Tamil Cinema and Politics
With Chiranjeevi contesting elections this year, leading his own party, Prajarajyam Party( PRP), down South in Andhra Pradesh, trying to do what NTR did in 1983, i have again faced the standard set of questions, “Why do people down South elect movie stars?” to of course more smart ass comments like “You South people are emotional fools, you elect movie stars as Chief Ministers?”. Well actually not all states down South, the only 2 states where movie actors have been elected as Chief Minister have been Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Anyway this post attempts to answer the question, Why, by taking a look at the state, which started it all, Tamil Nadu. Since the 60’s, politics in Tamil Nadu, has been switching between the twin Kazhagams, the DMK led by Karunanidhi, and AIADMK led by Jayalalitha. Jayalalitha was a well known actress in her hey days, and AIADMK of course was founded by M.G.Ramachandran or MGR, one of Tamil cinema’s most charismatic super stars. While Karunanidhi, has not donned the grease paint, he has been the script writer for many Tamil movies during the 50’s and 60’s. Janaki Ramachandran who headed the State for a brief while, was herself an actress, so that makes it a totally filmi affair. But the connection between movies and politics goes much deeper than mere filmi glamor holding sway. In an essence the relationship between the Tamil movie world and politics is the story of the rise of the Dravidian politics.
During the early years of Tamil cinema, the Congress Party, made use of some movie actors to campaign during elections. However the Congress Party was not very interested in using the movie industry. Rajaji felt it was a source of moral corruption, while veteran political leader Kamraj, mocked at the Dravidian party’s strategy to get into power saying “How can a Government be run by actors?”. After independence, the Congress did not have much contact with the movie world. And here stepped in C.N.Annadurai, or popularly known as Anna. Annadurai started his political career with the Justice Party headed by E.V.Ramaswamy aka Periyar, the person who started the Self Respect movement and the Dravida Kazhagam. Periyar’s philosophy was based on anti Brahminism, atheism, rejection of rituals and social justice for the lower castes. Though Anna was influenced by Periyar’s philosophy, he neverthless disagreed with him, on Periyar’s call for observing Aug 15, 1947 as a day of mourning. Anna felt that Tamil interests could be well served by remaining within the Indian Union and participating in the democratic process, rather than secession. Anna formed the DMK ( Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) in 1949 and gained widespread support due to his struggles on behalf of the lower castes and poor people. In 1967 DMK swept the elections in Tamil Nadu, based on the widespread support it received for its role in the anti Hindi protests, and Anna was sworn in as the Chief Minister, becomming the first non Congress leader to head a majority Government in India.
C.N.Annadurai
Anna however became noted for the way he actually used the medium of cinema to propagate the Dravidian ideals. Himself a writer and orator of repute, he wrote the screen play for around 6 movies. Nalla Thambi propagated co operative farming and abolition of zamindari system, while Velaikiri was against the landlords. The usage of movie medium is quite significant here. Post independence the Congress did not show much interest here, and a vaccum was created. During the 50’s, when movies were the staple source of entertainment to the masses, the DMK clevetly stepped in and used it to spread its ideology. As noted lyricist Kannadasan noted,
They( the Congress party). decried the movies, We used it.
To a lay observer the movies seemed nothing special, but what the DMK did here was to spread its message using dialogues and lyrics. Most of the movies had a strong socialist, atheist tone. The twin philosophies of Tamil sub nationalism and anti Brahmanism were conveyed in these movies. Not just the ideologies, but the party symbols were also shown in scenes to drive the point. When the censor board began to clamp down, they got around by using puns, metaphors. In order to avoid running into trouble with censors for use of Anna Durai’s name, they began to use his popular name, Anna. It worked a twin purpose, Anna is the Tamil word for Elder Brother, so the censors could not object, and audiences got the point about who was being referred to here.
If Anna started the process of using movies for propagating political ideology, Karunanidhi, carried it further. And it came in a 1952 movie called Parasakthi starring Sivaji Ganesan. This was the movie that launched Sh
Shivaji Ganesan in Parasakthi
ivaji into stardom, and Karunanidhi ’s dialogues had a strong anti Brahmanical overtone, and attack on Hindu religious customs. Shivaji’s monologue in the court room, with some great dialogues, is regarded as one of the finest performances on screen. Both Karunanidhi and Anna, created a major revolution in Tamil cinema, taking it away from its religious, mythological genre to a more social, realistic genre. More importantly, they used the spoken Tamil in their movies, as opposed to the more classical form of Tamil then in vogue.
