Tamil Movies Research Articles

Representation of Therapy and Therapists in Indian Movies and TV Series: An Examination of Accuracy, Influence, and Perception

Film and psychology share a longstanding relationship with evolving depictions of therapy and therapists. While extensive research explores Hollywood's portrayal of mental health, a gap exists in understanding therapists in Indian media. This study addresses this void, examining how Indian movies and TV series portray therapists and their impact on audiences. Utilizing qualitative methodology, expert interviews provide insights into therapist perspectives. Bollywood often simplifies mental health, while regional cinema offers more authentic representations. Critiques target films like 'Dear Zindagi,' 'Atrangi Re,' and Tamil movies 'Beast' and 'Anniyan,' as well as the series 'The Family Man' for unrealistic therapy scenes. Positive examples include Tamil and Malayalam films like 'Kumbalangi Nights' and 'Irugapatru,' and the series 'Made in Heaven' for ethical therapist portrayals. Indian media tends to trivialize therapy, perpetuating misconceptions, and stigma. Experts stress the importance of responsible depictions, even in extreme treatments like Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). Therapists face challenges addressing misconceptions fuelled by media portrayals during sessions, underscoring the need for accurate and empathetic representations in Indian media.

The politics of fat positivity and fat acceptance: Exploring select post-millennial, South Indian “fat films”

ABSTRACT While the representation of the fat body in post-millennial mainstream South Indian films has often been problematic due to the inherent biases against non-normative bodies, a promising trend has been visible in recent post-millennial South Indian movies centered on fat protagonists. Known as “fat films” within fat activism for their stance on fat positivity and fat acceptance, these movies claim to promote liberatory discourses regarding fat bodies. However, we argue that the liberatory potential of these movies often becomes limited due to the structurally similar, formulaic plots that construct fatness as a liminal, alterable state of being. For our analysis, we have chosen three mainstream South Indian “fat films” released in three different Indian languages in which the narratives navigate through the complex life experiences of the fat protagonists: Da Thadiya (Hey Fatso) (2012), a Malayalam movie directed by Ashiq Abu; Inji Iduppazhagi (Size Zero) (2015), a Tamil movie directed by Prakash Kovelamudi; and Laddu Babu (2014) a Telugu movie directed by Ravi Babu. It is found that the subversive potential of these films is undermined by a host of issues, both specific and general, such as a) their construction of fatness as an abject form of embodiment where it becomes a constant source of laughter b) their reductive and redundant portrayals of fat subjectivities and inability to contribute alternative narratives which aren’t centered on the fat protagonists’ “eternal” conflict with their bodies and c) their inability to interrogate the larger body politics behind the aestheticization of certain bodies as normative.

A Textual Analysis of Creative Multimedia Approaches in Tamil Movie Title Posters

Abstract Creative multimedia refers to integrating different media elements, such as text, graphics, audio, video, animation, and interactive elements to convey a message, tell a story, or evoke emotions in a visually compelling and engaging way. Formation of Tamil movie titles is a crucial process of moviemaking because the director intends to reveal the essence of the movie itself, like a title of a journal article. Tamil cinema, also known as Kollywood, has faced a lot of controversies, and one of them is choosing the title of a film. These days, directors concentrate on movie titles with creative ideas to reach audiences. Therefore, this study intends to 1) analyse creative multimedia approaches in Tamil movie title posters and 2) reveal the meaning and storyline of the film from Tamil movie title posters. This descriptive qualitative study used Tamil movie titles (English version posters) using purposive sampling from the production’s official pages. The data support the findings of the formation of Tamil movie titles collaborating with creative multimedia approaches using textual analysis. Lately, directors or designers have been using creative multimedia approaches to attract the audience’s interest in the movie’s title from pre-production until release. The study disclosed that symbols and creative multimedia approaches became interesting domains to keep the titles intact. The findings help to extract the storyline by inserting creative multimedia into the titles so that the audience can presume the storyline, which attracts their attention and draws them into the theatres.

