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Vi segnalo un testo, pubblicato qualche anno fa, che esplora in modo molto articolato la rappresentazione del sistema castale nel cinema popolare tamil, la connessione fra cinema e politica, e le disastrose cause/conseguenze sociali. Vi suggerisco di leggere la versione integrale perché spiega con chiarezza, fra le altre cose, anche le ragioni alla base di una certa estetica che contraddistingue la produzione tamil, in primo luogo l'inclusione di sequenze d'azione di efferata violenza.
Madurai Formula Films: Caste Pride and Politics in Tamil Cinema, Karthikeyan Damodaran e Hugo Gorringe, South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 22 giugno 2017:
'The caste backdrop to Tamil cinema
(...) It is important to note that there are no representatives of the Kshatriya category of warrior or kingly castes in Tamil Nadu. (...) Since the displacement of Brahmins, those who wield socio-economic power here are those categorized as Shudra - or serving castes elsewhere. (...) Social dominance in Tamil Nadu is fragmented, with various caste groups exerting dominance over sub-regions. (...) In the south, (...) the Dalit Pallars confront three main Backward Classes; Kallars, Maravars and Agamudaiyars who are major landowners. (...) These three castes combined, have adopted the title of Thevars. (...) The Thevars (...) never have assimilated themselves into the non-Brahmin movement. The groups comprising the Thevars have a very complex history as members of a royal lineage, marauding warriors, chieftains, watchmen and dacoits. (...) Available reports since the 1850s indicate that these castes also carry a history of violence against lower castes. (...) Their self-characterization as rulers of the land has been channeled into symbolic and electoral politics rather than educational or economic development as is the case with other groups. (...) Thevars benefitted hugely from land-reforms aimed at eroding the rights of non-cultivating owners, and cemented their dominance in rural areas following Brahmin out-migration. They used temple rituals and politics to consolidate their power locally. (...) Pallars are the highest status and most developed of the Dalit castes in Tamil Nadu. They have high rates of education and large numbers have migrated to the Gulf for work meaning they have escaped agrarian dependency on higher castes. (...) Pallars are increasingly assertive and reject markers of dependence or inferiority. (...)
Caste, culture and politics in Tamil cinema
The significance of film in Tamil society is undisputed. (...) Film stars have a larger-than-life presence in the real world and female stars have been deified during their active period in the industry. (...) There were three phases of Tamil cinema between 1931 - when the first “talkie” was released - and 1985. These were the puranic, mythological and folklore period (1931-50) when films resembled the street theatre of earlier folk artists and had nothing to do with real life; the melodrama period (1951-75) which reveled in exaggeration, excessive dialogue and escapism; and finally, the move towards social realism (1976-85). (...) What makes Tamil cinema stand out, however, is its umbilical link to politics. Cinema in the state grew hand in hand with the regional nationalist parties, helping to by-pass Congress - who failed to realize the significance of the medium - in the process. (...) Until the 1970s the dominant political message was Dravidian. (...) Following caste-based challenges to Dravidian politics from intermediate caste groups like the Thevars - (...) and their demands for a greater allocation of resources and increased political recognition - the 1990s saw the flourishing of Nativist (a form of social realism) cinema that openly celebrated and portrayed caste identities and characters. It is only in the 2010s that we see the film industry starting to acknowledge and represent Dalit struggles in films such as
Madras (2014, Ranjith) and
Kabali (2016, Ranjith). (...)
