An Insightful-Rational Analysis on Portrayal of Women in Hero-Centric Tamil Cinema

Home , Aishwarya Rajesh, Amala Paul, Vada Chennai

International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 29, No. 12s, (2020), pp. 2883-2890

An Insightful-Rational Analysis On Portrayal Of Women In Hero-Centric Tamil Cinema

M.Subhiksha TeachingAssociate, Department of Visual Communication, SRM Institute of science and technology, Kattankulathur, Chennai

ABSTRACT: The study is to analyze Portrayalof Women in Hero-Centric Tamil Cinema by applying the sociological approach that focuses on depicting the gender. The study investigates the interrelation of gender, women and Tamil Cinema in the context of a few blockbuster movies of 2018 through bechdel test. This is a quality based research that took the form of descriptive method for analyzing the selected films. The narration gives a hint on the position of women in the society and the evolution of Tamil Cinema with special attention to emergence of representation of women on screen. KEY WORDS: Women representation, Tamil cinema, Portrayal, Prime attention

INTRODUCTION: Women are underrepresented in film. (Jocelyn Nichole Murphy, 2015) The representation of women in cinema has been a major issue of debate amongst feminist film theorists in India. The complex and fascinating relationship between women and cinema has a substantial literature and some interesting work on third world feminism, which illuminates aspects of the representation of women in Indian films. The representation of women and the representation by women on screen are essential for understanding the interplay between women and cinema in India (Gokulsing and Dissanayake,1998). For analyzing the position and representation of women within power and gender relations in a patriarchal society, we need to consider the role of agency in women’s lives. "Agency" refers to the capacity of individual humans to act independently and to make their own free choices. Agency, thus, generally refers to micro level actors and to macro level collectives that act. In other words, any social being, whether an individual or a collective, can be considered to have agency. (Ritzer,2005).

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY: Movie making is all set to take a new turn. Technological advancements apart, it’s conceptualization that stands first to dive and swim into the sea of change in order to identify the pearls that help make brand new inventions that would pave way to bring up a revolution which in turn, would be acceptable and profitable as well. The need of the study is to create awareness among the next generation to turn away from the habitual movie making norms and get into something new that would maintain and uphold equality in portraying the genders in the movies.

OBJECTIVES

 To dissect if women are still portrayed and categorized as secondary characters in Tamil Cinema  To study how women are portrayed in Tamil Cinema  To analyze and find if women are observed and treated inferior to heroes

REVIEW OF LITERATURE According to Rupapeter(2018),woman is portrayed to be strong, self-reliant and financially independent in Tamil movies. However, she is also sexually harassed and victim of constant male gaze. It is to be noted that new age Tamil movies have gone beyond housewife and teacher roles for women and talk of women in IT and media industry.

International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 29, No. 12s, (2020), pp. 2883-2890

According to Jocelyn Nichole Murphy(2015),Gender and racial stereotypes in film are not dead, but they are making progress. The demographics of the audience and their actual preferences should be considered more seriously in production decisions to influence more positive representations and to be more inclusive to the national audience, not just the white males. Calling for a lack of, or turn away from, action/adventure films because they promote hyper-masculinity is not the answer. The answer is pursuing depictions that more accurately represent the audience as a whole. “The ideal approach to female representation, is female representation.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS  Why women are still portrayed and categorized as secondary characters in Tamil Cinema?  Why are they observed and treated as inferior to heroes?  How to identify the psychological perspectives on the portrayal of women in Tamil Cinema?

METHODOLOGY: This exploratory study analyses popular blockbuster Tamil movies of 2018 to understand how roles of women are depicted in Tamil Cinema. The exploratory study uses qualitative methods to understand how a woman is portrayed in Tamil movies. Thus, the study is included with a Bechdel test to understand and interpret how roles of women are designed in Tamil movies. A list of movies is taken up for analysis to scale up the means of Bechdel test.