A Study on Representation of Women’s Supremacy in Contemporary Tamil Movies

Women’s Supremacy, women's liberation, the empowerment of women, and gender equality are frequently discussed concepts in modern India. The film industry, among other stakeholders, is taking steps to contribute to women’s empowerment. In India, the film industry is seeking to change society by touching on topics that are rarely discussed in public. Present-day directors have begun to give greater visibility to the difficulties women face. There is a new wave of women-centric movies that is bringing about a quiet rebellion in India. This article reveals how women’s supremacy is portrayed in select Tamil movies.

Cross-lingual Sentiment Analysis of Tamil Language Using a Multi-stage Deep Learning Architecture

In recent years, sentiment analysis has become a focal point in natural language processing. Cross-lingual sentiment analysis is a particularly demanding yet essential task that seeks to construct models capable of effectively analyzing sentiments across a variety of languages. The primary motivation behind this research is to bridge the gap in current techniques that often struggle to perform well with low-resource languages, due to the scarcity of large, annotated datasets, and their unique linguistic characteristics. In light of these challenges, we propose a novel Multi-Stage Deep Learning Architecture (MSDLA) for cross-lingual sentiment analysis of the Tamil language, a low-resource language. Our approach utilizes transfer learning from a source language with abundant resources to overcome data limitations. Our proposed model significantly outperforms existing methods on the Tamil Movie Review dataset, achieving an accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score of 0.8772, 0.8614, 0.8825, and 0.8718, respectively. ANOVA statistical comparison demonstrates that the MSDLA’s improvements over other models, including mT5, XLM, mBERT, ULMFiT, BiLSTM, LSTM with Attention, and ALBERT with Hugging Face English Embedding are significant, with p-values all less than 0.005. Ablation studies confirm the importance of both cross-lingual semantic attention and domain adaptation in our architecture. Without these components, the model’s performance drops to 0.8342 and 0.8043 in accuracy, respectively. Furthermore, MSDLA demonstrates robust cross-domain performance on the Tamil News Classification and Thirukkural datasets, achieving an accuracy of 0.8551 and 0.8624, respectively, significantly outperforming the baseline models. These findings illustrate the robustness and efficacy of our approach, making a significant contribution to cross-lingual sentiment analysis techniques, especially for low-resource languages.

Aura of Digitalization and Digital Humanism in Tamil Celluloid Screen in the Twenty First Century

This paper highlights the applications and uses of technology in the pitch such as digitalization and digital humanism. The former refers to the process of converting information, processes, or activities into a digital form and the latter refers to the outlook that focuses on the ethical and human-centric view of interface with digital technologies. Both are considered as boons for the needy, whereas it is the other way round for those who do not have conviction toward that. The role of technology integrated with digitalization and digital humanism will be appraised in the paper with reference to the select Tamil movies. The sample movies select for this article do not stand as standing testimony either to flaunt or to flounce technology. This discussion will touch on the digitalization in real life situations and portrayal of digital humanism on celluloid screen.

Influence of tobacco imagery in Tamil movies among adolescent smokers in Poonamallee, Tamil Nadu

Influence of tobacco imagery in Tamil movies among adolescent smokers in Poonamallee, Tamil Nadu

Analyzing the meaning of sexual violence in Tamil movies: a mixed method approach

ABSTRACT The popular media are important arenas where discourses on sexual violence are often articulated. These discourses are important in the treatment of victim and perpetrator by the state, media, society and – most importantly – by those closely connected to the victim or the perpetrator. Research has consistently linked the viewing of media violence with imitative behavior, increased hostility, and acceptance of violence. This paper focuses on the portrayal of sexual violence in Tamil movies produced in Chennai, India. In this study, twenty-five movies were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Most perpetrators were in supporting roles. Four themes were identified in the analysis: sexual violence as an expression of love; sexual violence as an expression of masculinity; sexual violence and family honor; sexual violence and comedy. The analysis shows that the portrayal of sexual violence in Tamil movies focuses mostly on the loss of honor or virginity and does not focus on the act of violence, or the trauma experienced by the victims. These portrayals are based on a patriarchal understanding of sexual violence and share elements with common rape myths in society.