During the 1950s Tamil film was largely used as a platform to articulate Dravidian identity and Tamil nationalism. (...) The founder of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK - Federation for the Progress of Dravidians), C.N. Annadurai, was a scriptwriter and playwright. His successor, M. Karunanidhi, was a famed dialogue writer, and the most famous matinee idol of the Tamil screen - M.G. Ramachandran - was also a party stalwart until he founded the rival All India Anna DMK (AIADMK). His successor, Jayalalithaa - who was the sitting Chief Minister in 2016 at the time of her death - was a co-star of his. Both parties articulated a form of cultural nationalism using various artistic means such as stage dramas, poetry, literature, and musicals. It was with their intervention in cinema, however, that they were most successful in taking their celebration of Tamil civilization, culture and language to the masses. (...) “Melodrama story period” was, of course, the period in which the DMK successfully mediated their socio-political message to the public through the medium of film. Songs, story-lines, Robin-Hood style heroes and almost subliminal references to party symbols like the flag and the rising sun, were deployed to present the party as the champion of the downtrodden. Some of the “excess dialogue” took the form of lengthy monologues in which the hero addressed the camera in lectures about socio-political values. (...) The members and leaders of the DMK identified themselves with the medium and used the stars for their election campaigns to appeal to a largely illiterate Tamil electorate. Numerous films (...) eulogized Annadurai as South India’s Gandhi, displaying his portraits prominently on the walls of the huts of the poor and showing the DMK flag fluttering in city slums against a backdrop of songs praising his ideals. These films, thus, served the dual purpose of providing propaganda for the party whilst retaining its subaltern identity, affiliation to the poor and search for social justice. (...) We need to be very clear here that the subaltern identity celebrated in the Dravidian films pitted the poor against the rich or the casteless non-Brahmin against the wily and treacherous Brahmin rather than tackling caste inequalities or identities head on. (...) These films revealed the hidden caste biases of Dravidian politics and film-making. In contrast to such depictions of Dalits, (...) the films emphasized the importance of valor and honor for the protagonists. Heroes are expected to defend the vulnerable - especially women - fight injustice and be able to protect their families and communities.
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| Virumandi |
Film cast(e)s
(...) The recurrent reference to the “generosity” and munificence of dominant caste heroes became a staple of neo-Nativist films in 1980s and 1990s as well. Unlike the Dravidian oeuvre, however, these films are much more explicit about the caste backgrounds of the protagonists. (...) They tap into patron-client relations and serve to reproduce “caste power.” In keeping with this emphasis, the heroines are expected to be chaste and faithful to preserve caste purity. There is huge significance attached to the concepts of honor (maanam) and valor (veeram) in Tamil culture, and (...) these twin concepts have long been the basic raw material of Tamil cinema. Honor and valor are individual traits, but acquire a collective significance in Tamil politics. Honor, here, refers to the standing and status of castes in particular and is entwined with the enforcement of chastity. (...) Valor, in this context, refers to men’s capacity to protect their women and the honor of their family and caste. (...) Honor in films (as in social life), thus is gendered; women protect their chastity whilst men protect their masculinity, respect and their women. Valor in films (...) is bound up with a strong emphasis on traditional masculinity.
Cinema, thus, reflected concepts that were already in existence, but in amplifying them and presenting them to a wider audience, provided a form of cultural legitimacy to intermediate castes and to concepts of caste honor and pride (perumai). The collective expression of caste pride revolves around honor, but extends beyond this to include assertions of independence, control over others and claims to an often mythicized past. The films contributed to the socio-political visibility of landowning Backward Castes, and reinforced the prevailing “common-sense” that equated dominant castes with attributes like honor, justice, valor and power. Filmic representations across genres drew on reality, but did so in a distorted manner that showcased the “valor” and dominance of intermediate castes, implicitly neglecting or belittling lower castes who were cast as dependent upon the former. (...) Such accounts were carried to a wider audience through the medium of cinema, and were used by members of these caste groups to justify their dominance over “lesser” castes. (...)
