REPRESENTATION OF WIDOWHOOD IN TAMIL FILMS: SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MOVIES PRODUCED DURING 2008 – 2018.

REPRESENTATION OF WIDOWHOOD IN TAMIL FILMS: SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MOVIES PRODUCED DURING 2008 – 2018..

1. Introduction. The film industry is one of the platforms of mass media with the combination of an audio-visual medium. A good movie can entertain, educate, motivate, and encourage the audience in several ways. According to Hypodermic Needle Theory, the content of movies would be directly injected into the minds of the audience, and they cannot escape from that influence as the mass audience are vulnerable to respond themselves, in front of the media messages. That is why it makes the audience laugh, cry, show anger, be shy, think etc. Movies always try to expose the current issues of the society since the cinema is considered as a part of cultural life..

There are more than 258 million widows around the world (UN,2021) and India is considered as the nation with the largest widow population in the world. It has become home to the “husbandless” (Kamala Foundation). Widowhood is a very serious problem in the Hindu religion and Tamil society and n ow most of the filmmakers have tried to focus on this crucial problem through the big screen and this may help in the future to make changes in their lives. This study has focused on the portrayal of widowhood in Tamil films, s pecial reference to the movies produced during 2008 – 2018 and the sociological analysis of these films aids to understand how these vulnerable people are suffering concerning widowhood..

2. Objective of the Study The primary objective: To find out how widows are represented in Tamil films. Specific objective: To find out how widowhood got significant handling in different periods of time in the Tamil film industry. 3. Research Questions: Q1: How the Hindu culture and rituals related to the widows are depicted in the Tamil films? Q2: How the society is dealing with such problems? Q3: What are the changes to represent them in recent Tamil films?.

4. Methodology. Research method: The qualitative research method is used to carry out this study. Samples: Three Tamil movies which are released during 2008-2018 are randomly selected for this study. Seval - released in 2008 Muppoluthum un Kattpanaigal – released in 2012 Immaika Nodihal – released in 2018 Research Tool: R elational analysis-based content analysis has been used to analyse the selected samples. The secondary data are collected from research articles, websites, magazines etc..

5. Results. In India, the term “Widows” has become a pronoun problem. When a woman loses her husband, she is being called “it” instead of “she” and such women are labelled as “husband eaters”. In the first film Seval , when the women loses her husband she is labelled as a “husband eater” and their family members shave her hair to restrict her from having illegitimate affairs. When they are planning to shave her hair, one person says that “it is not accepted by law”, while another person says that “it is accepted by rituals” and further, he says that “it is necessary to show her identity to herself”. Widows seem to follow rules based on tradition because they have internalized them. They keep doing what other widows did without questioning, assuming it’s a part of their fate. At one point the two old widows who are staying in their house say, “we also did all the rituals others did” and pressurize her to do the rituals for the widows. The red “ kungumam ” in the parting of her hair, on her forehead which is one of the signs of marriage, is wiped clean. All her jewellery is removed, and her bangles are smashed..

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Many widows experience social isolation, psychological abuse, and emotional distress because of their perceived threat to the social order (Chen, 1997). In the northern Indian state of Punjab, a widow is referred to as randi , which means a prostitute. It is very common that widows face sexual harassment in Indian society. In the second film ( Muppoluthum Un Kattpanaigal ), Meenatchi is a very good-looking woman with long hair. When she loses her husband, she faces sexual harassment by the village people. Until her husband’s death, she had been a very kindhearted and calm person. At one point when she realizes that her beauty is the problem to live in the society, she decides to be unattractive and hence shaves her hair off. At one point she says, “being alive is enough in the world to take care of my child, and beauty is not needed for that”. Then she becomes rude with a fighter attitude and does not fear anyone and always carries her little boy on her back tied with a saree. On one occasion we see two men talking and they utter “Is she a woman?”.

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In the third film ( Imaikka Nodigal ), Anjali is portrayed as a very stylish, brave and intelligent CBI officer with curly, coloured short hair. Her gesture, posture, and way of talking are very forward, showing her confidence level. She is a character in the role of giving instructions to others and other officers are scared of her. She is a mom of a little girl, and she is raising her kid as exactly she behaves like. When the baby was in the womb her husband had talked to his baby as, “Dear you shouldn’t be like your dad, you should be brave like your mom, You shouldn’t cry, no matter how tough it gets. I have never seen your mother crying; you should be just like her”. She is never afraid of anyone and takes revenge on everyone responsible for her husband’s death..

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6. Discussion. In the first film, most of the scenes she is shown as unhappy. At one point she says that “the hot sand floor does not hurt like before, because my mind has no feeling now”. The highly constructed culture and rituals are big barriers to overcome that. On one occasion hero tells the heroine (Widow) that “your wedding will be like a doll’s wedding and come with me and I will tie a “thali” otherwise those people will treat you as a shame.” But she says that “I am a wife of another person, God is with me and if anything happened apart from this I will die”. In the first film, the widow is represented as a mute character who is scared of the society and culture while accepting all the burdens by name of fate. Compared to the first film the second film is a little developed, since she is the decision-maker of her own life, whether it is positive or negative. She realizes what she wants for her to take care of her life. First two film are somehow represented the codes and aspects of the widowhood in their characterization since there are not any special codes or resembles in terms of widow in the third film. When comparing these three films the third one is very different from the earlier two and this would be a huge transformation in Tamil cinema to represent the widowhood in the Tamil films. It reflects the changeover of society’s point of view on how the widows should be ..

7. Conclusion. Widows are always shown wearing white sarees or dull clothes in the films. No one can reject that this has been the manner in some places but screening it on the big screen completely normalises it for viewers everywhere and feeding the idea that a widow is expected to live like that. A slight deviation from the traditional characterisation would also count as pioneering and unique. Now several filmmakers have understood the concept and have tried to challenge these stereotypical depictions of widows in recent films, where they try to restrict widow characters as mute, sexual and cardboard characters. Tamil movies are now taken a healthy step forward to represent the widows differently so that women take charge of their lives and their sexuality. It shows now Tamil cinema has realized that widows are not Disney princesses waiting for princes to bring colour back into their lives. Widows aren’t any less human than anyone else in the world..

8. References Dipti Mayee Sahoo, (2016- Sep), Analysis of Hindu widowhood in Indian Literature, IOSR Journal of Humanities ans Social Sciences, Vol. 21 -Issue -9 – Ver. 7, 64-71 Chen and Dreze , (1995), Recent Research on Widowhood in India: Workshop and Conference Report in Economic and Political Weekly, 30(39), 2435-2450 Bhattacharjee Jhimli , (2014 - Dec), Depiction of widowhood in Bengali Films with a special emphasis on Sati, Choker Bali, and Swet Patharer Thala, Research Journal of Language, Literature and Humanities, Vol. 1(8), 6-9 “Widowhood in India” Retrieved from www.probono-india.in “The ongoing tragedy of India’s widows” Retrieved from www.womensmediacenter.com.

Thank You.