The Effectiveness of Product Placement in Tamil movies: A Study with Reference to the State of Tamil Nadu, India

This study endeavors to enquire the power of item arrangements in Tamil motion pictures. The past surveys are more focused towards Hollywood films, and the majority of the Indian examinations are concentrated towards Hindi motion pictures. Subsequently, there exists a critical hole for this flow exploration to discover the viability of item position and item advancement in the films. The review bargains on Tamil films, VIP support, buyer mentality, corporate believability, brand picture and buy expectation are thought about to foster the speculations. The review was led utilizing an organized poll which was coursed among 3500 film circumvents Tamil Nadu. The investigation was achieved utilizing Visual PLS and SPSS. The consequences of this examination demonstrate that item situations really do have compelling exploration among Tamil crowds, which likewise has a positive relationship with buy goal.

Transgender in Tamil Movies

Many movies released in Tamil have portrayed transgenders mostly as scenes for ridicule. In the guise of comedy, films have been portraying transgender people with insults, double entendres and sexual scenes. Some movies like Bombay, Thenavattu, Chithiram Pesutadi, and Naan kadavul show transgenders in a dignified manner. From 1977’s Balabhishekam to 2017’s sivappu enakku pidikkum, this review examines the film. Transgender people are those who have been ostracized from public life by their families and the entire society and are forced to live in the public square without any means of living without any means of livelihood, begging and prostitution. Tamil cinema is using the problem of such people and their need only for ridicule. Seeing this, the growing generation grows up with such thoughts and perpetuates its violence against transgenders. The Tamil film world often portrays transgender people as ugly and ridiculous. Tamil movies were also the reason why the transgender community was seen as a laughing stock in the early days.

IMPERCEPTIBLE EMOTIONS – A PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF VIRUMAANDI (2004)

The field of psychology is frequently promoted in films. There are numerous and diverse intersections between psychology and film. Films are often influenced by psychological philosophies. The article focuses on the psychological perspective of the Indian Tamil Movie Virumaandi (2004). The aim of the article is to find out the psychological aspects of the characters portrayed in the movie and how it serves to be the reason for the conflicts that arises in the plot. It showcases how psychological condition affects the emotional stability of the characters and audience, relationships among people and behaviors by identifying the issues dealt with in the movie.

Representing Women Entrepreneurs in Tamil Movies

AbstractWomen’s entrepreneurship is one of the most evocative terms used in this century. Women have achieved sustained progress in all domains. Nourishing a business as an entrepreneur is a critical activity, which means we need to understand the role of women in developing businesses. Movies about the struggles of female entrepreneurs can help provide that understanding. This article discusses women entrepreneurs in Tamil‐speaking regions of India. Three Tamil movies that center on women’s entrepreneurship are chosen: 36 Vayadhinile (2015), KaatrinMozhi (2018), and Miss India (2020). One question that drives the action in the first of these films is what sets limits on women’s ambitions. Kaatrin Mozhi is about a woman driven by the desire to work as a radio host while maintaining her family life. In Miss India, the protagonist aims even higher. She hopes to create a corporate empire. These three movies portray different dimensions of women’s entrepreneurship and the struggles women face in establishing businesses. The movies reflect real situations. This article reveals the mounting evidence of consistent achievement by women entrepreneurs in Tamil society.