BECHDEL TEST The Bechdel Test was inspired by cartoonist Alison Bechdel‘s 1985 comic strip ‘The rule’became a basic measure to see if women are fairly represented in a film. It’s is also referred to as the Bechdel- Wallace test. Alison credited the idea for the test to her friend Liz Wallace. The test carries only three questions: 1. It must have at least two strong female characters 2. They both must have names 3. They must talk to each other about something else, other than a male protagonist The Bechdel Test is only a litmus test for character representations and meant to bring attention to lack of complex characters. Since its popularization, authors have been adapting the test to measure other underrepresented character groups such as ethnic minorities and other characters varying sexual orientations. While Johnson was primarily considering television fiction, she and commenters had trouble discerning many examples of science-fiction/fantasy shows that pass the test. While considering the original Bechdel Test, as well as its variations in future research, and in future production decisions regarding the media, it will further expose the discrepancy in well-rounded minority characters and hopefully work toward its reprisal. In this study, 16 Tamil Block-buster movies released during 2018 are chosen for conducting Bechdel Test analysis.

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION RESEARCH QUESTION 1: Why women are still portrayed and categorized as secondary characters in Tamil Cinema? Movie: Sarkar Character name: Nila (Keerthysuresh) Role description: Hero’s love interest. She assists him in his task.Wherever the character appears in the movie, she is portrayed to render support and assist the hero in his endeavours in rectifying the electoral system in the country. Her character is portrayed as someone who follows the male protagonist around like a love struck puppy, always in awe of what he is capable of while we, as the audience, know nothing

International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 29, No. 12s, (2020), pp. 2883-2890 about her. The forced love story and the lack of interest of even making her character go beyond the love story are so apparent that it reminds us of how filmmakers would treat an actress of Keerthy’s popularity (and prowess) just because of her present market value.And moreover, she hasn’t a slight opportunity to talk to any other female character in the movie. Character’s name: KomalaValli (Varalakshmi) Role description: Politician’s daughter. She too is a politician operates from abroad. She is portrayed as an antagonist and hence the necessity of sharing her views with another female character doesn’t arise. Her character is designed to just to take revenge of the protagonist who is against her father in his political career. She does all sorts of criminal plays to make her father win the battle but somehow when everything ends up in failure, she decides to kill her father and take herself charge in politics. So as usual she fails in that step too just because of the male protagonist.

Movie: 2.0 Character name: Nila(amyjackson) Role description: She enacts the role of a robot created by the scientist. She assists the scientist in his scientific research and related activities. The character, though a robot, has all the chances of sharing her views with the other female characters who appear in a scene or two, it doesn’t happen other than just to talk about the hero’s and his scientific strategies. And again as comes in the other films, she too does fall in love with the robot version of rajinikanth. she helps him in his all mass fight sequences and also when the rajinikanth’s robot version tends to die she will give her neural schema to make him alive. And finally the robots will start living together after all the problems got solved.

Movie: Thaana sernthakoottam Character name: AzhaguMeena (Ramya Krishnan) Role description: Hero’s gang commandant. She plays an equally important role with the hero.She is with the hero, supports the hero and does things that support hero in every aspect. She gets no opportunity to talk about anything other than the incidents that swirls around the hero and her own family. She is portrayed in a character that lives in a family that comprises a physically challenged husband and six daughters. This is the reason for her to get involved in this gang of the protagonist. Character name: Madhu (Keerthysuresh) Role description: The heroine of the movie. She pretends as a journalist. She is one of themembers of the gang formed by the protagonist. She does it all well, she is on her own but that doesn’t give her a chance to talk anything out of the box designed for the hero. As usual she also falls in love with the hero and helps him in all his illegal works according to the movie. Though she has only few scenes to perform,she has three songs to dance around the hero.

Movie: ChekkaChivanthaVaanam Character name: Chithra (Jyothika) Role description: Eldest daughter-in-law who is married to Aravindswamyin the don’s family. She doesn’t protest against her husband’s illegitimate affairs.In and out, she commands the scenes within the shadows of the deeds of her husband and the brother in laws. She supports her husband even after knowing that he indulges in all sorts bad activities in his business and personal life and also involved in his parents murder in addition to having an affair with another girl. Character name: Renu (Aishwaryarajesh) Role description: Second daughter-in-law in the don’s family. She sacrifices her life for her husband and children.Put things all together, she happens to turn out to be a victim of her husband’s wrong deeds. She accepts to go to the jail for her husband and make her husband to give away the children to her parents because she wants her children to lead a safe life and not to follow his way. Character name: Chaaya (Dyanaerappa)

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Role description: Lover of Don’s third son. She wishes to meet her boy friend’s mother but gets shot and dies.She lives for her lover and dies for him but shot by another male character as set up by his second brother. There arises no chance to voice her views out of the box but only one song with her boyfriend. Character name: Parvathi (AditiRaoHydari) Role description: Concubine of Don’s eldest son. She opens up as a journalist and happens to be the cause of differences in the Don’s family. She is the reason for Aravindswamy’s betrayal to Jyothika. Her role does not make any sense. She is left with no other chance to be with her boy friend and continue with her illegitimate affairs with him, despite being a journalist. Character name: Lakshmi (Jaya sudha) Role description: Don’s wife. She plays mother of three sons and plays cool all the while. She struggles for peace in the family after her husband’s death. The pitiful mother character that ends up trying to convince her sons to stay united, but in vain.

