{"id":34620,"date":"2014-11-04T15:18:28","date_gmt":"2014-11-04T20:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=34620"},"modified":"2014-11-04T15:41:18","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T20:41:18","slug":"controversial-kaththifilm-starring-vijay-and-the-politics-in-tamil-nadu-over-the-sri-lankan-tamil-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=34620","title":{"rendered":"Controversial “Kaththi” film Starring Vijay and the Politics in Tamil Nadu Over the Sri Lankan Tamil Issue."},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Anuradha Raman <\/strong><\/p>\n

Here the lines between actors and politicians blur and disengage at will. Actors enjoy the patronage of the ruling party so long as they appear to be endorsing its fortunes. When they play truant, which isn\u2019t uncommon, they find their films blocked or blacked out from theatres.<\/p>\n

\"Kathi-release\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Comedian Vadivelu, a fan favourite, was sent to the doghouse after campaigning for the DMK, which lost to J. Jayalalithaa\u2019s AIADMK. After a two-year exile, he only recently surfaced seven months ago with a comedy film. <\/p>\n

Vijay, a Kollywood superstar, has flirted with politics and has realised that as with everything else, there is a price to pay despite the halo of stardom and, no, you cannot please everyone.<\/p>\n

Now the Sri Lankan Tamil issue is a highly emotional one\u2014actors and directors have discovered that much to their peril (and often close to the date of their film\u2019s release). Invariably, the call for withdrawal happens a day before the release. The Vijay-starrer Kaththi (The Knife) is no exception. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While the film set the tone with an all-out attack on a rapacious soft-drink major out to grab the lands of hapless villagers and an indifferent media which didn\u2019t see a story in the villagers\u2019 plight, the engaging formula did not cut much ice with Panruti Velmurugan of the Tamilaga Vazhavurimai Katchi (TVK). <\/p>\n

Velmurugan, incidentally, is often described as a compulsive chaser of causes who had parted ways with the PMK to float his own party.<\/p>\n

Kaththi was in his crosshairs and with a Sri Lankan connect it wasn\u2019t difficult to get a spectrum of political parties to unite for the \u2018cause\u2019. Lyca Prod\u00acuctions, the TVK alleged, had links to relatives of Sri Lanka president Mah\u00acinda Rajapaksa. <\/p>\n

Sources in the know say that \u201cwe were assured that if we drop the producer\u2019s name, the film would come to no harm\u201d. The producer\u2019s name was dropped and the movie was free to be released. \u201cThe ruling AIADMK party in fact helped us reach a solution,\u201d says a source close to the film\u2019s production.<\/p>\n

Now Tamil Nadu\u2019s ties with Sri Lanka have always been tenuous. In the past, an IPL match which had Sri Lankan cricketers playing had to be cancelled; an under-15-cricket tournament including the Sri Lanka team was packed off, and the John Abraham starrer, Madras Cafe, was blacked out of theatre halls. <\/p>\n

Cinematographer-director Santosh Sivan\u2019s Inam faced an unofficial ban in Tamil Nadu after distributors withdrew it from theatres following pitched protests from Vaiko\u2019s MDMK party. The film was Sivan\u2019s attempt to chronicle the last phase of the Sri Lankan civil war thr\u00acough the eyes of a child.<\/p>\n

Again, here films are the favourite punching bags for fringe political groups who get mileage and attention from picketing theatres and the resultant clashes. The list of films targeted by them are legion. Thalivaa, Tupakki, Vishvarupam and now Kaththi, all in the span of two years or less, making actress Khushboo even wonder whet\u00acher fringe groups were holding filmmakers to ransom in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a wonder that just before their release the political parties call for a ban on the film. With crores riding on the films, distributors and directors comply with the demands which is a worrying state of affairs,\u201d she remarked recently on Tamil Nadu. While Khushboo holds that political groups draw mileage from their protests and win immediate support, senior journalist M.R. Venkatesh says political parties and actors have often used each other. <\/p>\n

\u201cVijay has openly hobnobbed with political parties like the AIADMK and lent his support to the movement against corruption when Anna Hazare led it,\u201d says Venkatesh. It is widely believed that Vijay too would embrace a political career. The annou\u00acncement hasn\u2019t come but the flirtation with politics continues. <\/p>\n

That said, Kaththi\u2019s woes are far from over. Though the film was released on Diwali last Thursday, now a public interest litigation has been admitted against the film in Madurai. There are reasons to believe that a political party is behind the PIL which has taken exception to a dialogue in the film which seems to suggest that political parties have made money from thin air (the allusion to the 2G scam is barely concealed)! Does the PIL enjoy the backing of the DMK, whose key politicians figured in the scam? There are no easy answers here.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s co-director Venkat Mohan says, \u201cWe decided to remove the producer\u2019s name after a few political groups protested the involvement of those from Sri Lanka in the production of the film. They said a Sri Lankan company should not be allowed to come into the Tamil film industry. We complied with their wishes.\u201d <\/p>\n

It seems in Kollywood allegiances to a party or a cause make it impossible for the film fraternity to unite against an enemy that threatens its very existence and questions their right to express themselves through films.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:Outlook India<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anuradha Raman Here the lines between actors and politicians blur and disengage at will. Actors enjoy the patronage of the ruling party so long as they appear to be endorsing its fortunes. When they play truant, which isn\u2019t uncommon, they find their films blocked or blacked out from theatres. Comedian Vadivelu, a fan favourite, …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Controversial “Kaththi” film Starring Vijay and the Politics in Tamil Nadu Over the Sri Lankan Tamil Issue.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34620"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34634,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34620\/revisions\/34634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}