From the mid-1980s onwards, the characteristics and traits discussed above came to be portrayed as linked to particular castes. In the 1970s (...) the “phallic affirmation” of Nativism (which was part of the social realism phase and focused on depicting real life as opposed to myths and legends) gave way to a genre of neo-Nativity films in which the social insufficiency or “castration” of the protagonist was the dominant theme. (...) The emasculation of heroes in the face of feisty heroines, the complexities of modern life and the faltering hold of traditional authority. There are some neo-nativist films where the metaphor of traditional masculinity collapses to become an object of comic relief. Elsewhere comic characters are depicted performing some trick or the other to tame bulls. (...) This period of film making in the mid to late 1980s, coincided with a period in which the Dravidian project was called into question by a number of caste groups who demanded a greater say in the politics of the state. (...) The portrayal of emasculated protagonists from the intermediate castes, in this sense, reflected a concern that their social dominance was under threat from a political project that articulated an anti-caste ideology. (...) The emphasis on the socially insufficient hero was displaced in the 1990s within the neo-nativity genre. (...) The “nativistic turn” in Tamil cinema (...) saw the cinema industry begin to explore the Tamil countryside and its people, paying particular attention to rural customs, forms of worship and agriculture. (...)
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| Subramaniapuram |
Madurai Formula Films
In what follows we offer an analysis of what we call “Madurai Formula films” or 3M films (Murder, Mayhem and Madurai - though they extend to southern districts as a whole). These films, often based in Madurai, are defined by the glorification of the aruval (the sickle shaped machete) and a corresponding mythology of a society based on martial pride and caste honor. The films, explicitly or implicitly, celebrate caste dominance and become vehicles for, and expressions of, the assertion and pride of intermediate castes. (...) Thevars (...) were seeking to re-imagine their history and status by appropriating existing discourses around valor and honor. Thus, their characterization as “criminal tribes” by the British was re-envisioned by Thevar politicians (...) as a marker of their Kingly or warrior past and need to be feared and controlled. The filmography in 3M films reinforces this attempt through the juxtaposition of national heroes, (...) Thevar leaders (...) and the film’s protagonist, or through scripts that assert the valor of the Thevars. The culmination of 20 years of caste-based cinema may be seen in the film Madha Yaanai Koottam (Herd of Angry Elephants, Vikram Sugumaran, 2013). (...) Irrespective of the directors’ intent, the films are taken to celebrate the dominance of the caste cluster. Such processes are not unique to Tamil Nadu, but reflect the wider processes of caste consolidation and power. (...) Punjabi films construct a Jatt-centric hegemonic code that reinforces social dominance and provides a template against which other caste groups are judged. (...)
To understand this genre, however, we need to start with the archetypal celebration of Thevar dominance. (...) Thevar Magan [Son of Thevar, Bharathan 1992] was first of its kind with strong idioms of caste and greater glorification of caste based practices than had been the norm until that point. (...) The significance of the film’s soundtrack (...) belied claims by the actor and producer that they were critiquing a culture of violence and domination. It was the genealogical praising of the Thevar caste in the song lyrics, they argue, that made the film such a huge box office success, and it is not surprising that the soundtrack to the film is now an essential part of the playlist at Thevar gatherings. This does not necessarily mean that the audience who made this a major hit subscribed to the common-sense that valorizes Thevars since it has all the ingredients of a hit movie in the casting of Kamal Haasan [not himself a Thevar] and music by Ilaiyaraaja (pre-eminent Tamil music composer), who is himself a Dalit. (...)
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| Naan Kadavul |
There has been an escalation of violence in films across the world. (...) Unlike such films, or the classic violent encounters between good and evil, the Madurai Formula Films celebrate a violence that is rooted in, and protects, caste norms. (...) The violence in such films is embedded in particular caste cultures and practices, as seen in the celebration of aruvals and Silambam - a martial art with sticks - that are associated in the popular imagination with Thevars. The martial nature of Thevars is to the fore in Thevar Magan where signs, weapons and dialogue all speak to the caste’s dominance. The advertising for the film reinforced the association between caste and violence. In Madurai, which has a stronger visual culture than other cities in Tamil Nadu, a 40-foot cut-out was installed showing the Thevar Magan hero brandishing an extra-large sword. (...) The dominant narrative of such films also affects how they are received. In the dramatic finale to the film, Kamal Hassan vanquishes the villain in a gory beheading scene that was greeted with whoops and cheers in the theatres of Madurai. One of the authors experienced the same film in the western city of Coimbatore where the audience were muted in their response and there were murmurings about the excessive use of violence. Whilst audience participation in the form of cheering, whistles and applause is widespread, it is the celebration of violence that stands out here. (...)
