Tamil Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Caste, Gender, and Technology

Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
	Cinema, India, centenary
	Tamil cinema in the new millennium
	Thematic overview: continuities and changes
	References
Part 1 Caste
	Chapter 1 Contested narratives: Filmic representations of North Chennai in contemporary Tamil cinema
		The city as a ‘historical space’
		City in Tamil films
		The ‘territorial stigmatisation’ of North Chennai
		Symbolic ghettoisation and the stigmatised neighbourhoods of North Chennai
		Destigmatising the territorial stigma
		Conclusion
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 2 Conscripts of cinema: The dangerous and deviant Third Wave
		The new Madurai genre
		The two waves and the conscripting Third Wave
		Beyond the ‘type-hero’ and the ‘neo-nativity’ film
		Dangerous and deviant heroes as conscripts of cinema
		Madurai in the Third Wave
		Conclusion
		Plot summaries
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 3 Being Dalit, being Tamil: The politics of Kabali and Kaala
		Kabali’s story1
		Detour: the absent Periyar in Kabali
		Reading Kabali
		Karikaalan, aka Kaala
		Kaala in and beyond the Dravidian framework
		Conclusion: Tamil becoming2
		Notes
		References
Part 2 Gender
	Chapter 4 When Madhi dances like Dhanush: Gender representations in Irudhi Suttru
		Irudhi Suttru and the New Wave of women-centric films
		Is Irudhi Suttru a feminist manifesto?
		Vaa Machaney, an introduction kuthu song for the heroine
		Madhi, an angry young woman
		The gender trouble of a boxing heroine
		‘Who’s the hero?’: from flawed masculinity to male saviour
		Conclusion: what is Madhi the name of?
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 5 Redefining the mass hero: The rise of the engineer as ‘hero’ in contemporary Tamil cinema
		Introduction
		The appearance of the mass hero in Tamil cinema: defining the paradigms of masculinity
		From mass hero to realist masculinity
		The evolution and meanings of technical education in Tamil Nadu
		The Tamil male engineer as a neoliberal subject: reading gendered behaviour
		Engineer heroes in Vaaranaram Ayiram, Nanban, and V.I.P.
		The neoliberal subjectivity of the contemporary mass hero: individuality, bromance, and the male body
		The male body: subverting traditional masculinity and the invention of new idioms
		Conclusion
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 6 White is the new brown: Constructing Amy Jackson as a desirable object in Tamil cinema
		The Westernised woman
		Complications: whiteness as an aesthetic of beauty
		Case study 1: Jackson as an aesthetic of beauty in Gethu (2016)
		Stigma and the appeal of a Caucasian female actor
		Case study 2: Thangamagan
		Jokes at the expense of Hema’s Western-ness
		Referencing Hema’s fundamental difference from the native hero
		Setting up the archetype for the traditional woman
		Intimacy as facilitated by Western-ness
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 7 Misogyny: A content analysis of break-up songs in Tamil films
		Introduction
		Songs in Tamil films
		Methods
		Findings
		Women’s bodies and objectification
		(Insincere women’s) love versus (sincere men’s) friendship
		Vilifying all women
		Conclusion and limitations
		Acknowledgement
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 8 Religiously middle class: Ammaṉ films and the new middle class in contemporary Tamil Nadu
		Ammaṉ films
		The middle class of Ammaṉ films
		Ammaṉ films as a pedagogical tool
		Ammaṉ films as a reflection of middle-class anxieties
		Conclusions
		Note
		References
Part 3 Technology
	Chapter 9 Will the real Kollywood fan please stand up? : Tamil film fandom in the new millennium
		Fan club activity in the early 2000s
		Cinema spaces
		Loss
		The figure of the fan revisited
		New media, new desires?
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 10 Post-millennial Tamil cinema: Transitional generation and the traces of continuity
		The transitional generation
		The key signifiers of the transitional and markers of the contemporary Tamil cinema
		The hero and the family
		The transitional generation and traces of continuity
		The transitional generation and authorship
		Realism and relationships
		Conclusion
		References
	Chapter 11 A rumble in the movie halls: Cinema in the ‘orphaned’ state
		Introduction
		Cinema politics post-1990s2
		Cinema politics in the ‘orphaned state’
		The economics of Tamil cinema
		Conclusion
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 12 Tamil platform cinema
		Introduction
		YouTube India screen ecology
			Tamil screen ecology
			Tamil platform cinema
		Conclusion
		Notes
		References
Index