi caste clash was triggered by a person who imitated a sequence from the Uriyadi 2 film to unite his people against a common enemy.
Seeing all this, I hope there isnt another chain of events similar to the late 90s when South TN was battered by caste related violence over several months.
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Srimugunthan Rishithan
May 12, 2019
If doing this idea doesn’t get you fired or under scrutiny I think you should turn into an #AskBR topic. Also sir, next time you have a #AskBR session, do you mind positing a thread for any possible answers on to WordPress please?
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Isai
May 12, 2019
This is how I perceive caste in cinema –
How much ‘flavor’ does the inclusion of caste bring to the story? What necessitated/prompted the writer/director to include this flavor?
In the movie Arul, the protagonist hails from the ‘Aasaari’ (Vishwakarma) community. The Hero’s caste (their profession and family dynamics) significantly shapes the characters and the screenplay. There is no denigration or even reference to other castes. The hero Vikram and the director Hari do not belong to this caste. That is why it is not considered to be problematic.
The problem arises with the depiction of some communities that have traditionally been power holders, who had derived their power based on their influence/domination over other communities in that region. When you show your protagonists as hailing from these communities AND also show them as ‘lording’ over ‘others’ (people who are not explicitly identified as belonging to the Hero’s caste), it reinforces the stereotype that the people of those (dominant) communities are somehow more capable/deserving of being ‘lords’.
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Isai
May 12, 2019
Let’s take the movies Theri and Viswasam. In both the movies, the ‘hero’ is shown to belong to a dominant caste. An upper class urbanite may not be able to identify the hero’s caste and may perceive them to be just another ‘village hero’. But, the ‘B’ and ‘C’ audience would ‘get’ the caste references. While the members of the same caste feel good about the hero hailing from their community, it does create a slight sense of alienation for people from other communities, especially those who are living in the same region. But since the antagonists are shown as outsiders (ie not members of other communities living in that region) and the hero is not shown as belonging to any ‘highly distinuguished’ family (unlike say Devar Magan), I consider these movies as only ‘slightly problematic’.
Now, let’s consider the movie Sanda Kozhi.
http://pulsatingrhythms.blogspot.com/2010/02/caste-fanatic-sanda-kozhi.html?m=1
As the above link shows, there are clear references to the Hero’s family history of domination/influence and also denigrating references to other communities. This is highly problematic.
On the other side of the spectrum, PP director Maari Selvaraj recently spoke about how he felt alienated when seeing a movie about a grandfather – grandson relationship, since it had a reference to their caste. He wondered why this simple relationship based movie felt the need to show their caste.
I wonder whether Maari felt the same way after seeing ‘Attakathi’. Unlike say Pariyerum Perumal, there is no NEED for Attakathi’s protagonist to belong to dalit community. Yet, there were clear references to him being dalit. A vegetarian may feel alienated when the protagonist is shown as a meat/fish eater. Now are we going to say that meen kuzhambu scenes should be avoided?
Balachander would have been severly criticised if he had constantly shown his brahmin heroes to be highly intelligent, thus reinforcing a stereotype. That is why Shankar is criticised because he OFTEN identifies the righteous people as belonging to the brahmin community (even in Mudhalvan bomb scene).
I feel that it is okay when a movie uses caste in the way the movie ‘Arul’ does.
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Honest Raj
May 12, 2019
When i saw the teaser with english subtitles back when it released,when the title comes up the subtitle reads “lords dance”. So maybe the makers itself meant it to refer to the thevar caste only half heartedly. When I saw the teaser again recently, they changed that part alone and it now reads “thevaraattam”. It still doesn’t mention the caste explicitly.
Oh, come on. That way, you could defend a hell a lot of ‘titles’–Reddy, Gounder, Thakur, et al.
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abishekspeare
May 12, 2019
Speaking of portraying brahmins in cinema, there’s a scene in the upcoming Sivakarthikeysn movie Mr.Local . In a song video released just a few hours back,at one point Sivakarthikeyan is suddenly wearing an iyengar costume and his flaunting his kondai in close up and the song tells us it’s supposed to be funny. A lot of songs have people suddenly changing into brahmin costumes and behaving in a way that’s supposed to be ‘funny’. Glorifying a community through movies is one thing, constantly making fun of a community is different.
