What clothes reveal about films

This glamour, he defined, as heroines wearing revealing clothes, even if they were uncomfortable doing so.

A curious thing happened on Monday. After a video featuring a popular Tamil filmmaker went viral, two leading actresses in the South Indian film industry responded fiercely and by the end of the day, the filmmaker ‘retracted’ his comments. What did the video depict?

The video featured the filmmaker discussing how we are a “low-class” audience that pays money to watch action and glamour. This glamour, he defined, as heroines wearing revealing clothes, even if they were uncomfortable doing so. If they want to “act”, it can be in serials once they retire or other films but not in commercial cinema.

The filmmaker was not saying anything not evident on the silver screen. Across the country, barring a few films spanning multiple languages, and for decades now, heroines are used for “glamour” to be objectified.

That he said as much ripped apart the gentle charade of treating female actors on par with male stars. Globally, female actors have less screen time, are paid less, are ‘aged’ out of the industry sooner than their male counterparts. But in few places, are such disparities as evident as in mainstream commercial cinema.

In that context, while the filmmaker may have merely vocalised what was an open secret in the industry, the fact that the actors were in a position to call him out, signals a shift regarding their agency and ability to exercise it. However, the question then remains as to if and when this exercise of agency by mainstream female stars will begin to influence how women are depicted in many mainstream movies at this time.

One can only hope that this show of strength and solidarity by the two leading stars will in time spill over into the roles that they play and that are available for them to play in the industry. The support they seem to have received from within the industry seems to indicate that there is room for such a transition to occur.

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The New Indian Express
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