The setting for the films is no accident. In the context of the rural/urban divide, Madurai is always chosen as the epitomic representation of pattikadu (rurality), as in the 1972 (...) film Pattikada Pattanama (Village or Town, 1972). Madurai is a former capital of the Pandya kingdom. (...) It is an ancient city. (...) The more recent films based on the Madurai formula have, thus, accomplished a wholesale shift in the way Madurai as a city, and the Thevars as a caste grouping, are portrayed and imagined. The 3M films cast the city as a pre-modern sphere, which simultaneously protects the glorious ancient Tamil culture by embodying its virtues, and epitomizes all the evils in society. This encoded social construction was largely the product of filmmakers from Madurai and down south, and they bring the cultural and caste/class discourses into the narrative center, indexing the fact that Madurai district constitutes the heartlands of the Thevar caste cluster. Central to this shift is the martial sport of bullfighting (Jallikattu), that archetypal symbol of traditional masculinity, caste pride, and feudalism which is most popular in Madurai district. The backward and caste-bound nature of Madurai in these films, is reinforced in accounts of the city’s frenetic fans who treat film stars as demigods. (...) It was in Madurai that fans cut off fingers and limbs and offered them to God when MGR suffered a stroke, praying for his recovery. (...) Madurai is now constructed in the narrative space of Tamil cinema as the antithesis of the modern, and a place where people are still ruled by caste, clans, and kinship networks.
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| Deiva Thirumagal |
Scripting caste dominance
(...) One question that might arise at this juncture is how the film-makers communicate the caste of the characters to the audience. In some instances, as with Thevar Magan, (...) the very name of the film or the character locates them within a particular community. In others, however, it is the use of attire, mannerisms and bearing that connote particular castes. One important caste marker in the context of dominant masculinity, of course, is the moustache. (...) The moustache here becomes synonymous with tradition and social power and this knowledge is simultaneously deployed and reinforced in films. (...) When Kamal in Western attire is insulted and has his masculinity called into question by a group practicing a local martial art he swaps his trousers for a dhoti and dispenses punishment to them. (...) “Valor” - as celebrated in Tamil cinema - is primarily glorified violence, which supersedes any literary, cultural or social achievements. (...) The imbrication of masculinity and honor is to the fore in representations of Jallikattu - the traditional bull-taming contests in southern Tamil Nadu. In multiple films (...) the bullfighting scenes serve to legitimize a particular form of dominant masculinity. (...) The focus on caste characteristics, however, means that no Dalits are portrayed as bull tamers. (...) It is important to note here that such films are not confined to the south. (...) Films featuring [altre caste dominanti in altre aree], however, tend not to have the same ostentatious celebration of violence and sickles seen in the Thevar based films of the south. (...)
3M films reaffirm the tropes of masculinity and honor. (...) The transition from the emasculated, insufficient male, (...) to the virile protagonist of the films discussed here is epitomized in Virumandi [Kamal Haasan, 2004]. (...) The most common trigger for conflict in Tamil films, and especially in the Madurai Formula ones, is when the honor or manhood (aanmai) of the hero or his family is questioned or challenged. (...) In metonymically linking film stars to political figures, such films suggest that Thevars have a right and a duty to uphold their honor. (...) The films, thus, buttress Thevar claims - as articulated in public meetings, processions, history books and websites - to an exalted and kingly past and a status deserving respect in the present. You are best advised, the films suggest, not to cross them in any way. The influence of Thevar Magan in this regard, can be seen in many movies which came later. (...)