Movie: Seemaraja Character name: SuthanthiraSelvi (Samantha) Role description: The heroine of the movie - a P.T. teacher with whom hero falls in love. Her own father kidnaps her to avert their love.She has been given no chance to put her voice anything other than the male character that she is characterized to spin around.Though she is portrayed as a character who knows Silambam-a form of a Tamil martial arts-dumbed intothe house because of her father’s order. Character name: Kaleeswari (Simran) Role description: She holds the dominant character in the other track of the movie as a vamp. She is given the chance to raise her voice only against the hero. She plays the role of samantha’s step mother who insists his husband not to let his daughter to marry the hero. She locks the heroine inside the house and gives mental torture just because of her personal vengeance with the hero.

RESEARCH QUESTION 2: Why are they observed and treated as inferior to heroes? Movie: Vada Chennai Character name: Chandra (Andrea Jeremiah) Role description: A local don’s wife who then gets connected with another goon.The role seems to be sounding authoritative but her dialogues move about the male characters in the movie. She gets married to samudrakani(another don) for the second time to take revenge of him who is the reason for her husband’s death.She tries to kill him whenever she gets chance but fails in all her attempts. Character name: Padma(Aishwarya Rajesh) Role description: Hero’s love interest. A part of the slum scenes.Again, a female character, that is made to be, go, and end up with the hero.

Movie: 96 Character name: Janaki Devi (Trisha) Role description: The heroine of the movie - she meets her school time boy friend after a long period. She spends a memorable time with him and leaves to join her husband, carrying the memories of her boy friend.The character has all the potential to be on its own and make a move to step out of the box but when it comes to the storyline, she is given no chance to talk anything else other than the male character, especially about the hero and her husband. Though she has an equally important character and a specific mileage in the movie,her character revolves around the hero and her family. Character name: Jaanu(Gowri) Role description: School girl on whom the young time Hero character takes a soft corner – the memories live on.This little girl character is made to focus on the little boy character in the school life. Character name: Subhashini(Devadarshini)

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Role description: Heroine’s friend from the school days. She plays the key role to make her friend meet her school time boy friend after they are grown up as adult. This character organizes a meet for all the ex- school mates to meet and relish their childhood days but there is not a single moment that she is made to talk things other than that. Character name: Subhashini (Niyati) Role description: School girl who keeps her closeness with her school time friend even after they are grown up as adults.The little form of the above character.She too, with her friend, talks about the boy who admires his favourite classmate.

Movie: TikTikTik Character name: Swathi(NivethaPethuraj) Role description: She plays the role of a co-astronaut with the hero on a spaceship.This character is made to assist and support the hero in a spacecraft. She is left with no choice to talk out of the way other than her space companions. She seems to be intelligent in the beginning but her role is visibly suppressed after some time. Without any knowledge about the space and temperature, hero makes everything right.

Movie: ImaikkaNodigal Character Name: Anjali (Nayanthara) Role description: A Police officer who tries to find the person who had killed her husband.She moves on to take revenge on her husband’s killers and hence is not given a chance to share her views anything other than her husband and her younger brother. She is showed as an intelligent police officer but her character is just to take revenge of her husband’s murderers from the starting to the end. Character name: Krithika (RashiKhanna) Role description: Girl friend of Heroine’s brother. She does modeling.There is no scope for her character to get anywhere in the movie to be on her own. She is just portrayed to pair up with Atharva since he cannot be left alone in the movie. She has a couple of songs with him and involved in the portions of Atharva. Character name: Shalini(Baby Manasvi) Role description: Heroine’s daughter. A talkative child who sticks to her mother throughout the movie. A child character and hence the question doesn’t arise at all.

