Rise of the wastrel
Does cinema mirror the society or is it vice versa.
A question for the ages and sages. But off late it does look like the screen has taken over the reign.
Take the definition of a movie hero as case in study. 5 decades back, a movie hero should be good looking, should be respectful to parents, dignified before ladies and would almost always be wearing formals. Villains sported horizontal stripe t shirts with kerchiefs on their necks and more often than not, will have an overgrown mole on their face or would be seen wearing three piece suits complete with a bowler hat. Villis where invariably the mom-in-laws or sis-in-laws. It was very easy to make out who was the bad guy and the leading ladies invariably had to choose between two good guys even in a love triangle story. The lead pair would be the epitome of sacrifice and it was always, family first then job then love.
Cut to the 70's, the heroes slowly began to grow a shade of grey. They began to have intra marital affairs and began chasing the heroines. Parks grown near dams became default locations for duets and heroines began to wear revealing costumes. And so did the villis. If a lady continued to wear such kind of dresses despite courting a pair, they were deemed villis and would often die a painful death. Heroes struggled to find job and somehow or other will get into a job however painful or a struggle it might be. Heroines began to find their feet and were seen to be donning working women role. Adultery was still a male domain.
The 90's were the most vulgar period of Indian cinema. I would rather not talk about them.
Cut to the present. Take the latest hero on the block - Siva karthikeyan. In a span of few years he has clocked 7 movies. Most of them ...correction...all of them falling under the same genre of romantic comedies ...( or comedic romances??) Out of the 7 movies, he is seen jobless in 6 of them and in the one movie where he is actually seems to be employed, he quits that and take to running just to prove to his lady that he has overcome his name shame!! And the best part is most of those movies had a fairly decent run at BO. Same goes for any upcoming wannabes. Has the fate of the Tamil movie heroine gone so bad that, they are not even capable of picking a better pair for themselves..leave alone a jobless wastrel...or is it the movie industry way of propagating that "Love conquers all"??? Whatever the crap it is, on a society were idol worship is confined not just to divinity, story writers, better watch out for the crap they are churning, for when it comes back to bite them, its not all that great. If the recent family drama involving director Cheran comes to mind, kambeni porupillai.
A question for the ages and sages. But off late it does look like the screen has taken over the reign.
Take the definition of a movie hero as case in study. 5 decades back, a movie hero should be good looking, should be respectful to parents, dignified before ladies and would almost always be wearing formals. Villains sported horizontal stripe t shirts with kerchiefs on their necks and more often than not, will have an overgrown mole on their face or would be seen wearing three piece suits complete with a bowler hat. Villis where invariably the mom-in-laws or sis-in-laws. It was very easy to make out who was the bad guy and the leading ladies invariably had to choose between two good guys even in a love triangle story. The lead pair would be the epitome of sacrifice and it was always, family first then job then love.
Cut to the 70's, the heroes slowly began to grow a shade of grey. They began to have intra marital affairs and began chasing the heroines. Parks grown near dams became default locations for duets and heroines began to wear revealing costumes. And so did the villis. If a lady continued to wear such kind of dresses despite courting a pair, they were deemed villis and would often die a painful death. Heroes struggled to find job and somehow or other will get into a job however painful or a struggle it might be. Heroines began to find their feet and were seen to be donning working women role. Adultery was still a male domain.
The 90's were the most vulgar period of Indian cinema. I would rather not talk about them.
Cut to the present. Take the latest hero on the block - Siva karthikeyan. In a span of few years he has clocked 7 movies. Most of them ...correction...all of them falling under the same genre of romantic comedies ...( or comedic romances??) Out of the 7 movies, he is seen jobless in 6 of them and in the one movie where he is actually seems to be employed, he quits that and take to running just to prove to his lady that he has overcome his name shame!! And the best part is most of those movies had a fairly decent run at BO. Same goes for any upcoming wannabes. Has the fate of the Tamil movie heroine gone so bad that, they are not even capable of picking a better pair for themselves..leave alone a jobless wastrel...or is it the movie industry way of propagating that "Love conquers all"??? Whatever the crap it is, on a society were idol worship is confined not just to divinity, story writers, better watch out for the crap they are churning, for when it comes back to bite them, its not all that great. If the recent family drama involving director Cheran comes to mind, kambeni porupillai.
Comments
So the only vimochanam is when I can convince Gilsu to adopt my stand towards movies. That of course is an impossible task, unless a certain lady we know decides to do so :):):)