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| Madha Yaanai Koottam |
Creating and contesting caste common-sense
(...) The norms portrayed in 3M films (...) are not just screen fictions. (...) These films coincided with a resurgence of anti-Dalit violence including murders, beatings and riots by Thevars. (...) Such clashes are not new (...) but the violence of the 1990s was a direct response to Dalit assertion and attempts to escape dependence. (...) These riots (...) point to shifting constellations of power and the increasing independence of Dalit castes as seen in the emergence of the two main Dalit parties - Puthiya Tamilagam and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Liberation Panther Party) around this time. (...) Thevar Magan was deliberately used to mobilize Thevars during the Pallar-Thevar riots that flared up repeatedly between 1995 and 1998. (...) Its songs were used to instigate inter-caste violence. (...) In the late 1990s from schools to colleges, Thevar youth would sing the songs of the film when they encountered young Dalits. (...)
Caste assertion (...) is both reflected and reinforced through film. The common-sense of caste is reinforced not just through celebrations of Thevar dominance but in the denigration of Dalits. (...) In the majority of scripts they are seen as subservient. This emphasis on masculine violence precluded Dalits from assuming the role of protagonists. (...) In associating valor with violence, these films serve to marginalize Dalits. Whilst these films have been portrayed as authentic and as accurately capturing facets of rural life, the cinematic portrayal of the dominant caste man of violence with a handlebar moustache serves to normalize such features. The idiom, of course, only applies to dominant caste men. Indeed, until relatively recently Dalits were prevented from wearing ironed shirts and sporting styled moustaches and none of the characters portraying Dalits on screen are shown with twirled moustaches. Art here, both imitates and reproduces social life. In Madurai district in the 1990s, dominant castes retaliated against Dalits who dared to grow martial facial hair. (...)
Faint traces of anti-caste campaigns are seen in the 3M plots, but these are strictly curtailed. Vijaya Kumar’s character in Bharathi Kannamma (Cheran, 1997), for example, upbraids a Thevar youth for raping a Dalit woman and demands that he fall at her feet. In a famous passage he asks: “Who is a Thevar?” His response is that wielding a sickle and twirling your moustache are not enough to be considered as such. Instead he paints a picture of a benevolent patron. Importantly, during this speech he gestures to the passive line of Dalits standing aside with arms folded and heads bowed and speaks of them as nomadic tribes-people incorporated into the villages as agricultural and menial laborers. Thus, even in the overt condemnation of caste violence, Dalits are stripped of their agency and rendered passive recipients.
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| Madras |
(...) Despite a number of Dalit actors and directors and a global icon in music director Ilaiyaraaja, the Dalit upsurge of the 1990s has yet to be reflected cinematically in like manner. (...) For the most part Dalits are not only portrayed in humiliating ways, their options in film making are limited. When the name of A.L. Vijay’s film starring the actor Vikram was announced as
Deiva Thirumagan (God’s Chosen Son, 2011), there was an outcry from Thevar groups who have trademarked that phrase for Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar [
leader politico] and were particularly infuriated by the fact that the main actor in question was a Dalit who is celebrated by Pallar youth as one of their own. Eventually the film was released as
Deiva Thirumagal (God’s Chosen Daughter) instead. The fact that this latter term was acceptable highlights both the significance accorded to Thevar, and the interplay between caste and patriarchy. (...)
Perhaps the biggest testament to the power of this caste common-sense, and an indication of its reach, is that Dalit and other caste outfits have started to adopt a language of caste pride and valor that echoes the films we have been discussing. (...) A symbolic representation of the caste pride now espoused by Dalits was seen in wall paintings in 2010 when Thirumavalavan [leader politico] (...) was referred to with the more honorific suffix Thirumavalavar. (...) Thus, the central emphasis on caste pride, valor and honor in the 3M films has arguably had a performative effect that has served to engender new forms of caste expression, representation and identity in contemporary Tamil Nadu. This has now, begun to inform cinematic representations also, as seen in Ranjith’s 2016 film Kabali, in which Tamil superstar Rajinikanth reads Dalit books, speaks of Ambedkar, and portrays a strong Dalit hero. (...) In the Madurai formula films, we contend, sections of the upwardly mobile Thevar caste found an articulation of virility, valor and unbending dominance which they could mimic and aspire towards. Crucially, (...) this has become a template for other castes - including Dalits - to follow'.