Movie: Irumbuthirai Character name: Dr.Rathi Devi (Samantha) Role description: A psychiatrist who counsels the hero to become normal but falls in love with him. As the character is all made to see that the hero is cured of his mental imbalance, she gets no chance to share anything else. In the climax she helps the hero out for his problems to get solved.

RESEARCH QUESTION 3: How to identify the psychological perspectives on the portrayal of women in Tamil Cinema?

Movie: KolamaavuKokila Character name:Kokila (Nayanthara) Role description: The girl who falls prey to a criminal activity without being aware of it. And then indulges in criminal activities willingly for want of money to help her family. She comes out of the hurdles she is in, after several twists and turns.Here, the character talks to her mother and her sister about her family and its position alone. In spite of the presence of her father and other male characters that spin around her, she focuses on how to save her skin and protect her family. She goes through a lot of problems and issues and put to stay calm and composed, also takes care of her mother and gathers money for her operation, comes out of her problems as well.

International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 29, No. 12s, (2020), pp. 2883-2890

Character name: Shobi (Jacqueline) Role description: Heroine’s sister who plays along with her sister during the consequences that her sister faces.The character is shaped to support her sister and her mother in almost all the scenes so she gets no chance to talk about the male characters. Her discussions with her sister go around the ways to escape and nothing else. Character: Kokila’s mother (SaranyaPonvannan) Role description: Heroine’s mother who is unaware of her daughter’s criminal activities. She plays along with her daughter when she comes to know of it.A fine tuned character who talks about what her daughters do. In spite of the male characters that come around, her dialogues do not carry anything about them.

Movie: PariyerumPerumal Character name: JyothiMahalakshmi (Anandi) Role description: Heroine whose innocence prevents her from knowing that her father had insulted and injured her boy friend due to caste differences.The character is so shaped to focus only on the hero and their friendship. She will fall in love with the hero’s innocence and proposes him. Her father who is obsessed with his caste will not give up and tries to split them up. Till the end she doesn’t come to know the truth behind their problems because of her innocent character portrayal.

Movie: Kalakalappu 2 Character name: Hema (Catherine Theresa) Role description: Heroine who runs around the hero without much to do in the storyline. The character is left with no opportunity to talks about other issues than the hero. She will get introduced to the hero to get her brother married to the hero’s sister, helps him to fall in love with her and finally ends up in falling in love with the hero. Character name: Aishwarya (Nikki Galrani) Role description: A government officer who happens to be Hero’s friend and helps him stay at a place. She falls in love with the owner of the place, helps the hero. She portrayed herself as a glamoroustasildar in the movie who is portrayed just as a sex object to do romance with the hero. And also the costumes are given very less and colourful.

Movie: Raatchasan Character name:Viji(Amala Paul) Role description: The heroine - a school teacher who comes to know that untoward incidents are happening in the school. She plays among the main characters to solve the mystery. She helps the hero to make him come out of his stress and make him feel comfort. The character is designed to go with the happenings and efforts to find a solution to the mystery. No such scene is made for her to voice her own views other than the hero’s advances to solve the mystery. Character name: Lakshmi (Suzana George) Role description: The egoistic police officer who sidelines hero’s sincere efforts. At last, gets trapped for her venomous attitude.The character’s main focus is to pin down the hero’s advances as a police officer. So she says with that till the end. Character name: Kokila(Vinodhini) Role description: Hero’s sister who gives moral support to his dreams.She gives moral support to the hero and focuses on worrying about her daughter. Though she will appear in two or three scenes,she is given importance for her performances. Character name: Ammu (Abirami)

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Role description: Hero’s sister’s daughter who becomes the victim of the murderous rage of the psycho boy.This character will be the pet of both parents and the hero but the character ends up close to the interval and hence finds no scope to voice her views on anything else. Character name: Kayal(Baby Monica) Role description: The baby girl (Amala Paul’s niece) who is chased to be killed but is saved by the hero in the climax. She is the reason to find the antagonist by the hero. She plays a deaf and dumb role. Her hearing machine with the recorder system makes hero to find the antagonist. This character is made to be a part of the team and given a bit importance in the climax. Movie: PyaarPremaKaadhal Character name: Sindhuja (Raiza Wilson) Role description: The heroine -IT employee who lives with the dream of building her own restaurant in Los Angeles. A modern ‘take it easy’ girl who realizes her love for the hero when things go beyond her reach.The character is carved out the way to be modern, high handed, commanding and outgoing but all ends up in loving, living together, leaving for, and returning from abroad only to live with the hero.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

