The pro-rationalism ideas in a Hindi film like PK (2014), Muralidharan said, were already familiar to the Tamil audience that had seen such films from the Fifties. “Take V. Sekhar’s Onna Irukka Kathukanam (1992). Comedian Goundamani plays a grave-digger who sends his son to school. A Brahmin priest (SS Chandran) asks him who will dig graves after his time if his son goes to school. Goundamani’s character promptly says the Brahmin priest’s children can do the job for some time,” said Muralidharan.
Amudhan believes that it is this uninterrupted history of questioning authority on screen that has kept alive the anti-establishment spirit of Tamil cinema. “I’m not a big consumer of Hindi films, but in my opinion, post Karan Johar, Bollywood began making more and more films that offered a romanticised view of life. These films largely catered to the NRI audience. The rawness was gone,” said Amudhan. Tamil filmmakers, on the other hand, have continued to highlight issues that are relevant to the common people in their films, openly mocking and questioning government policies such as demonetisation, GST, digital India, promotion of Hindi over other Indian languages, and so on.
Tamil Cinema’s Close Ties With Politics
In Tamil Nadu, mass movies are often a platform to launch politicians (though not everyone has succeeded in such ambitions). From the days of MGR, Karunanidhi, and Jayalalithaa to Vijayakant, Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan and now Vijay (who is said to be keen on entering politics), several stars have tried to marry their onscreen image with their political avatars. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) scion Udayanidhi Stalin’s latest film Maamannan (2023) is also viewed by many as a statement that acknowledges the flaws within the existing social justice politics of the state.