M.G.Ramachandran
In 1953, Karunanidhi introduced a young, Palakkad Nair, to the DMK, by the name of Maruthur Gopala Ramachandran. He of course would be more popular as MGR. Though MGR had been a Congress party member till then, his first major hit Rajakumari was scripted by Karunanidhi himself. And from then on he emerged as one of Tamil Cinema’s leading superstars. MGR and Shivaji Ganesan, were the Rajnikant and Kamal Hassan of their time. While Shivaji gained reputation as a serious actor, with his intense dramas and roles, MGR was the more populist hero, playing the do gooder role, usually a swashbuckler kind of hero, fighting for the poor, who ultimately wins in the end. However to dismiss MGR as just a mere mass entertainer, would be to miss a deeper truth. To lay person’s MGR’s movies seemed the standard escapist masala, of the good hero winning. But they actually carried the Dravidian ideology in dialogues and songs, implicitly. Both Shivaji and MGR were Dravidian supporters, however while Shivaji’s movies were more targeted towards the educated and urban audience, MGR’s movies were targeted towards the rural masses. In differing ways both actors, propagated the Dravidian ideology.
MGR became a vocal proponent of the DMK and it’s ideology, and the DMK used his glamor and mass appeal to spread the Dravidian ideology further. As Annadurai remarked
When we show his face, we get 40,000 votes; when he speaks a few words, we get 4 lakhs
When Sivaji Ganesan departed from DMK, following differences with Karunanidhi, MGR only became stronger within the party. In most of his earlier color movies, MGR would appear in black and red colors, incidentally, the colors of the DMK. Unlike Shivaji’s movies that stressed on social justice, MGR’s movies made references to political scenarios. And in real lie too MGR’s philanthropic activities, made him closer to the aam junta. Just before the 1967 polls, MGR was shot at by his fellow actor, M.R.Radha, a well known screen villian. Though MGR survived the incident, he was shot in the neck, and unable to speak for some time. MGR won the election to the assembly on the sympathy vote, when the DMK formed the Govt. Following major differences with his friend and long time mentor, Karunanidhi, he left DMK and formed the AIADMK in 1975. Though Karunanidhi dismissed his party as a “100 days movie”, MGR swept to power in 1977, and became the first movie actor, to become a Chief Minister of a state.
The fact is though that MGR was not just another movie star, who became the Chief Minister, just because the masses were swept away by his glamor. Yes movie glamor played a role, but MGR had a political grounding all through. He was a member of the DMK party, acquainted with its ideology, took part in active political campaigning, and held important positions in the party. He was not a Johnny come late, who came in from nowhere and ended up as Chief Minister. Shivaji Ganesan however was not as much of a success in the political arena, compared to his movie career. Incidentally Shivaji got his screen name from Periyar himself, after a play in which he enacted the role of Shivaji. Shivaji however found that DMK’s atheistic nature, was a hurdle in being accepted by the more devout section of his audience, and his visit to the Tirupati temple, angered many of the DMK bigwigs, as it was against their tradition to be seen at religious functions or places. After leaving DMK, Shivaji flitted between many parties including the Congress, however he never was a success, and he later retired from active politics.
Interestingly when MGR formed the AIADMK, he allied with Indira Gandhi, as he found her principles to be the equivalent of his. It was a break from the normal Dravidian movement tradition of not aligning with any of the national parties. Also both MGR and Indira Gandhi, formed their parties after breaking away from their parent parties. From then on the Congress has been allying with one or other of the Kazhagams. When MGR passed away in 1987, the AIADMK again split between Jayalalitha and MGR’s wife Janaki Ramachandran. Jayalalitha, a Mysore Tamil Brahmin, made her debut in a Kannada movie, and was quite popular as a heroine down South, acting with all the major stars like NTR, ANR, Shivaji, Rajkumar and MGR himself. Though her breakaway faction lost the polls in 1989, she emerged as the party’s de facto leader, when she won more seats than Janaki’s group, and was the leader of the opposition in Tamil Nadu Assembly. In the same year, she accused Karunanidhi of attempting to assault her in the Assembly, and vowed not to return as long as he was the CM. Rajiv Gandhi’s tragic assasination in 1991, and DMK’s links with the LTTE, caused her to ride on a pro Rajiv, anti DMK vote, and she became the CM in 1991.
