Kollywood's 'left' turn

TL:DR; Kollywood is turning to the left by broadly insulting BJP, Hinduism and ADMK at present. This represents a bit of public opinion, prevalent anti-incumbency and such. For the most part, Kollywood is sticking with topics that are marketable and also work in the BO. If conservative movies work, they will run with that.

Long version

First, leftism is a strong word. There is no truly leftist party active in TN. For the sake of discussion, let me consider leftism in Tamil Nadu as anti-BJP or anti-ADMK or both. I don’t think there is any film maker in Tamil who is truly unbiased. Most production companies and crew members are heavily involved in politics. The logic here is simple:

• All political parties are bad, albeit in different ways

• If you portray one party in negative light, while completely ignoring the other - you’re being biased towards the party you ignore

Tamil cinema has almost perfected the art of propaganda through movies, so there is no argument there at all. But here is why and how I think Kollywood shoe-horns it in.

(Why) Trash talk BJP, fill your coffers

I must credit TN BJP for this inventive, yet simple marketing technique. They sent cash registers ringing all over India, propelling an otherwise mediocre ‘Mersal’ into a blockbuster. All Vijay had to do was talk about GST and give an unverified Whatsapp forward about Singapore. But thrashing BJP sells big time in TN, so it makes perfect sense. BJP’s IT wing in TN has all the brawn and no brains.

Also, great election symbol in case Vijay enters politics.

(How) BJP vs caste narrative

Kollywood had mostly handled topics like caste with kid gloves, lest they incur the wrath of caste parties and entire communities that may boycott the film. But Tamil Cinema has recently been quite at ease with going out against BJP and ADMK.

Let me say it out loud ‘NO PARTY CARES ABOUT SOCIAL EQUALITY’. Name any party and tell me if they would take social equality over power at the state/center. I’ll wait. ‘Kaala’ spoke about this in detail(if you had the courage to sit through it), but felt it was apt to only mention BJP and Hinduism as the culprits. The movie was haphazard in many ways, but for a state priding itself on atheism and progress - are we really going to pretend that its just the BJP that is in the way? Has DMK done everything possible to sort it out? Will 50 years of DMK instead of ADMK-BJP solve this?

Then, where are my caricatures of DMK leaders?

(Why) Anti-Incumbency

Tamils have a stupidly short memory, be it three female students being burnt in Dharmapuri or people being shot during Sterlite protests or farmers protesting… hey wait a minute! All of these were done by ADMK. That means DMK did nothing wrong, yes? OK so we’re going to pretend Dinakaran news office attack, Kirutinan murder case and the numerous occasions that DMK leaders have been caught abusing people using caste names didn’t happen? … OK.

I guess it pays to have a fearsome IT Wing.

(How) The art of sweeping it under the present carpet

This one is easy. Thanks to the short term memory loss, Tamils find it easy to blame the party in power for all their short-comings. This is not particular to any party. Farmer troubles, healthcare, controversial projects and bad governance in general are not new to Tamils. Movies released during specific periods have targeted whoever has been in power - Mudhalvan, Desiya Geetham, Sarkar, Mersal to name a few. Anyone with an ounce of knowledge will tell you that these are the results of decades of good or bad management. But you give all those problems a face and it works like a well-done magic trick.

And what a face at that!

Anti-Hinduism has been done to death, so I wont touch on that. It is not exactly news that Tamil movies do not target Islam and Christianity, even though there are distinctly right-wing parties dedicated to their cause. Hindu-bashing as well as ignoring/promoting other religions and atheism is also quite conveniently pro-DMK. I wonder how. God and in particular Amman movies that were wildly successful 2 decades ago are also not all the rage now, so I guess we are stuck with just Lawerence.

But leaving all that aside there are some movies made based on caste oppression that need be lauded for their quality. Pariyerum Perumal spoke about the rarely discussed feuds between well-off Backward castes and the actually struggling Scheduled castes/tribes. Asuran did a great job of bringing forth the money/greed aspect of the castes structure over the just plainly glossing over social narratives.

In Kabali, this scene introduction was abrupt and awkward, but the message was clear.

As a viewer though , I would like a fair warning. It should be up to me on whether or not I want to watch content like this. There are movies that target people rather than politics or religion to talk about social inequality including liberal values - LGBT rights, honor killings, value of education and progress in general. There are other new age movies showing friendships that break down these kind of shackles. This IMHO is how you properly talk about social equality. Not by sucking up to your political masters and labeling it as ‘revolutionary’.

The last part is not necessarily anti-BJP, so cannot be considered pro-DMK. Unless of course you think DMK is a champion of social equality, to which I have no response.

All things considered, I am much more likely to walk into a random film that lectures me on how the current ruling party is responsible for my miserable state.

I don’t think that is a coincidence.

Image from Dailythanthi