My Thoughts

Posts Tagged ‘Tamizh’

Double standards of Tamizh content creators

Posted by: on: December 5, 2024

The year 2024 began for Tamizh industry with 2 big films release on Pongal. The first one was Dhanush’s Captain Miller and the other was Sivakarthikeyan’s Ayalaan. Both films even though collecting decently at the box office did not impress the critics that much. Following that Tamizh cinema did go through a drought in terms of content and success at the box office. All was not lost though as at the same time we did have movies like Lover and Garudan which were very good.

During that time the Tamizh YouTube content creators had a field day criticising the content and the industry. The one thing they realised as well was that criticising their industry actually got them new fans and subscribers. The constant videos putting down the industry and it’s content and appreciating other industries actually created a new fan base for these creators. The success of Malayalam cinema at the start of the year fueled this change among these creators. We all know how passionate Malayalam cinema fan base is and the Tamizh YouTube content creators took full advantage of that. The fact which was completely ignored during this time was that Tamizh cinema had a great 2023. Even at the end of the year a movie like Parking released to huge critical acclaim but these videos made everyone believe that the industry has been struggling for years.

The same people who posted a video a week to appreciate and promote other industries disappear completely when a good Tamizh cinema releases. This has been a trend and not something new to 2024. Even in the past few years when a good Tamizh content releases these so called experts disappear except for the movie review. There will be no follow up, no appreciation videos etc will be seen from these creators. The second half of the year has been brilliant so far from Tamizh cinema. Starting from the successful Maharaja films like Lubber Pandu, Kottukkali, Meiazhagan, Amaran, Thangalaan, Raayan, Vaazhai etc became critically acclaimed films.

Despite producing such widely accepted content in the second half the narrative of Tamizh cinema struggling is being propagated by these so called experts. Who are these YouTube experts? What is their credentials? Why do we give so much importance to their opinion? These are some questions the audience of these channels need to ask. Anyone who is reporting on something need to have some sort of journalistic ethics. Obviously none of these people have studied journalism have no clue what that means. The major cornerstone of journalism is integrity which many of these people lack. The other most important ethics of journalism is accountability, trust and truthfulness. When we look at these content being posted these days it is just done for the sake of increasing the subscribers count.

If any of these creators had integrity they would have at least posted some appreciation videos later in the year when Tamizh cinema produced some good content. The fact that there are more videos criticising and trolling Kanguva than appreciating a film like Meiazhagan shows the shallowness of these creators. The amount of appreciation videos we see of Meiazhagan, Vaazhai, Lubber Pandu etc from other language creators show how selfish and horrible Tamizh content creators are.

I am not saying don’t appreciate other language films, actually I am saying the opposite. Appreciate good content irrespective of the language and have some integrity when posting content. I agree it takes lots of effort to produce a video, edit it and publish the same and they obviously need subscribers to run a channel but what they are doing right now is unethical. Criticism is important for any industry and if you see content creators from other South Indian languages are harsh on poor content from their industry but none of them go to the extend Tamizh creators go. They don’t put down their industry to appreciate other regions to the level our creators do. Why is that I ask? Is it because we are so insecure that we are afraid of appreciating our industry? Is it because we think if Tamizh cinema is appreciated their subscribers will leave them? I am not completely sure but this needs to stop.

People who are jumping on such creators bandwagon are also to blame including other language fans who actually thing these people mean what they post. The fans and creators from other South Indian industries are way ahead of the so called experts from Tamizh. They not only appreciate other industry content but also post a balanced view of their own industry. When Malayalam cinema was doing so well earlier this year we did not see a Telugu YouTuber posting a video attacking their industry nor did we see Kannada content creators doing the same. So why are we doing this is a question we viewers need to ask as well. I don’t mind criticism as not everyone has to like a film. There are a lot of them who did not like Meiazhagan as well which fine as it is their prerogative but their needs to be some kind of fairness in the content they post on their channels. When you troll or post negative reviews of a film, appreciate good content as well. Don’t just post videos to appease fans from other industries for the sake of subscribers, it just looks bad.

I am not saying everyone is bad, there are a few good ones here and there but again when you have so many poor ones good one are hard to find. While social media has made it easier for a common man to dabble with journalism the ethics of such is role should still remain valid. While proper journalist and reviewers will refrain from trolling or posting polarising content just to increase subscribers these self proclaimed experts do it only for subscribers. I am a fan of Indian cinema and watch content from all languages if the content interests me. Never have I appreciated an industry just put down the other, even when talking with my friends. Good content comes from all industries and so do bad ones. At the end of the year every industry at the maximum will have only 10-15 films which remain in our minds. Even Malayalam industry known for its content cannot buck than trend. No one can say an industry produced 50 great films a year, that is not possible. The fact everyone knows and still we promote and support such creators who make us believe otherwise.

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Most of star/movie promotional interviews in Tamizh are cringe

Posted by: on: January 6, 2023

Interviews are dime a dozen these days on YouTube but again only a few of them are actually watchable. There are so many channels these days on YouTube and on TV that there is some interview either for movie promotions or just a chat with an actor almost everyday. While there are lots of interviews there aren’t many with substance. The interviews mostly at least in Tamizh are boring, unimaginative and sometimes downright embarrassing.

