Case in point: Dikkiloona which premiered on Over-the-top (OTT) platform Zee5 in September 2021. Men passing derogatory comments about women’s outfits, taking a jibe at them for their clothing and moral policing them for their choice of clothes has also been commonplace in Tamil cinema. The extent of its normalisation is perhaps the reason why we find objectionable remarks on women being passed off as comedy. Credit: YouTube- Filmy Score, Khafa Entertainment
Social activist is seen in a song describing her beauty. Suriya's introductory scene from Ghajini features him delivering a speech, while Asin, who aspires to become a From chiffon sarees in hill stations (2013 movie Endrendrum Punnagai) to ballroom gowns in deserts (2012 film Oru Kal Oru Kannadi), the clothes worn by women is not only logic-defying but has very little to do with the characterisation or plot of the film. She doesn’t behave anything like the aspiring activist she is,” film professor and gender activist Uma Vangal says in a TedX event, where she walks her audience through the introductory sequences of the male and female protagonists in the Tamil film Ghajini. You’d be surprised at the number of films that use women’s clothing as a layer to the script – not to add depth to their characterisation but to typecast them. “You watch the man being introduced as a thinking individual with a vision and a philosophy to boot, but when it comes to the woman in the film, watch as the camera lovingly caresses every contour of her body. And unfortunately confining female characters to such simplistic duality isn’t the only problem with how Tamil cinema portrays the relationship between its ‘heroines’ and their clothing.
However, the same cannot be said about earlier Tamil films that had used the ‘Modern vs Traditional Girl’ formula to typecast women on the basis of how they dress. Films like K ho, Parthiban Kanavu and Gopurangal Saivathillai serve as examples. In a number of films in the past, one of the female protagonists is shown as a ‘traditional’ woman who is usually associated with attributes like soft-spoken, reserved, conventional and ‘homely’, and at the other end of the spectrum, we find the ‘modern’ woman, who is often outspoken, fun-loving, bold and ‘progressive’. It’d be premature to ascertain if there is any truth to the speculations made by fans about Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal as it’s yet to release.
0 kommentar(er)
