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p-27 Rajnikant.qxp
6/20/2007
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culture&society
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M
RS LAKSHMANAN is a
typical Chennai
maami. She is portly,
with oiled and combeddown hair, a comely
disposition and a lifelong commitment to
feeding her family. Today, in the darkness
of a cinema hall, she has turned into something of a dervish, joining raucous frontbenchers and her brood of nephews and
grandsons to cheer the arrival of
Rajinikanth, feet-first, on screen. Rajini in
tangerine tee and aqua jeans drawls:
“Cool!” The lads roar. The ladies simper.
We are watching Sivaji: The Boss —
India’s most expensive movie ever, made at
a production cost of Rs 60 crore. After the
monster success of the 1995 hit
Chandramukhi, Rajinikanth has teamed
up with filmmaker Shankar for a movie
that recalls the Bangalore-born
Maharashtrian superstar’s original name:
Shivajirao Gaekwad. Shankar’s films are a
celebration of the lone crusader, the vigilante who is incapable of socio-political
engagement except in the most fantastical
manner. Shankar’s Sivaji is an enviably
wealthy yet altruistic Tamil NRI who does
not forget his working-class roots but re-
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Anthropologist Rajan Krishnan, who is
researching Tamil film culture at
Columbia University, says, “The adulation
Rajini commands across the class divide
rests on his unique mannerisms. His
brisk energy establishes an instant rapport with audiences.” According to
Venkatesh Chakravarthy, professor at
Mind Screen Film Institute, Chennai,
“Rajinikanth’s screen image helps mobilise subaltern anxieties and aspirations
without endorsing the status quo. Like a
ventriloquist, his larger-than-life persona
echoes the desires of his fans.”
In the Tamil sexual imagination, the
subaltern superhero’s near-mythic powers include the ruthless quelling of surging female sexuality. Rajinikanth exemplifies this in a more physical manner than
his predecessor, the late MG Ramachandran. Chennai-based sexologist Dr D.
Narayana Reddy explains, “Studies have
found that identifying with success is a
major stress reliever. Men identify with
James Bond for his successful masculinity, and that is Rajinikanth’s appeal for the
Tamil male as well.”
While movie buffs and some sociologists may find themselves uncomfortable
HE’S A DON
QUIXOTE ADORED
BY TEASTALL
THAMBI AND
SILICON VALLEY
GEEK ALIKE. RARE
IS THE TAMIL
IMMUNE TO HIS
APPEAL
I
HIT ME, RAJINI,
ONE MORE TIME
OUTLOOK
As Sivaji breaks all box-office records,
SUDHA G. TILAK on Rajinikanth: the man,
the myth and his mysterious potency
turns home to Chennai to set up educational and medical facilities for the poor.
Red-tapism and bureaucratic graft turn
him into a maniac who sets off on an improbable mission to abolish money laundering in India and ensure that the tax
payer’s rupee is spent on social welfare.
The film itself is an extravaganza, celebrating all that is physical about Rajini: his numerous transformations, his array of wigs,
the breathtaking action sequences. As KV
Anand, filmmaker and Sivaji’s cinematographer, says, “A commercial Rajinikanth
flick is a release of the festive spirit, it’s a licence for all to break free and dance.”
At 58, Rajinikanth’s journey from bus
conductor to superstar defies conventional
logic. Known for his goofy mannerisms,
rakish looks and burlesque flamboyance,
he has more than once played the misogynist who subdues heroines with a slap and
a kiss. Challenging adversaries — in both
reel and real life — with a panache hard to
duplicate, he has bashed up more thugs on
screen than the Chennai Royapettah hospital can accommodate. His dynamism is
original, he’s a Don Quixote adored by
teastall thambi and Silicon Valley geek
alike. Rare is the Tamil immune to his appeal: women cry when he weeps, kids
idolise his trademark stunts and his
ironic machismo is a pick-me-up for
the men. A Rajini movie is always secondary to the man and his magic.
with delving too deep into the sexual politics of Rajinikanth’s on-screen persona, the
audience laps it all up with an almost
voyeuristic glee. Adulation and voyeurism,
after all, go hand in hand. It is not unusual
to find boys bathing Rajinikanth billboards
in milk and throwing flowers at the screen
when he makes his first appearance —
their obeisances to the demigod who sets
alive their wildest dreams of conquest and
liberation. Reddy explains, “Rajini satisfies
the Tamil male’s ego because he embodies
the fulfilment of the desire to be virile, sexually attractive and physically energetic.
There is a thin line between the frontbencher’s sexual aspirations and the
Westernised Tamil. Rajini quenches the
primal thirst for sexual dynamism.”
N A career that saw him start out playing stereotypical villains, evolving into
a serious actor able to carry off morally
ambiguous characters, Rajinikanth’s personality and acting prowess were subsumed by his superstar status in the mid1980s when his movies became runaway
hits. He most often played the workingclass hero whose easy access to success and
defiance of the moneyed class endeared
him to the pit audiences. However his personal quest for religion led him into cinematic outputs of a spiritual order, such as
the 1992 Baba, which failed miserably at
the box-office. For his fans, Rajini was not
there to tweak their minds, he was meant
to get their veins pumping, and they were
unwilling to tolerate any deviations.
His new image in his last two films has
not been that of the working-class hero but
of the NRI, playing
on the current
penchant for things
swadeshi, very much in
sync with India’s new globalising ethos. “Though he is a
character of transnational ambit,
even Chandramukhi is the replaying of
the old taming of the shrew — bringing a
disturbed woman into the normal heterosexual order of family life — that is essentially an old male fantasy,” says
Chakravarthy.
The success of Chandramukhi and the
hype around Sivaji have established that,
despite his flirting with politics, Rajinikanth’s larger role in society is that of an
entertainer rather than a politician.
According to film historian Theodore
Baskaran, “In Tamil Nadu, the adulation of
filmstars is a persistent tradition as old as
Tamil cinema itself. Rajinikanth is no new
exception. The difference is his popularity
is in the realm of entertainment only and
not in politics. Filmgoers in the state go to
watch him purely for entertainment value,
unlike MGR’s fans, who were from the
Dravidian movement and whose fan clubs
functioned as surrogate party machinery.”
You have to believe in the man and his
myth to enjoy a Raijnikanth caper. He has
all the chutzpah of the rapper — the glitter,
the glad rags, the swagger — and his anger
targets the same oppressive class enemies.
Though he will always be the boss of bling,
don’t be fooled — danger lurks beneath the
gangly act. Mind it!