From time immemorial, Malayalam cinema has been open to splendid verbose and action sequences to glorify machismo. The career graph of most action heroes we see today have such a point to mark. With the passage of time, the bravado in words and deeds have pathetically given way to intimidating innuendos or simply said, sleaze talk. For want of claps and whistles or box-office gold or something else, the scriptwriters find it an easy way to push these dialogues into the mouth of the protagonists and villains in the most inappropriate fashion.
The matter seeks attention again in the wake of Mammotty’s latest Kasaba. It looks like a frail attempt to establish CI Rajan Scaria as a devil-may-care police officer. Or else, what should be understood with him boasting his ‘biological fortune’ before a fellow female police officer (he bets she would walk wrong for a week !), that too to a person in a rank senior to him, in the most disgusting fashion by pulling her waist belt. Online world and social media which never forget to slam the defects in cinema seems to be working overtime this time as well.
A screen grab of Shobha Warrier’s Facebook post
A Facebook post by author/journalist Shobha Warrier demands to stop screening the movie which goes to the extend by saying “Salman Khan’s rape comment is nothing, absolutely nothing in front of this crude, vulgar and insensitive dialogue. There was a huge uproar about the dialogues in Udta Punjab, but if you have seen the film, you will know that they only swear, but what’s this? How did the Censor Board clear such a dialogue? Why is it that no activist has raised a voice against this,” she asks.
A question mark has flown towards the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). And the Censor Board played its part well by slapping a U/A certificate on the movie. No beep sounds. Regional Censor Officer Prathibha A. says, “The movie was adjudged based on its overall appeal before giving the U/A certificate. The film shows no extreme violence or explicit display of its kind for an A certificate. It adheres to the criteria for a U certificate neither,” she says.
The aforesaid dialogue has irked not just one person. Going by the review of the movie Kasaba on the website fullpicture.in shows the general impact it created. “It’s not that Mammootty hasn’t uttered profanities on screen before. In Avanazhi and Inspector Balram, he has delivered them at even pace. But what he does in Kasaba catches you completely off guard. It’s not just the cuss words, but the overtures of sexism and obscenity that offend you. And all of it comes from Rajan Zachariah. Among a lot of other things, Kasaba is a feminist’s nightmare,” the review reads.
On the other hand, the movie marks the debut of Nithin Renji Panicker as a director. That he follows the legacy of screen-writer/director/actor dad Renji Panicker being a plus point, he is not far behind in brandishing rhetoric like his father. This is what the young director has to say. “The dialogues show what the character thinks and performs. They are written so as to show justice to the character. In the movies such as Mahayanam, Inspector Balram, Nyayavidhi and Sangham, Mammookka has appeared in negative shades. I like to see that Mammookka again. I have been receiving only good comments about the movie, especially from women, including my teachers and relatives,” says Nithin.
In a general point of view, the show of masculinity in Malayalam cinema is summed up by film critic C.S. Venkiteswaran. “In Malayalam cinema, masculinity is celebrated in terms of the ability to control women. Comparing to the films in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, there is a huge disproportion in the age of heroines and heroes in the films. In the early days, both fell under the same age brackets. From 1990s onwards, the female actors were much younger than the male actors. It is like portraying them like a child or a toy to control easily,” he explains.