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| Psycho |
'Violence has always been looked upon as a form of entertainment in cinema. (...) In the Sixties, it wasn't unusual for Tamil films to advertise that a movie had "six songs, two fights, and one rape scene". However, back in the day, the violence we saw in films looked choreographed and stylized - the blood and gore didn't look as realistic as it does now. (...)
The Age of the Angrier Young Man
When India opened up its economy in the early Nineties, a lot of things changed, including cinema. People started watching foreign films on cable TV and VCDs, and this had a dramatic influence on their taste in entertainment. (...) Filmmakers became eager to experiment with content and form, and the Angry Young Man of the Seventies and Eighties became angrier still. (...) Dr Karthikeyan Damodaran and Dr Hugo Gorringe, academicians who wrote a widely read paper on films like
Subramaniapuram - which they classified under the 'Madurai Formula Films' or 3Ms (Murder, Mayhem, Madurai) - said that the nature of violence in Tamil films began to change in the early Nineties. Until then, the Angry Young Man in Tamil cinema - mainly played by Rajinikanth - was derivative of the Hindi film world represented by
Amitabh Bachchan. In these films, the violence was characterised as righteous acts of vengeance or anger directed at the government for failing to give the people a decent life. "This was the period after the Emergency, and there was a general anguish against the state in various forms," they pointed out. In the early Nineties in Tamil cinema, Dr Damodaran and Dr Gorringe observed a change in how violence was depicted and justified on screen. "This shift or transition was largely caste-based and spatial in its nature, with depictions of violence as intrinsic to certain castes and geographic locations. Most importantly, its representation was marked not merely by violence per se but laced with valour," they said. The emergence of this sub-genre of action films in Tamil cinema coincided with the rise of the powerful Thevar community, a dominant caste group, as a strong political force in the state. Among the earliest and most influential films to mark this shift is Bharathan's
Thevar Magan (1992), starring (...) Kamal Haasan. (...) It won five National Awards. (...)
Violence gets the Hollywood glow-up
In earlier decades, violence in Tamil cinema was mainly conveyed through action sequences that involved sword fights, kicks and punches, stunt actors crashing through glass, exciting chases with vehicles, and shootouts where the effect was created through the sound of guns firing and actors falling in response. However, the kind of graphic violence that made its way to Tamil cinema from the Nineties onward has only increased in the new millennium - be it in
Mysskin thriller Psycho (2020) with its beheadings, a Bala action drama like
Naan Kadavul (2009) which has several explicitly violent scenes, or "stylish" Western-influenced bloskbusters like
Vikram (2022) that glorify a gun culture that isn't quite characteristic of the state. (...)
Violence as the Great Equaliser
Another relatively new phenomenon is the anti-caste film that serves as a kind of rebuttal to the Madurai Formula Films that played a role in increasing the level of bloodthirstiness in Tamil cinema. Post 2010, directors like Pa. Ranjith, Mari Selvaraj and Vetri Maaran have been making films that show Dalit protagonists retaliating to the violence that they experience. In recent years, such films and their success have also influenced other industries to explore such themes, with Srikanth Odela's Telugu action film
Dasara (2023) being the latest. (...) T.J. Gnanavel's
Jai Bhim (2021) is a rare film in this sub-genre where justice is delivered through the legal system and not violent vengeance though the film features disturbing scenes of custodial violence. Not surprisingly, these anti-caste films have triggered a resurgence in films that glorify caste pride, particularly centred around "guarding" the honour of dominant caste women. M. Muthaiah's
Devarattam (2019) and Mohan G. Kshatriyan's
Draupathi (2020) and
Rudra Thandavam (2021) are examples of this renewed interest. These films effectively validate the violence of dominant caste men, and the sickle from the Madurai Formula Films is back in its full glory. With the mushrooming of OTT platforms, the rise of the hypermasculine hero through pan-Indian films from other industries like
RRR (2022) and the
K.G.F films (2018, 2022), and the audience's exposure to international content, violence in Tamil films is only set to rise'.
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