Tamil Cinema

The Cultural Politics of India's other Film Industry

Selvaraj Velayutham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134154456
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Hitherto, the academic study of Indian cinema has focused primarily on Bollywood, despite the fact that the Tamil film industry, based in southern India, has overtaken Bollywood in terms of annual output. This book examines critically the cultural and cinematic representations in Tamil cinema. It outlines its history and distinctive characteristics, and proceeds to consider a number of important themes such as gender, religion, class, caste, fandom, cinematic genre, the politics of identity and diaspora. Throughout, the book cogently links the analysis to wider social, political and cultural phenomena in Tamil and Indian society. Overall, it is an exciting and original contribution to an under-studied field, also facilitating a fresh consideration of the existing body of scholarship on Indian cinema.

1
A good woman, a very good woman

Tamil cinema’s women

C. S. Lakshmi

For those growing up in the fifties, the song from the film Manamagal (1951) that enumerated what a good woman was became a kind of theme song. Coming soon after the years of struggle for independence, this song telling a woman what her patriotic duty as a woman was – nothing more than being a ‘good’ woman – one could say, contained all the elements that went into the making of a Tamil woman. The woman who did not fall into the purview of the song was, of course, the bad woman. Good and bad women, in clear black and white divides, have been the obsession of Tamil cinema in a way. Not only are their physical features different but even their language, dress and body structures are different. The good woman embodies all that Tamil culture stands for where women are concerned. She is chaste, intelligent, motherly and divine. The bad woman is a coquette, a temptress and a loudmouth who finally gets her dues. Built into these oppositional black and white portraits are complicated symbols like the thali, turmeric, kumkum and widow-white. That is how the basic ground plan is drawn.

This paper attempts to understand how these images came about. The idea is not to look for positive or negative images, for such an attempt would add a ‘truth value’¹ to the images which will take us to a totally different area of defining images. The purpose of this paper is more to look at these images in a way similar to that which Elizabeth Cowie suggests in one of her articles. Elizabeth Cowie says that the images have to be seen in terms of what different definitions and understandings are of what women and men are and what their roles are in society.² This paper tries to explore the core of these images and understand what they contain in terms of attitudes towards women in Tamil culture and the obsessions, compulsions and confusions that go with it.

The good, the bad, the mothers, the whores

After its formation as a separate party in 1949, the Dravida Munnetra Kazagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu needed a vehicle for projecting its identity, political claims and elaboration of Tamil culture. Cinema was the effective vehicle it chose. Apart from its rational and anti-exploitation themes, these films constructed particular meanings of what women were in the emerging political climate. Mothers, sisters, educated women; vamps and widows were presented in stark bad versus good, pure versus impure contrasts, through dialogues, songs and visualisation. Tamil mothers were presented in a cleverly woven pattern of sequences that gave them the illusion of centrality while really being marginal. They are seen as controllers of their sons, and as sobering presences in the lives of their warrior sons; as the beloved who loved Tamil and Tamil culture, happy to lay their heads on the valorous shoulders of the warrior, poet or self-righteous husbands. The fact that two men emerged as the all-Tamil male heroes while no single heroine emerged as the essential Tamil woman is a pointer towards the fact that the male was firm, steady, rock-like and active; whereas the female was the element of secondary importance, manipulated, venerated and set aside. The Tamil woman of these films spoke alliterative dialogues; called her lover by his name; sang songs recreating the kalavuneri, but was constantly in danger of losing her karpu; had to deal with wayward husbands and wait for their return; and bring up her sons and daughters preparing them for battles and marriage respectively.

The mother versus the whore contrast was presented effectively in Manohara (1954) with the screenplay and dialogues written by Karunanidhi. Manohara was a successful play of Sambanda Mudaliar, known as the father of Tamil drama. It is the story of a king enticed by a woman who plots to take over the country by alienating him from his wife and son, who is the crown prince Manoharan. The real queen and son succeed finally and the temptress is punished. In his screenplay, Karunanidhi introduced elements that characterised the queen as the true Tamil woman. The temptress who has enticed the king also has a son but he is a coward implying that an impure woman cannot have a warrior for a son. Manoharan goes to war to retrieve the sword and the throne of his grandfather from an enemy king. His mother, the true Tamil woman, applies the vermillion mark to his forehead, sends him to war, and asks him to return as a victorious warrior who would bring joy to his mother. The temptress lacks such qualities. She tells her son who is pretending to go to war like Manoharan, that he must not go because his health will get affected.

Manoharan wins the war. His enemy’s daughter comes to kill him but falls in love with him. Now Manoharan is the Tamil lover as he parries with her. ‘Warriors have never won against lance-eyed women,’ he says. He refers to her as a fruit – ‘My sword acts only in the battlefield. It does not hurt fruits.’ Later he saves her from suicide – ‘From the storm of death, I have saved a creeper.’ Those are the Tamil terms for women – fruits, creepers, flowers. Manoharan returns with a sword, throne and a woman.