The Tamil movie world still continues its links with the political establishment. Kamal is an admirer of Periyar, and many of his movies have a strong atheistic, leftist tone, Anbe Sivam being really notable. Rajni’s appeal to defeat Jayalalitha in 1996, proved to be the crucial factor in her crushing defeat. Rajni’s movies Muthu, Padiyappa have strong political references, in fact Ramya Krishna’s character in Padiyappa is modelled very much on Jayalalitha. Rajni however is not much active in politics nowadays. Bhagyaraj has been a staunch supporter of MGR, and in fact promoted many of MGR’s schemes, through his movies, for example MGR’s midday meal scheme was praised in Bhagyaraj’s Mundhanai Mudichu. M. R. Radha’s son Radha Ravi and daughter, Radhika, have been with the DMK. Radhika’s husband actor Sarathkumar had been associated with the DMK, but later left it to form his own part, which has not been too succesful. Another actor Karthik, is a member of the Forward Bloc, and campaigned for the party in 2006. Actor Vijayakanth, has started his own party, DMDK, as a third alternative to the AIADMK and DMK, but has not achieved any significant success.
The relation between politics and cinema in Tamil Nadu has been a long standing one. One reason is that most of the Tamil actors have had some association or other with politics, either through political activities or their social work. The numerous fan clubs in Tamil Nadu, have helped them to build a cadre also, an essential requirement for politics. The way politics and movie world, have used each other for their advantage is something to be observed and learnt from.
Tags: AIADMK, Annadurai, DMK, Jayalalitha, Karunanidhi, mgr, Periyar, Shivaji Ganesan, Tamil Nadu politics
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Ratnakar- well researched write up.
But just to point out a couple of things-
1. MGR was not a Palakkad Brahmin,he was actually a full blown Mallu & a Nair ( sub sect Menon like Rajeev Menon
)
)
2. Vijaykanth did not face much success last time but its expected that this time around his party will do a much better job & its still uncertain whom his party will associate with this time.
3. Kamal may admire Periyar but he’s clearly said no to politics long ago & even last weekend when he was adddressing the gathering for Kannada cinema’s 75th year celebrations in Bangalore, he repeated the same.
4. T.Rajendar is another name who is into politics along with films- he’s part of the DMK.
5. While Vijaykanth started his journey into politics by first launching a flag & then the party subsequently, Vijay also recently has come up with a flag.Also considering that his father S.A.C.Chandrasekhar is close to the DMK government there is speculation that Vijay himself may go the Vijaykant way in the near future ( I really dread that
Will write more soon!!!
Sethu, thanks for the correction, for me i always confuse Nairs as Brahmins, but came to know they were Kshatriyas.
Well regarding Vijayakanth, i can only comment more after the polls. I think he might go in for a seat sharing with AIADMK.
Yeah i know Kamal is not into active politics, but in his movies, he generally propagates a lot of the Periyar, Dravidian movement ideology. Anbe Sivam was very much that, especially the message on atheism, and his socialist dialogues. Most of Kamal’s movies do contain strong political overtones. Actually Marudanayagam, was about a lower caste Dalit, who escapes, converts into Islam and then becomes a soldier fighting against the British, but the movie has not really taken off.
Awaiting more of ur inputs.
nice write-up, but it still does not answer the question “why ppl down-south elect movie stars to CM post?”
u have historically stated abt TN alone. tat apart, 2 more things to be mentioned would be:
1. karunanidhi being a writer, wrote a lot of speeches for mgr and as usual mgr ran-away with all the credits and tat was one of the differences; tat mgr became larger-than-life bcos of karunanidhi’s writings on and off-screen but karunanidhi did not get much out of the whole thing [political/monetary pie]
2. u have totally missed the anti-hindi stand tat mgr took, thereby coming closer to the masses. he raised the bar for tamil chauvinism and he even refused the padmashri in 1960’s bcoz the embossed words were in hindi. tat was the extent to which he pushed the anti-hindi factor and bound the tamilians into a monolith group
Rals its hard to understand the answer, because people in South have a different mindset, different approach. For people from above the Vindhyas, electing a movie actor as CM, might seem the heights of stupidity, but to people down South, its not a big deal. And i guess one reason is the movie going culture down South, is much more deep rooted than rest of India. Even very small towns and villages, have decent theaters. And in cities, urban centers, we have theaters that are decent, have good amenities, and for which you dont need to pay a bomb, to sit in and enjoy a movie. So movies is something closely interwined with most of the people down South. Also the fan club culture is more widespread in the South, than in other parts of India. So if any actor wants to enter politics, he has a ready made cadre in place.