According to the Female character description of the movies Sarkar,2.0,Thaana serndhakoottam, Chekkachevandhavaanam and Seemaraja that are directed by Murugadoss, Shankar, Vigneshshivan, Manirathnam and Ponram respectively, it is very clear that the roles given for female characters is secondary to the heroes and not given any importance. Comparing to the directors Shankar and Murugadoss’s prior films likeIndhian,I, Endhiran, Thupakki, Kaththithey purely believe in mass hero subjects with some social message in it.

According to Dr.B.Radha(2019) In the films of 'I' and 'Endhiran', in casual scenes the costumes of heroines are seductive to audiences. In the scenes of 'I', the heroine is wearing lingerie and it is seen that the hero is unconscious. The scene of the heroine's costumes will be set as the comic talk of the movie. Similarly, in five films, sexually sensitive words have been placed about heroines based on her body parts, clothes and skin tone.

As the second set of films like Vada Chennai,96, Imaikkanodigal, Tiktiktik and Irumbuthirai that are directed by Vetrimaaran, Premkumar, Ajay gnanamuthu, Shakti sounder rajan, Mithran respectively. Comparing to Vetrimaaran’s prior movies such as Polladhavan, Aadukalam, Visaranai the female characters will be present only as a support system of heroes and not given any importance. Though the script is strong with male characters, there is no need of inserting a female just as a puppet in the movie. Vetrimaaran himself states that while stressing that a macho protagonist was not his thing, he expressed regret over not having good female representation in his films. (The Hindu,2018)

The final set of films like Kolamaavukokila, Pariyerumperumal, Kalakalappu 2, Raatchasan and Pyaarpremakadhal that are directed by Nelson Dilipkumar, Mari Selvaraj, Sundar.C, Ramkumar, and Elan respectively. As others are new directors who have done one are two films given the female role according to the content of the story but Sundar.C is a director who is in the film industry since 1995 his first release, his prior films like Muraimaman, Arunachalam, Winner are commercial mass films which shows heroines as a sexual, glamorous and colourful object. Then and now they were never given importance in his films.

So with these descriptive study of female characters in all these 15 movies, it is clear that only Kolamaavukokila satisfies the Bechdel test since it is a female-centric film, whereas every other film fails as per the Bechdel test rules.

International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 29, No. 12s, (2020), pp. 2883-2890

CONCLUSION Women in Tamil Cinema are observed as decors, just to adorn and beautify or otherwise stand to authenticate the sentimental values in the form of mother, sister, wife, and so on. Although in recent times women characters in several movies are carved to gain dominance and come out to be bold, brave and down to earth practical, at some point, the undercurrent in the narration goes on to say that ‘a woman is a woman’. While analyzing the movies taken for Bechdel Test and exploring into the conventional and unconventional factors, it is evident that women characters are either taken for granted by men or women that enact the rolls take it for granted. Either way, the root cause comes from the school of thoughts.

Yes, as cited at the beginning of this research analysis in the General clause, every aspect concerning the world’s creatures begins from the school of thoughts. The reason for it is the habituated mindset of giving importance to commercial values than logical and societal thinking. It applies to the land where the idea and concept of Bechdel Test was implemented.This research study is NOT meant to proclaim that the Tamil movie industry is governed and dominated by men. It is to reiterate that the women are not given the importance that they deserve. The bell rings and keeps ringing everytime whenever a hero-centric film hit the theatre.This study may pave for those who would want to create a trend and continue to be ‘trendsetters’. It would be a positive sign!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. SlideShare – Mass Media and Cinema – JiyaJian, Student at Victorious Kidsseducares – All about mass media and cinema – published in: Education, Entertainment &Humour, March 2012 2. Shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in – Portrayal of women in Tamil films Chapter VI - HameeduddinMahmood, The Kaliedoscope of Indian Cinema, East West Press, March 2013 3. Womensweb – for women who do – No means yes: how the portrayal of women in Tamil movies warps young minds, September 2016 4. Thinking got loud – Portrayal of women in Tamil cinema – a few reflections, September 2017 5. Independent – Culture, films, news – Representation of women in films is getting worse, new study reveals – ClemenceMichallon, February 2019