Portrayal of Eelam Tamils in mainstream Kollywood cinema: Some observations
Many scholars studying Tamil Nadu politics have noted, and rightly so, the pervasive influence on Tamil cinema on Tamil Nadu’s political landscape. Writing in 1996 in ‘The Eye of the Serpent: An Introduction to Tamil Cinema’, Tamil film historian Theodore Baskaran argues “over the seventy-nine years of its existence, Tamil cinema has grown to become the most domineering influence in the cultural and political life in Tamil Nadu.” Sixteen years later, the statement is still not an exaggeration, with the leader of the ruling party of Tamil Nadu, J. Jayalalitha, and the leaders of the two major opposition parties DMK and DMDK, Karunanidhi and Vijayakanth respectively, hailing from strong backgrounds in Tamil cinema. Indeed, a walk in the streets of Chennai, Madurai or Salem would expose one to the near omnipresence of the gods of Kollywood – posters on walls, pictures on shops, autos, cars and buses, larger than life cut-outs, mobs thronging theatres that screen blockbusters and so.Kollywood, or the Tamil version of Hollywood, is term that is used to refer to the Tamil cinema industry that has Kodambakkam in Chennai as its heart. With about 200 films produced annually, with the highest paid actor in India (Rajinikanth) and with huge investments put into the production of a single movie – Shankar’s Endhiran was produced at a whooping budget of over 1.5 billion Indian Rupees, making it the costliest movie to be made in India – it is a thriving commercial enterprise. Taking from Zizek who contends that much of the issues in the so-called post-industrial society can be analyzed through a study of Hollywood, I argue that an analysis of Kollywood Cinema, considering its strong influence in contemporary Tamil Nadu’s political culture, would greatly assist in understanding social aspects of Tamil society.
Now, while many in the Tamil cine world have expressed their sympathies for the plight of the Eelam Tamils, it is only a few actors and directors – and they are mostly not box office hits – who have explicitly empathized with the political struggle of the Eelam Tamils. In fact, despite the claims of many in Tamil Nadu cinema, both on screen and off, that they express ‘genuine’ Tamil sentiments and culture, the portrayal of the Eelam Tamils’ struggle in mainstream cinema has been negligible. Now, this is a relative statement considering the fact that the political struggle of the Eelam Tamils heralded a new phase of militant Tamil nationalism, created a society that reformers and poets of Tamil Nadu could only write about, and waged a war for liberation that was of epic proportions in its moments of both triumph and tragedy. Thus, it is a matter for lamentation that a culture industry in the ‘heart of Tamil civilization’ did not give adequate artistic due in its mainstream medium to an achievement that is claimed by many a Tamil nationalist to have been the ‘height of Tamil civilization’.
This article seeks to briefly explore the few mainstream Tamil movies that have touched on the subject of the Eelam Tamils and interrogate how the portrayal has been executed. By ‘mainstream’, I refer to those movies that have been made for explicitly commercial purposes and have produced by well established production houses. This article does not want into take into consideration Eelam Tamils portrayed in non-mainstream Tamil Nadu cinema not because there haven’t been any, but just because most, if not all, are hardly worthy of critical examination for the sheer lack of artistic form or content. Of course, there is considerable debate on what is mainstream and what is not. And I do welcome the criticism that this labelling is in itself a discriminatory act that pushes other artistic productions to the sidelines. For purposes of providing a general idea of the issue at hand, the article prefers to stick to the definition of ‘mainstream’ mentioned above.
Eelam Tamils have been subjects in some movies while in others, they have been explicitly referred to or allusions have been deployed. Read more...
