What is common between The Great Indian Kitchen, Ullozhukku, Kaathal -The Core and Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey?
Of course, they are all Malayalam films.
All these films were critically acclaimed.
They became OTT hits.
These films didn’t become hits because of the star value.
Beyond that, these were films that had progressive feminist themes and portrayed a liberal face of Malayalam cinema in general and Kerala in particular.
For those who came to know more about Kerala and its social milieu from such Malayalam films, particularly during lockdown which they caught on different OTT platforms, Kerala was the ideal country. Generally neat and clean, beautiful, less polluted with nature in its bountiful best. And being a state to achieve 100% literacy first in the country many decades ago, the general impression about its people is of a different level than other states. Not to mention of the Mallus who are torch-bearers of their “Naadu” in not just other parts of the country but all over the world. And lastly, the impression is also of its people being extremely broad-minded and not so patriarchal as in other societies.
Irony therefore drowned itself in the backwaters of Kerala when sexual abuse allegations of a big scale rocked the Malayalam film industry in the past few weeks. The trigger was the now famous Justice Hema Committee report that exposed the dirty underbelly of the industry. Irony further got sucked under the ullozhukku (under current) of the Kerala seas when the announcement of a Malayalam film Aattam winning the National Award for the Best Feature Film came in just amidst all this #Metoo noise. Why am I saying this? The film is about a solitary female actor in a Malayalam drama troupe getting sexually abused by one of her colleagues during a post-show party. Malayalam films are renowned for their realism. Aattam in that sense was only reflecting the reality of the Malayalam film industry. Just that the scale in the film was conservative compared to the real world.
Incidentally, it is only for the outside world that the Hema committee findings came in as a huge surprise. For those following Kerala and its film industry, the rumblings around women getting exploited started around the year 2017 when actor Dileep, one of the biggest stars of Malayalam cinema got arrested in the case of abducting a co-actress, Bhavna. He was accused of a criminal conspiracy of arranging goons to kidnap Bhavna and sexually assault her. His arrest kicked off a chatter about how big power groups in Malayalam cinema were having a stranglehold on the industry. While Dileep’s case is going through the usual dragging judicial process still, the only silver lining was the formation of WCC (Women in Cinema Collective) – a body formed with a mission of building a safe, non-discriminatory and professional workspace for women in cinema.
It was due to WCC’s push that the Government set up the Justice Hema Committee to look into the issues faced by women involved with Malayalam cinema. When the Government cannot commit, it committees. This committee mind you, was set up in June 2017. So far, so good. The committee went about its job meeting a cross-section of people and stakeholders from the industry and presented its report at the end of Dec 2019. So far, so much better.
From here on, however, the saga of ironies continues.
Irony got buried in God’s Own Country this time when the Kerala Government did not make the report public nor took any action based on the report’s takeaways. With the intervention from the Court, the government finally released parts of the report in August after which it has kicked off a huge storm not just in Kerala but, all over.
Irony further got hit by the Nipah virus when after all the brouhaha the report didn’t reveal any specific names but talked about the existence of an all-male power group of about 15 people that comprised actors, directors and producers in the Malayalam industry.
In Kerala, the umbrella body comprising actors is called AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Actors) a word denoting “Mother”. This association never stood up for its women members during these years of repeated allegations against its male members. Though it expelled actor Dileep post the abduction case, in the aftermath of the Hema Committee report, how did its office bearers respond? The 17-member executive committee of AMMA stepped down owning moral responsibility. Allegations of sexual misconduct against leading film personalities many of whom have been associated with the organisation. Shouldn’t they have shown some spine like the male leads in some of the Malayalam films, investigate and take it to its logical conclusion? Irony just got stuck in Kerala’s monsoon deluge.
Except for a few media outlets like the news portal – The News Minute, the national media never gave much credence to what was happening in Dileep’s case or its fallout till the Hema Committee report was released. Irony just passed out!
The result – the veneer of a progressive state and its people has lost its sheen. The image of the Left government that rules the state has indeed taken a severe beating. It is believed that the government sat on the report for almost 5 years as it had names of people associated with its party. One of its MLA, Actor Mukesh has been accused of rape charges while his Ex-wife Saritha has talked about how he subjected her to marital abuse for many years.
Despite all these ironies, there have been a few upsides. The report despite its partial reveal has hit home. It has brought the issue under sharp focus once again. Several popular names have come out of the closet. New cases against some famous actors have been registered. Members of the film industry in other southern states have taken a leaf from Kerala and now are raising a stink. For years, there have been murmurs of similar going Ons in the Tamil and Telugu film industries. To conclude that sexual harassment happens only in the Kerala film industry would be to wake up and smell the wrong coffee.
The Malayalam film industry has faced a strong Ullozhukku (Undercurrent). It is important that the industry lives up to its onscreen reputation of being a torchbearer of feminism and everything liberal. This demands a complete clean-up and not a whitewash.
Image courtesy: The NewsMinute
