Caste and gender in Tamil Cinema: Phallic Rehabilitation in the Neo-Native film Dharma Durai

Abstract

ABSTRACT Dharma Durai/Lord Dharma [Seenu Ramasamy, 2016] makes significant departures from the fundamental tenets of the neo-nativity cinema genre whose moorings, as Sundar Kaali argues in the context of a select study of Tamil films in the late 1970s, are in the phallic injury of the hero and the disciplining of the heroine, phenomena that continue to inform a large number of New Wave blockbusters since 2004. I discuss the subversive tendencies that disrupt the hegemonic narratives of caste and culture in neo-native films such as Dharma Durai as well as in path-breaking predecessors such as Veyil/Sunshine (Vasanta Balan, 2006), Naadodigal/Vagabonds (Samuthirakani, 2009) and Aadukalam/Playground (Vetrimaaran, 2011) in the sphere of romantic narratives. I argue that the “actantial energy/agency” of the village that injures the hero in the Neo Nativity Film in Kaali’s thesis (Kaali, Sundar. 2000. “Narrating Seduction: Vicissitudes of the Sexed Subject in Tamil Nativity Film.” In Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, edited by Ravi Vasudevan, 168–190. Oxford and New York: Routledge.) is revised in Dharma Durai as the narrative ultimately transfers agency from the rural caste community to the companionate romantic relationship, especially onto the figure of the modern heroine.