The reason i choose to focus on TN was the fact that its was first time, there was a close correlation between movies and poltics in India. Vis a Vis ur points
1) Karunanidhi was already politically established. The fact is Karunanidhi regarded himself as Anna’s rightful heir. He used MGR to further his own ambitions, for him MGR was the means to the end, not the end itself. But then MGR started to overshadow him, he became insecure, and that kickstarted the rivalry between them. Karunanidhi had the support of the party bigwigs, in fact when MGR left DMK, the only people who supported him, were the lower level cadre. MGR however had more appeal among the rural masses, and he used that to win the elections, with his populist schemes. Even now to date, while DMK is strong in the urban areas like Chennai, AIADMK holds sway in the rural areas, especially the Southern districts of Tamil Nadu.
2) MGR was one among the many who supported the anti Hindi stand, when he was a member of the DMK. Incidentally he became the CM by forging an alliance with Indira Gandhi, and then later softened his anti Hindi stand. From 70’s onwards Hindi movies used to be shown regularly in Chennai and other urban areas.
Ironically 3 of the biggest icons in Tamil Nadu- MGR, Rajnikanth and Jayalalitha, are not native Tamilians.
MGR was born in Sri Lanka, and a Mallu Nair from Palakkad.
Jayalalitha hails from Mysore.
Rajnikanth of course is from Bangalore, of Marathi descent.
Ratnakar ji..did you work in PS for BOI..organised a quiz once with a question on oscars and Bausch and Lomb??
Praneet, u guessed it right. One correction, my name is Ratnakar, not Ratnakarji, LOL.
And the Q i asked on Oscars- Bausch & Lomb
Which company was awarded an honorary Oscar for its contribution to movie industry?
great..now I remember you.. I aced that quiz..hehe..good to see you here..keep blogging.
@Ratnakar, dont know if you read this but the same topic was addressed on PFC
http://passionforcinema.com/why-do-they-make-film-stars-cms-in-south-or-will-chiranjeevi-make-a-difference-in-ap-elections/
Nevertheless, liked some of the detailing and all..
There are two corrections:
1. MGR was not a Palakad Brahmin. He was born in Srilanka to a Nair family.
2. M.R Radha’s son Radha Ravi is with ADMK and not DMK.
Thanks,
Srinath
Ratna,
Yours and Subrat’s posts are few of the best articles i read on politics, which is a lot, as im a regular reader of newspaper editorials.
@ J : Thanks for the compliments
@ Srinath: I think i mentioned MGR as Palakadd Nair only. Thanks for correcting about Radha Ravi.
@Ratnakar: nevertheless, the anti-hindi stance tat he took way-back, has still not subsided. the feeling is deep-rooted and tats the only thing tat i hate abt TN [the single largest factor why its not become cosmo bcoz of their bloody anti-north tirade], apart from the open-drainages in chennai
ratnakar, nice post as always, but then, its stating the obvious, isnt it?
i was so much enlightened by this detailed analysis of the psyche of the people down-south, esp TN. being from the north, i can say that at times the anti-hindi propoganda does become ugly, but more-or-less the people have become more tolerant, with the advent of techology as well as the desire to watch hindi movies among the masses.
The anti-hindi stance in many southern states is a “pandora’s box” ,let’s not open it here in this non political forum.
Satyen, Rals vis a vis the anti Hindi stance, its quite a sensitive issue, in fact thats the reason i avoided mentioning it here.
@Rals
It’s easy to say that TN or ppl down south are anti hindi. But are they really to blame? Its not a secret that the south indian languages are completely different from the north indian languages. Infact they lean more towards Sanskrit than Hindi. Even till the 20th century Hindi was not considered a classical language. The fact is when one language is not used as widely as Hindi was at a point of time (maybe even now it isn’t), why do you make it the national language? I have always believed that Sanskrit was the only language which would have gained acceptance all over India. Maybe they could have had two languages – Sanskrit and Urdu. Thats just my two pence.
Rgd why they vote for actors in TN and maybe AP. Well as Ratnakar said they propogate these ideals, phiosophies in their movies. Hence they are involved in a movement and more recognisable\acceptable to the people when they enter politics. Hindi films have never done that and hence the actors have never been part of the ideologies of a part and just seems as gimmicks when they enter politics. But remember ppl did vote for AB, Dharmendra, Shatrughan when they stood for the elections even though they did not make such movies. So my question would be why do ppl in INDIA vote for the actors
@ Ravi, regarding whether Hindi should be the national language or not, its going to be a never ending debate, out of the scope here at least.