Dalit Women in Cinema: A Narrative of Gender and Caste

AbstractDalit women in India experience gender in an entirely different way from upper‐caste women because, along with gender discrimination, Dalit women face caste discrimination. Their experience of gender discrimination intersects with their caste identity, which intensifies their suffering. Dalit women experience gender‐based discrimination and social exclusion and stigma. Drawing from the Tamil movie Karnan, two Bollywood movies—200‐Halla Ho and Article15—and the Netflix web series Azib Dastan‐Geeli Pucchi (an anthology), we endeavor to answer several questions: What patterns exist in the gender‐ and caste‐based humiliation of Dalit women? How do gender and caste intersect in the humiliation and social exclusion of those women? How is their experience of gender‐based discrimination different from that of upper‐caste women? How do Dalit women assert their agency and struggle against gender and caste oppression in society? What kind of resilience do they rely upon to negotiate gender and caste discrimination? What inspires and motivates them to fight for their dignity? Despite the challenges and hurdles, how are these women achieving their aspirations?

Neoliberal Cricketing Subjects in Contemporary India: The State-Market Dichotomy in Two Cricket Movies

This essay examines the ways in which two popular cricket movies from India — the Hindi movie Iqbal (2005) and the Tamil movie Jeeva (2014) — validate the tenets of “roll-back neoliberalism” (Peck and Tickell 2002), an ideology that calls for the withdrawal of State-regulatedwelfare mechanisms in favour of free market capitalism. The protagonists of these movies are talented cricketers from underprivileged backgrounds, and they are excluded from regional and national teams by corrupt cricket board officials. This essay critiques a common story arc that these narratives share: the protagonists are quintessentially neoliberal entrepreneurial subjects who overcome the marginalization through adept exploitation of commercial potential of the sport. The argument is that the discursive delegitimization of State intervention in cricket, and the concomitant framing of the free market as a progressive and inclusive entity, are disempowering for the cricketing public. While a State-regulated sporting culture does have its exclusionary aspects, this essay contends, contrapuntally, that the neoliberal validation of the free-market rationale can be problematic in that it absolves the State of the responsibility of fostering an inclusive cricketing culture. This study thus offers a contingent and strategic endorsement of the Indian State’s intervention in the nation‘s cricketing cultures.

A Diasporic Study of the Tamil Movie - Nala Damayanthi

bstract: ‘Nala Damayanthi’ is a Tamil movie, directed by Moulee which was released in the year 2003, starring R. Madhavan, Geetu Mohandas, Anu Hassan, Sriman, Moulee and many others. This movie projects the life and problems of an Indian immigrant who goes to Australia and almost loses everything including his own identity. The movie also represents and reflects some of the issues that an average immigrant would face in a foreign land. Alienation, racial discrimination, loss and lack of identity are some of the prominent issues that are addressed in the movie. Ramji, the protagonist faces quite a lot of differences in Australia yet, he tries hard to fit in and accommodate that culture. But, in spite of all his attempts to change his behaviour and manners, he ultimately remains as an Indian and therefore, he is eventually rejected. Thus, this movie handles diasporic issues of an Indian in Australia. Keywords: Alienation, Diaspora, Racial Discrimination, Lack of Identity, Indian Immigrant

Othello as a play-within-the-film in post-independence Indian cinema1

This article aims to explore the appropriation of Othello as a play-within-the-film in three Indian movies: Anbu (), Saptapadi () and Ratha Thilagam (). Anbu and Ratha Thilagam are Tamil movies, whereas Saptapadi is an example of Bengali cinema. In the three films, the same scene from Shakespeare’s Othello – the murder scene – is performed as part of college theatricals. Although the films immediately associate Shakespeare with education, their appropriation of Othello goes beyond a college performance and provides insight on the main plot. The performance of the murder scene foreshadows the rest of the plot (Anbu and Ratha Thilagam), and explores racial dynamics and miscegenation in relation to the protagonists in Saptapadi. Anbu, Saptapadi and Ratha Thilagam introduce variations to the plot to add new layers of meaning. As the three films are set in postcolonial India, the use of the Shakespearean play inevitably becomes a site of negotiation between colonizers and colonized; the three films negotiate changing controversial political issues across the time period to which they all belong. Anbu, Saptapadi and Ratha Thilagam generate then a new understanding of Othello, which becomes paramount to trace the evolution of Shakespeare in postcolonial India.