Previously there were a handful of Satellite channels but now there are so many of them that there is always a competition to put up a click bait headline go get views for the video. Most of the interviewers do no homework on the actors career and come up with mundane questions for which we get robotic responses from the actors. Not all interviewers are bad, some of them are brilliant like Baradwaj Rangan, Abishek and Rukshanth to name a few but again there aren’t many.

Here are some of the issues I have about especially Tamizh interviews (I don’t watch other language interviews much to form an opinion on them. Just a disclaimer before someone attacks me)

Too much hero worship:

Most of the times the conversations with famous stars become a ego massaging exercise more than an actual interview. Most of the anchors go overboard with praises which sometimes even make the actors uncomfortable. The interview does not offer anything to the audience who watch it other than to give satisfaction to the fanboys of the stars. Most of the times I do not even watch after the interview after the first few questions as I know how it is going to go.

No research or homework done

Most of the interviews have repetitive questions and we get standard answers from the stars. There is no research or homework done about the movie the actor is promoting or about the career to actually ask meaningful questions. The stars mostly go through the motions and most of these interviews turn into boring one with the anchor trying to fish for some click bait title for the video on YouTube.

Female actors completely ignored in interviews with the movie crew

When we have the movie crew come in to promote a film, the fixation of the anchor on the male star of the film is jarring. The female actors are ignored completely to a point where we can actually see them bored out of their wits. This not only happens with newcomers but also with established actors. The Tamizh anchors are notorious in doing this if you follow movie crew interviews closely. Suddenly they will remember that there is a female actor and resort to some mundane questions like “How did they get a chance to act in this project?” and then, wait for it as this is a brilliant question, “How was it to act with the hero of the film”, once these questions are answered, they will be back to the male stars. This becomes worse for female actors who cannot speak the language. It is not their fault that they cannot speak the language. The fact of the matter is that most of the anchors just don’t bother to do any homework on the female actors careers to actually ask any meaningful questions.

Female actors asked about male stars in their interviews:

This is the worst of all. Even when female stars/actors are interviewed the questions to them will be to share their experiences acting with multiple male superstars. The if they run out of questions about male superstars, they will ask the female actors when they are getting married or what kind of life partner they are looking for etc. These interviews are the most cringe of all. You just cannot sit through it. It is almost like these actors have done nothing in their careers to have a conversation about.

Tamizh anchors need to learn how an interesting interview can be conducted. May be watch videos of a Baradwaj Rangan or Abishek or even someone like Rukhshanth whose recent interviews with couple of female stars were brilliant and fun to watch. The anchors that I mentioned above don’t ask monotonous questions and actually come with proper research about the actors career to ask questions which keeps the celebrity as well as the fans interested.

Yeah praising stars and getting praise out of others about a star for a click bait title might please some fanboys but again that is not all there is for an interview. YouTube channels themselves need to strive hard to give better content to the audience. These days I don’t watch any interviews as they are boring. An actor from a big film will be interviewed but the entire conversation will be about the star in the film and not about the actor who is being interviewed. This needs to change in Tamizh media and channels need to realise that just the ability to talk does not make someone a good anchor.

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Pan-India struggles for Tamizh Cinema & lack of promotions

Posted by: on: July 23, 2022

I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, so I have seen both the Doordarshan times as well as the satellite television boom in the mid-90’s. Before Satellite television came to India in the early 90’s movie stars were extremely elusive to the fans. They were like this larger than life hero figures in the mind of the fans who only appeared in films. In those times this actually helped a lot with success of films for these stars. This is how the star culture was formed. Fans who do not see their heroes other than on movie screen or posters rushed to theatres to watch them on the big screen.

In a way Tamizh cinema still has that star value. The elusive nature of the Tamizh stars has always worked in their favour. You would normally not see Rajinikanth, Vijay, Ajith or any major superstar making too many public appearances. This surely has helped them to maintain that culture which we see in some of the next generation actors as well. This means that most of the movies in Tamizh cinema comes with little or zero promotions, especially the big star films. For example Vijay’s interview for Beast earlier this year was his first in years but again you can say that he at least appears for audio release functions.

This lacklustre promotions from the stars has trickled down to the female leads and the supporting cast as well in Tamizh cinema. In recent times we have seen majority of the cast not being present for any promotions of a film. For example “Vikram”, the industries biggest hit this year had no promotions from any of the cast except for Kamal Hassan, Naren and Gayathrie. Recently Aatharva’s “Kuruthi Aatam” released after lots of struggle but again except for the hero and the director, none of the others were involved in any promotions for the film.

The biggest issue though hampering Tamizh film industry is that the release of a film is unknown to anyone at most of the times. The director of “Kuruthi Aatam” said in an interview that he just knew a week before that his film is going to release. We see a trailer released for a film and hope it will release in the near future but we end up seeing the movie a year or two later in theatres. This also causes issues for the cast to make themselves available for promotions. I understand that getting screens and taking the movies to the audience has become a huge problem in the industry but again the makers are making it difficult for their movies to succeed if there isn’t enough time to market their films. You might have a great product but if the audience don’t know about it, they are not going to come and see it. This is the era of OTT and you need to reach the audience big time if you want them to leave their home to watch a film. The big star films are fine as the fans will come in huge numbers just by watching a good trailer, but again that is not true for smaller films.