Hmm AB’s Inquilaab was somewhat political in nature, but it flopped at the BO. Also while AB’s movies never dealt with politics explicitly, he became popular with the masses because of his anti establishment, rebel image.
There have been Hindi movies like Aandhi, Mere Apne( incidentally starring Shotgun and Vinod Khanna) that have been political in nature. Well the fact is barring Sunil Dutt, most of the other stars were not into active politics. Dev Anand, IS Johar did start their own political party but it did not take off well.
However both Shotgun and Vinod Khanna have done well in the BJP, both of them going on to become Ministers. Shotgun however was not elected, he did stand once for Lok Sabha from New Delhi, but lost to Rajesh Khanna. He later became a Rajya Sabha member. Not many gave Vinod a chance, when he first won as an MP, calling it a flash in the pan. But he has done rather well, and has been holding on to his seat.
Regarding why people in India vote for actors? Well movie glamor does work. Or else how could you account for Govinda winning over a seasoned leader like Ram Naik?
Well written and well researched, as always. And, as mentioned by ‘rbehemoth’ I did see a very similar article, but this time the tone and context were entirely different. Anything on MGR is worth a read anytime!
Now, did we forget Mani Ratnam’s ‘Iruvar’ here, wow, that was a very good take on MRG-Karunanidhi story and excellent potrayal by Prakash Raj and Mohan Lal. When ‘crazyrals’ said ‘karunanidhi being a writer, wrote a lot of speeches for mgr and as usual mgr ran-away with all the credits and tat was one of the differences’….the scene in Iruvar struck me…hope you guys remember…a superb shot/scene…
@Ratnakar: incidentally, even rajesh khanna’s ‘aaj ka mla’ was on the same lines as amitabh’s ‘inquilab’ and both of them flopped
Ratnakar, thats my point. The notion that this phenomenon is seen down south only is not true. You have given many such examples in your comment. The only reason I beleive that they do not go on to play much bigger roles in their political careers up north is that they are driven by wrong reasons. The only person who really did lot of social work and tried to establish his vote bank was Sunil Dutt and he was successful. Meantime as I mentioned earlier the southern stars are involved in the whole process throughout their careers some way or the other (atleast till 90s) and hence are seen as viable options for post of CMs, MP etc. And as to why cinema and politics are so closely linked down south, I think its because of the subjects they choose. Now I dont mean to say all the actors turned politicians down south are saints, but somehow the Hindi actors are as escapist in nature as most of the movies.
Ravi, i think more than the subjects they choose, its the social activities they indulge in, that makes the difference. Like Chiranjeevi had his eye and blood bank, which is a huge success. Rajnikanth’s fan clubs do a lot of social activiites, and i believe even Vijaykanth is in to a lot of philanthrophy and social work. Generally what i have seen is a majority of the actors down South are more active politically and also involved with social work.
And its not just in India, if you take a look at Hollywood, you have actors like Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Leonardo Di Caprio, all of whom are politically very active. During the recent Iraq war, you have Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, George Clooney openly leading the protest against George Bush. In fact most of Clooney’s movies have been quite political in nature.
@all: while i do agree tat anti-hindi and anti-north sentiments are not in scope of this forum; i mentioned it because this was one of the cohesive forces which brought them together … one common cause to fight against…common enemy funda; tats all. and tats the reason i backed it with data like mgr not accepting padmashri since it had hindi inscription, such was the fervour.
lets leave it out, tat wud be better.
@Ravi : “somehow the Hindi actors are as escapist in nature as most of the movies” … another f!ckin generalization. plz dont make such ridiculous claims. 90% movies all over world are escapist cinemas. north-india import heroines like simran, nagma, sakshi are all examples of escapism
so, plz pass comments backed by facts and figures. the post was written bcos we have facts of actors down-south becoming CM’s and not just standing and winning elections like in north. ignroing tat fact, u make preposterous statements of such nature
Rals, i guess Ravi’s point was that most of the Bollywood actors are not as politically active compared to their counterparts in Southern Cinema. Except some like Sunil Dutt, Shatrughan Sinha, dont recall other Bollywood actors taking active part in politics. Sanjay Dutt may get the ticket for elections, but politically i have not seen any contribution from him.
One more thing is if you take the Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu or Kannada movie industry, most of them have close ties with the respective State Govts. Like if they have some issue with theater rentals, or entertainment tax, they approach the respective State Govt directly, so there is some kind of working relationship between the Govt and the movie Industry. Regards Bollywood if they have some issue, they need to approach the Central Govt or some one else, i mean consider this it took a long time, before the Govt even considered Bollywood as an industry which could raise finance legitimately.
