The Image Trap by M.S.S Pandian

Author:M.S.S Pandian [Pandian, M.S.S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2015-02-03T18:30:00+00:00

In South Indian weddings when the nuptial night is celebrated and generally when women get together one can hear unabashed conversation on sex by several old ladies…Jokes on the sexual act, pubic hair and comments on performance are in abundance with these ladies. Watching them one would feel that the topic is an obsession with them; almost a verbal orgasm to the physical one they probably lacked. Many men have told me that South Indian women have taken sex rather casually pointing out to these open talks. On the contrary, if they took it casually it would not lead to such suppressed giggles and talks almost bordering on depravity, during certain occasions.4

Watching MGR films constitutes one such liminal experience for a female audience. In these films, it is the young and beautiful heroine who takes the initiative, dreams of the hero recurrently and pursues him—behaviour that would in real life be treated as brazen. The heroine has dreams that are risqué (in the form of song and dance sequences). While the dances are choreographed to resemble the act of physical love, the songs are explicitly sexual and replete with double entendre. Pulamaipitthan,5 who wrote several songs for MGR films takes prides in himself for having given vent to sexual fantasies in those songs like none else had before. He notes that the physical description of the hero dominates the songs in MGR films. This is contrary to the usual Tamil film songs where the heroine's bodily features find a place of prominence. MGR himself wanted these sequences to be so, and the only thing that bothered him was their being passed by the Board of Censors.6

We have already noted that MGR expressed his defiance and selfhood through gestures that were taboo. It must be added here that not only did MGR adopt anti-deferential attitudes and gestures, but he also displayed his fair skin to advantage. Short-sleeved shirts, bare chest, rippling muscles and tight fitting clothes—MGR on the screen revels in his physicality, and, in this context, a certain auto-eroticism communicates itself most effectively to female viewers.

Thus, the repressed sexuality of the Tamil woman finds its momentary and unreal liberation in observing these sequences. There are at least three points which are important to understand the meaning and limits of such sexual freedom for the female audience. First, in a society where female voyeurism is censored as culturally unacceptable, the darkened atmosphere of the cinema hall is perhaps one of the very few places where women can indulge in such voyeurism.7 Thus, the flickering images on the screen gain an added relevance for women spectators. Second, by attributing desire to the heroine and at the same time distancing the hero from desire (that is, ‘he is not under her thumb’), these films assert MGR's masculinity. This notion of the distant hero also proves effective in deferring female sexual gratification, and, thereby, definite patriarchal limits are set to this free release of female sexuality. In several of MGR films, more than one

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.