The other elephant in the room for Tamizh cinema is the Pan-Indian films. If we look in the past, Tamizh film industry was kind of the pioneers for Pan-India success. Manirathnam had Roja and Bombay and then we had Shankar’s Indian, Robot & 2.0 all being successful ventures all through the country. The biggest thing Tamizh movie makers need to learn now is that not all films are going to be successful when released through the country. The recent success of Telugu & Kannada cinema has taught us that there are certain type of films which appeals to the Hindi speaking public.

The Tamizh actors are extremely lucky as they have formed a great market in Southern states especially in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh & Telangana but that’s not the case with Hindi audience. Yeah some percentage of the population knows some of the Tamizh actors through their dubbed films on TV but again that is not going to help sell the films there. The first thing is the content. It is very important as to what movies we are dubbing in Hindi language. The kind of cinema which would mostly work is Big mass masala films like Bahubali 1 & 2, Pushpa & KGF or Movies about our Indian culture like Karthikeya 2 or Nationalistic films well made like RRR. The second most important factor is promotions. People might say that Nikhil did not promote Karthikeya 2 nor did Dulqar for Sita Ramam but again these films did great in the Hindi market.

The reason for the same is that Telugu cinema has created a lot of goodwill with the Hindi audience. They have released the right kind of films with the right kind of promotions which has made the audience there to take notice of any film which comes from that industry. This is what Tamizh cinema has failed to do in the last few years. We are thinking like in the 90’s when Roja, Bombay, Indian succeeded we can just dub a film and release a trailer 10 days before the release and that will bring the audience to the theatre. It does not work that way now. In the 90’s before Satellite channels, just movie posters were enough to sell a film to the audience and if released at the right time people used to come to theatres. They did not have the alternatives they have now in terms of OTT or TV which meant that they had to look at cinemas for entertainment.

Now in this era where marketing and promotions are crucial just dubbing a film and releasing it in any language isn’t going to work. Tamizh cinema also has this very poor trend of releasing movie trailers just a week or 2 before the actual movie release giving the actors just about 6-7 days to do the promotions. That may work in Tamil Nadu but will not work in rest of the country. For example “Naane Varuven” movie touted to release on the 29th of September just saw a teaser release on the 15th of the same month. That is ridiculous but again Dhanush’s popularity means that the audience will make it to the theatres despite no promotions.

In the past 2 years we just dubbed Master, Valimai, Beast etc in Hindi and released them in theatres without any promotions. Most of the Hindi audience don’t even know what these films are, so you cannot expect them to come to theatres. For Vikram, Kamal tried his best but again the time for promotions was very less and he was the only one doing the same. If Tamizh cinema are really serious about going Pan-India with their films, they need to take a leaf out of Telugu and Kannada industry. They need to see how they promoted their films over the past few years and how they have made a market for themselves all over the country. I think the problem lies with the producers who want the film to go Pan-India but again cannot convince the actors to actually promote the films

Tamizh cinema needs to wake up and realise that the method which has been working for them for decades in the state isn’t going to help them sell films to different audience across the country. The producers should stop advertising a film as Pan-India if the actors aren’t game to aggressively promote their films all over the country. If the actors are happy to just have their films release in southern states, so be it, the producers to make the films for just that audience. The next big film which is going Pan-India is Ponniyin Selvan (PS1). The director is Manirathnam who has had huge success across the country with his films. The film is just 2 weeks away from coming in theatres but we haven’t seen any promotional activities. The movie is clashing with one of the biggest Hindi films of this year, Vikram Vedha and the crew is still not taking this seriously it seems.

PS1 is a film which has a possibility of succeeding all over India. It has a theme of Indian history which Hindi audience like and with right amount of promotions this might become Tamizh cinema’s biggest hit of the year. The only good thing about the cast of PS1 is that everyone is game to promote the films. Vikram, Jeyam Ravi and Karthi always promote their films well which works in favour of the makers. The film will take a huge opening in Tamil Nadu as it is our history and we will for sure flock the theatres to watch the film but again the film needs to be promoted aggressively in other states for it to succeed. Manirathnam has done this in the past with his Hindi films so I am hoping that he understands what needs to be done to take his film to the nook and corner of the country.

To be frank if PS1 fails in Hindi, I don’t think we have any chance of getting a successful Pan-Indian film in the future from our industry. The film has the right content and the right actors to go all out to take the film to the audience, so if this fails that means it will be on the makers to not give enough time for marketing. The good thing is that the movie stars Aishwarya Rai in an important role which means that there will be promotions at least in Mumbai but I don’t think that will be enough. If PS1 succeeds it might give a template to other makers from Tamizh cinema as to how to promote films which they seem to not aware of due to the no-marketing culture in the industry. The stars need to wake up and smell the coffee. They get paid ridiculous amount of money to act in a film and I feel they need to make an effort to help out the producers if they want to go Pan-India with the content.

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