Intimate terrors: changing representations of structural violence against women in Malayali cinema

Abstract

This article examines the opposing attitudes towards structural violence against women in Ramu Kariat's Chemmeen (1965) and Fazil's Manichitrathazhu (1993). While both films are considered mainstream releases and have an iconic status in the history of Malayali cinema, the films convey starkly different attitudes towards the enforcement of gender ideologies. While Chemmeen critiques the employment of restrictive constructions of womanhood, Manichitrathazhu nostalgically celebrates patriarchy and depicts unrestricted women as a source of terror. While this trend could be attributed to a decline of the status of women in the state, I argue that this dramatic difference in attitude is largely the product of the changing nature of Kerala's film industry, which has developed distinct categories of mainstream and parallel cinema since the release of Chemmeen. By bringing established discussions of gender in Kerala in conversation with studies of the state's film industry, this inquiry seeks to examine the evolutionary relationship between the popular film industry in Kerala and attitudes concerning gender identity.