Manoharan’s mother, the queen, commands him never to hurt his father and his mistress. Manoharan abides by his mother’s commands. His mother – the personification of a true Tamil woman – worships her husband and puts up with everything – even being called a whore by her own husband. But the task of protecting her and proving her purity lies with her son. In a dramatic court scene, Manoharan declares:

My mother is one from whom love arises; virtue resides in her; she is the image of kindness; she is the personification of chastity; she is the precious stone with no defects; she is as pure as gold

After a series of dramatic events, Manoharan is in chains and his mother commands him to fight, taking back her command asking him never to fight his father. She speaks against the temptress and her gang and swears by the purity of her motherhood, and the chains break:

If it is true that the tears of mothers born in valorous clans have power, if it is true that Manoharan, who has never bowed before others is my son, let the chains break

Not just by these overt assertions of the Tamil woman, but also by subtle signs the screenplay reveals its true spirit. Manoharan is caught on the one hand in the power politics of being the crown prince and on the other as a warrior, Manoharan’s major effort is to prove his mother’s purity. The mother’s purity and his courage have a one-to-one equation just as the temptress’s impurity and her son’s cowardice are equated. What is constantly being put to the test is the mother’s character. The Tamil mother has not only to prove constantly that she is not a whore but she also has to prove that her mother is not a whore for otherwise her tears have no effect. The queen swears by the purity of her clan that gives power to her tears. The pure Tamil woman stands by her husband whatever battle he takes up. As such, women turn into collaborators in wars to win swords and thrones. The collaboration extends to several levels of existence. In the course of the story, Manoharan’s wife gives birth to a child. This event is packed with cultural connotations – it is born in the jail on hay and, what is more, it is a boy. Although Murugan is considered the Tamil god, this event has all the elements of Krishna’s birth. And the child being a boy is another sign to prove the character of Manoharan’s wife’s womb. If a child is born in a jail, on the hay, and its mother is from a clan of warriors, the child cannot but be a boy. No such dramatic build-up is associated with the birth of girls. This need to assert clan purity through the bodies of women is something that has continued to obsess the Tamils. The entire film is built on the conflict between purity and impurity with two women physically embodying these two notions.

In the film Velaikari (Servant Maid) (1949) for which C. N. Annadurai wrote the story and the dialogues, two women were presented in total contrast as good woman and bad woman. The good woman is poor, beautiful and the epitome of Tamil culture. The bad woman is rich, English-educated, interested in social work and insolent. The rich woman talks of women’s freedom and she is part of a women’s association. She plays tennis and wears pants. The rich girl is a comment on the various women’s organisations in the Tamil region at that time. The members of these organisations were not considered Tamil mothers although their concept of a woman was not all that different. These women were considered part-time social workers who lacked the finer human qualities in which Tamil women were nurtured. And all such women are brought back to the fold, if these films are to be believed, by a Tamil man.

The film Ratha Kanneer (1954) was also built on a similar framework with its dominant motif being the purity versus impurity theme. One of the staunchest supporters of the Self-Respect Movement, M. R. Radha, acted as the hero. Rathak Kanneer – Tears of Blood – is about a man educated abroad who has forgotten many elements of the Tamil culture. But one aspect of the culture he remembers is womanising and, on his return, he faithfully follows it. He becomes a gruesome-looking leper and requests his faithful wife Chandra to marry his friend Balu, who is a social worker. The tears of blood are supposed to be that of the oppressed wife. The film’s dominant motif is the purity versus impurity one. The wife is the pure one and the dancer who entices him is the impure one. The wife thinks of herself as a pattini, a woman who is totally dedicated to her husband. The wife is used as not only a symbol of purity but also one of change. She has her pride and dignity and while she believes that as a wife she has to be totally faithful to her husband, at one point she also thinks of starting a new life with another man.

In a particular scene, she goes to the dancer’s place to bring her husband back. When she pleads with her husband, he calls her a whore. Who is a pattini and who is a whore is a matter to be pronounced by someone else and the greatest insult to a Tamil woman is for her husband to invoke the exact opposite image and call her a whore. Since Manohara, whether a woman is a pattini or a whore has been the crux of all debates.³

A song in the film talks of women’s exploitation by men. But how exactly women should respond to this exploitation is actually to be guided and decided by men. The film makes several points clear. One is that a woman who is oppressed by her husband must make a new life for herself. But this new life can only come from a good-hearted man. If not, she should take up a life of service for others. Another aspect the film is careful to guard is the virginity of the woman. The husband never sleeps with her and even at the end he literally forces her to marry the good guy, as she is unable to make the decision.

The film also alludes to the fact that what she is really yearning for is physical intimacy. In the classical style, she blames the moon for torturing her. At one point, she requests the husband’s friend to start a new life with her but he being a true Tamil man cannot accede to this request. This is shown as her moment of faltering as she is driven by her own sexual needs. But the good Tamil man saves her from making a mistake. This particular sequence is shown as a sympathetic gesture towards women, but actually it reveals doubts about a woman’s capacity to remain ‘pure’, if she is not aided by a man who places her in marriage. The moment the guiding spirit of a man is removed, her sexual needs overcome her and she is on the path to ‘impurity’. The sequence is also to assure the audience that her virginity is intact and even if married again her purity cannot be doubted and her pattini status won’t be harmed.

Chandra’s request and the friend’s reply form the crux of this conflict between purity and impurity and its resolution:

Chandra attempts suicide and her conscience tells her:

... If you want, surrender yourself to a young man and live. Why should you give up what the world has given you? Announce it to the world that to withdraw within oneself like a tortoise and begging men is the task of lowly people. Marry a young man who suits you and be happy. See a new world. ...

Table of contents

• Routledge Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia
• Contents
• Figures
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 A good woman, a very good woman
• 2 The Tamil film heroine
• 3 Bringing the Amman into presence in Tamil cinema
• 4 Politics and the film in Tamil Nadu
• 5 The nurturing hero
• 6 Tamil cinema in the public sphere
• 7 Encountering a new art
• 8 Cinema in the countryside
• 9 Imaginary geographies
• 10 Encounters with ‘India’
• 11 The diaspora and the global circulation of Tamil cinema
• Index