Vijaykanth is a formidable candidate. He has cosiderable support through out TN. He calls himself Black MGR. The rest like Sarath Kumar, his party is more a caste party and his base is down south among his caste people and T Rajendran is more a entertainer for everybody than a Politician and Karthik is the chief of Forward block and his support base is miniscule. No body can never ever recreate the magic of MGR.
Dilip, dont think any can reach MGR’s status. Also one more factor, MGR being a non Tamilian, was not seen as belonging to any specific community or caste, this helped him to gain support from across the board.
Even in Karnataka, there are many actor politicians like Jagesh of BJP, Rebel Star Aambarish of Congress, 3 time MP from Mandya, ex Minister of state. He enjoys a large support throughout Karnataka. But the only problem with Ambarish is that he is very lazy. Many still consider him as the future CM candidate in Karnataka. And Late Rajkumar was also approached many times by many parties to enter politics with CM post asssurance. But he stayed away from politics.
Ambarish, screwed up his political career big time. He had done nothing as an MP nor as a minister. The only act of note he has done was to resign from the Union Cabinet over the Cauvery waters issue. As of now he has lost all credibility and is a big joke. Rajkumar did not dabble in politics, but did lead agitations over the Gokak issue and also the Cauvery waters issue.
In AP, Chiru PRP winning many seats(probably an alliance with some other party)and as a Future CM is a possibility. Even he is concentrating more on his caste votes. But in TN, I doubt such a situation will ever arise. During the last elections, Rajni was against Ramados PMK and he made a anti PMK stance but they won all the seats in which they contested. Its more of caste politics now.
Cant say much about Chiru’s prospects, but he will get seats in the Coastal area. I think he would make an impact in the twin Godavari districts, from where he hails, and which also has a sizeable chunk of the Kapu community. Also expecting seats in the Vizag, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam areas, but again right now its early days. Regarding Rajni, i think he did too many flip flops, he supported the TMC, fell out with them, later supported the BJP, and that affected his political career.
And Ambaresh was forced to resign. There were lot of agitations in Mandya during the cauvery issue. Yup he has become a big joke and he lost last year in Karnataka state elections. I hope nobody talks about anti hindi stance in TN, there were many reasons behind it. This anti hindi is seen in many other states too.
Why do people down south elect movie stars? Its kind of emotional bonding people have with a star. Say Ajith can deliver 5 continuous flops and his the film will still get a huge 90+ opening weekend. Its all about fans here.
oops i meant ajith 6th or his next film………
@crazyrals
And I am just referring to Hindi cinema as I am not aware of other state politics and cinema like Punjab, Gujarat.etc. My knowledge is strictly limited to Mallu, TN, Bengali, Hindi and to some extent Telugu industry now since I work in Hyd.
I think Ratnakar did a better job expressing what I meant in #25. I do not mean to demean any cinema. I love all kinds of cinema. I just meant to say they come out with their beliefs, support to a political cause in a strong manner in their movies and follow it up in their real life. Dont see any Hindi actor doing that. And I think to some extent that is for the best
As rgds escapist movies, the difference is that Hindi escapist movies are strictly with a urban or NRI backdrop. You rarely see commercial movies with a village backdrop. I see a lot of southern movies which are escapist to the core but have a rural backdrop and hence maybe able to connect with the rural masses too.
another gr8 post ratnakar. very well researched and informative. thx bro.
Also in south there is this much exaggerated Heroism as opposed to male lead or protagonist.The typical South Indian(at least in Tamil) “hero” has no bad qualities,has the ladies falling all over him whatever his looks,worships his mother as god(this is true of all Indian movies),bashes up a truck full of baddies.We don’t see a violent SRK often, even a Sunil shetty does not beat up more than a hand full of guys in the whole movie.Besides the Hindi movies no longer cater to the rural and small town audiences.As long as they satisfy their multiplexes and NRIs they are happy.The votes after all, lie in the villages not in the US of A.
A good article..But since u have used a general term South Indians which include mallus also I would like to point that the relationship between politics and cinema in Kerala is vastly different when compared to other 3 South Indian states.Eventhough most of film makers in Kerala can be considered leftist including superstar Mammooty,they are not politically active…In fact Mallus don’t care much for film stars and why this is the case when other South Indians are crazy abt film stars as politicians?Is it something to do with higher literacy levels Kerala achieved decades ago when other 3 South Indian states literacy level was low?..