Parvathy Thiruvothu is the stormy petrel of gender fearlessness in Indian cinema.
At a round-table discussion on the “hundred greatest performances of the decade” hosted by Anupama Chopra of Film Companion, Thiruvothu called out the “visual grammar of glorification”, in the films Arjun Reddy and Kabir Singh compared with Joker.
The 31-year-old actor has been making a mark not just with ground-breaking work in Kannada and Tamil films but also by standing up against the industry during the #MeToo wave that shook the South film industries.
In 2019, she had two releases—Uyare where she plays an acid attack survivor and Aashiq Abu’s Virus about the Nipah virus that hit Kerala.
The actor was one of the few bravehearts to not just share her sexual assault story on a public forum but also take part in the protest that was organised by Women in Cinema Collective against the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes that played out publicly, with the latter film body refusing to even acknowledge that sexual harassment at the workplace was an issue. She refuses to own up to her caste, too.