An Heuristic Study on Puratchi Thalaivi Dr. Jayaraman Jayalalitha Who had Acted as Heroine with Bharat Ratna Dr. Marudur Gopala Menon Ramachandran in the 28 Classical Tamil Movies, Many of Which are Reflecting Dravidian Ideology – Whether Such an Association Resulted in Developing Leadership Qualitites to become an Unparalled Women Political Leader

Right to live, equity and social justice are watch words that determine quality of life in a society. There is always a fight between the haves and have nots’, in the end the powerful would not only prevail in the society but dominate the have nots’ to the utter dismay of the social thinkers (1). Question arises whether films and film songs address the issue of social inequality and voice against the sufferings of the lowest rung of the people of Tamil Society? In his scholarly article Robert L Hardgrave states that “Film had become increasingly pervasive in almost all aspects of Tamil society and perhaps most prominently in political life”. He also states that “although Bombay is usually considered the capital of the Indian film world, it is within south India that film has made its greatest impact (2).

Contextual-cognitive convolutional attentive LSTM approach for sentiment analysis of Tamil review

Movie goers use Twitter and other websites to share their thoughts and feelings regarding Tamil films in this age of social networking and online interaction. It is essential to examine these feelings for realizing the responses of the public and assess a film's level of success. In this research, a novel contextual-cognitive convolutional attentive long/short-term memory (C3-ALSTM) strategy for assessing Tamil movie reviews via Tamil tweets is presented. We first gather the Tamil movie review dataset through an open database to assess the suggested C3-ALSTM approach. We normalize the gathered data by eliminating extraneous information, noise and redundant data. Tokenization and the removal of stop words and special characters are employed in this phase. Following data cleansing, term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) is applied for extracting the attributes. The suggested approach evaluates the Tamil reviews based on these retrieved features. The suggested approach is put into practice using the Python platform and its accuracy, precision, recall and f-measure metrics are examined. According to the research's findings, the suggested method outperforms other used techniques for sentiment assessment of Tamil reviews. In addition, this research attempts to offer insightful information about how the public reacts to particular Tamil films, advancing knowledge of public preferences and attitudes toward the Tamil cinema industry.

Perception of sexual violence in Tamil movies by Malaysian Indian viewers

ABSTRACT This study explored how Malaysian Indian viewers read and perceived the portrayal of sexual violence in Tamil movies produced in India. Sixty youths were selected, using a purposive sampling method, to participate in focus group discussions. The discussions were transcribed and analysed for common themes related to their reading of sexual violence in Tamil movies. Four main themes were identified in this study: forms of sexual violence; blurring lines between sexual violence and pre-marital sex; stalking; and rape comedy. Participants clearly identified rape as a form of sexual violence but were more cautious when identifying other forms of sexual violence especially when it was portrayed as part of courtship. Participants were divided in their understanding of rape as part of a comedy scene. Generally, participants accepted the way sexual violence was portrayed in the movies without overtly challenging the meaning of these portrayals. The portrayal of sexual violence and the reading of it by viewers followed traditional notions of femininity and rape myths in their society.

Construction and Evaluation of Tamil Speech Emotion Corpus

Speech emotion-related analysis needs good emotion corpus. The construction and evaluation of two Tamil emotion corpora, one for children and the other for the adults, are described here. Children emotion speech samples are collected from 30 Tamil movies, and the length of the utterances varies from 5 to 40 s. Tamil audio plays are the resources for building the adult emotion corpus. The emotion prosodies are collected, segmented and annotated for the categories of anger, happy, sad and neutral emotions. Observers’ perception test result has been used to evaluate the annotation of emotion. Automatic emotion classification systems have been built using Gaussian Mixture Model and Support Vector Machine. The database is created with an objective of the acoustic investigation of emotion expression in Tamil, analyzing the influence of speaker's culture and age on emotion expression and investigating the requirement of the need of features unique to Tamil speech on various automatic analysis of speech like emotion recognition, speaker recognition, etc.