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Honest Raj
May 12, 2019
But I guess, in an Indian context, this rooting adds some specificity to the character. In the sense that many Indian names have caste names appended to them almost invisibly.
Sure, it adds some flavour to the scripts (as Isai says) – depending upon the milieu and period. In Tamil, I can think of Mann Vaasanai, Muthal Mariyathai and Kizhakku Cheemaiyile. But then, consider 16 V and Uthiripookal – can you make out from the films the castes of any of the characters? And, these were the films that put Tamil cinema on a firm pedestal. On the other hand, caste was almost a non-existent entity in BR’s urban films such as Sigappu Rojakkal, Tik Tik Tik and Kodi Parakkuthu. But consider Sathya and Sathileelavathi, both of which revolve around urban middle-class families. The Mudaliar/Gounder reference (in the character names played by Kamal) adds no REAL value to the script (perhaps, Kamal wanted to show his “versatility”?). Also, I’m not sure if we’d be able to find out the caste of the Ramesh Aravind character (notwithstanding the actor’s TamBrahm accented Tamil) in the film.
CHINNA GOUNDER is about a man who happens to be a Gounder
Really, do you really think lines such as “Kannu pada poguthaiyaa”, “Yejaman kaaladi manneduthu”, “Naattaama paadham patta” et al, were meant to glorify only the protagonists and not the castes?
Correct me if I am wrong, but even in THEVAR MAGAN, only Nasser (the villain) keeps talking about Thevars in a superior way, right? And he loses his head at the end. When Sivaji talks about the community, it’s more from a class POV than a caste POV — when he tells Kamal “we have to do something to uplift the lives of our people who are less fortunate.”
The idea of creating villains out of the same caste (or family) of the hero has been there ever since the days of R. V. Udhayakumar. About Thevar Magan, Sivaji’s character is one of the most honestly-written characters in Tamil cinema. The character could well be a casteist, sexist, traditionalist, but none of these “traits” are explicit to the viewer. He has a wonderful line when Gautami says, I’ll have my dinner along with the womenfolk: “Ungala naan pombalayavae pakkalayae … enga veetukku vandha virundhaliya thaana paakuren”.
On a related note, have you seen this little-known Sathyaraj starrer Senathipathi? The lead (read good) characters are Thevars while the supporting ones (with grey shades) and villains are Naickers.
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Srinivas R
May 12, 2019
BR – what Isai said about reinforcing the dominant image of the caste is true. Also, these movies become a tool for propogating that dominance. Potri paadadee ponne is a very problematic song. It reinforces the view that a certain caste are rulers and others have to listen to them. Similarly there videos of kids mouthing a lot of punch dialogues from Devarattam. Everything in the movie from women of the house being uneducated to the kandathum kadhal dialogue to one of the protagonists brother in law running a public toilet has caste subset. It warms the hearts of the dominant caste and this movie will become their new propoganda tool for caste oppression. It breaks my heart that kids will be fed this prejudiced opinions and this movie will be a tool for the same.
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brangan
May 12, 2019
Srinivas: Everything in the movie from women of the house being uneducated to the kandathum kadhal dialogue to one of the protagonists brother in law running a public toilet has caste subset.
What’s the caste implication about the kandathum kadhal line? Or the women being uneducated?
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Honest Raj
May 12, 2019
Running a public toilet has a caste subset? Seriously?
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Macaulay's Perapulla
May 13, 2019
BR, this is a good summary of how such movies play out in TN.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/barathi-thambi/%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%87%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D-%E0%AE%85%E0%AE%9A%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9A%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%B1%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D-%E0%AE%9A%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%BF-%E0%AE%B5%E0%AF%86%E0%AE%B1%E0%AE%BF/2277566099122463/
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umamaheswarans
May 13, 2019
Hi BR, PMK leader Ramadoss had campaign in the past that Dalit youth attracts upper caste girls by wearing fancy T-shirts and sporting sun glasses. This was when a vanniar girl and a dalit boy fell in love and married. I am hearing from social media, that there is a similar dialogue in this movie.
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Srinivas R
May 13, 2019
Running a public toilet – which caste is usually associated with sanitation work? In the movie, a peacenik character whose peaceful ways will be questioned later in the movie is the one doing this job. I see that as a dig on the community that is usually associated with that job and also an assertion that dominant community’s violence is veeram
About the kandathum kadhal line, the கண்டவன் is a ref to outcasts who are not part of the lineage.
My interpretation of course, feel free to reject if it doesn’t make sense
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Daisy
May 13, 2019
@Srimuhunthan- Asking if schools teach about bad effects of caste system is kind of similar to asking if kids all over the world learn about bad effects of religion.
Barathiyar sang over 100 years about I’ll effects of caste and we learn to recite these poems at school. However in reality, things seem to have only worsened.
I am part of Mukulathor community (Thevar, Maravar and Kallar) but grew up far away from my native bear Chennai. I have heard of stories from my mom that the neighbors in my dad’s village were in jail at the time of her wedding due to caste fights. Devar Magan movie had a profound impact on my parents. I was too young at that to understand the nuances. Even during high school, I had heard stories of relatives who had moved out to nearby towns sheltering fellow villagers of the same caste to protect them from police.
Inspite of these experiences in life, I grew up quite obilivious to caste, until I went to a medical college down south in Tamilnadu. In the first week of my college, I was asked by a senior to come in for a get together for members of the same caste. How they got to know everyone’s caste is a mystery to me. It was very common for friends to call each other “sangs” (to imply Jaathi Sangam) if they belonged to the same caste. We would get a day off on Muthuramalinga Devar’s bday Incase there are any riots.
You would think the more educated you are the more you would shed these practices but I saw that people were proud to be wearing caste on their sleeves. This was over 20 years ago. Things have become only worse due to social media/WhatsApp forward and this groupism mentality.
My cousin recently mentioned to me that people in Tamilnadu don’t have surnames like rest of India to break the caste tag attached to your name. I don’t know if this true or not but interestingly enough for Tamilians who have been outside of Tamilnadu for 2-3 generations like Mumbai, it has become common to affix caste tags to their last names like Konar, Gownder etc( We have always had Iyers and Iyengars).
If movies are mirrors to our society, then no wonder, we have movies like these. It is upto our younger crop of actor/actresses if they want to be part of such agenda pushing detrimental movie.
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Kay
May 13, 2019
Personally I have reached a point where I don’t know what to believe anymore. Recently there was an incident where an audio clip abusing people belonging to a certain caste was circulated in WhatsApp which led to communal tensions. But now police have arrested guys belonging to the same caste who recorded it on purpose to create these tensions.
https://m.timesofindia.com/city/chennai/two-held-for-recording-sharing-abusive-audio-that-triggered-violence-in-parts-of-tamil-nadu/amp_articleshow/69060954.cms
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Kay
May 13, 2019
About the kandathum kadhal line, the கண்டவன் is a ref to outcasts who are not part of the lineage.
I haven’t watched the movie. But based on having come across similar statements while growing up I think the meaning is more like falling in love with unknown and multiple guys. Our society has this concept that feeling attracted to a guy means it should end in marriage. And people can’t accept girls (especially) being in multiple relationships.
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Honest Raj
May 13, 2019
@Srinivas: I haven’t watched the film. Thanks for the explanation.
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Srinivas R
May 13, 2019
Or the women being uneducated? – it’s more patriarchy than casteiesm I guess. All resources being saved up to educate the man of the house who will later save everyone’s honor and women not needing any education.
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Varsha Ganesh
May 13, 2019
This was a very interesting watch that talks very specifically about caste in tamil cinema and its implications on people.
In Thevar Magan, there is a line that the Sivaji character says about how ‘namma payaluga’ were the ones who fought for independence, valorizing their community.
BR: “Are they saying that audiences view a DEVARATTAM and think “Oh look, those are our people. So we are great because movies are being made about us.”? And this indirectly brings about an added sense of superiority? (Has this cause-effect been studied?)”
This is exactly what the Professor in the video talks about. It indeed brings about a sense of superiority causing them to consider the ‘others’ as inferior, contributing to the already rampant ‘jaathi veri’.
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Srimugunthan Rishithan
May 14, 2019
@Daisy Hi there. Thank you for going out of your way to share your experiences with the caste system. It was a really great insight. I was just wondering though, are those educated people, you have described who are wearing their caste like a badge of honor nice people or are they total meanies who have managed to get to the top despite my mother’s saying, “In life, bad people will end up in a bad position”?
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