Recent Highlights
All Stories for Allegedlyproblematic
Revisiting Chinna Tambi: Every problematic trope in the 1991 Prabhu-Khushboo starrer
Kuzhali Manickavel • 4 years agoChinna Thambi is about a wealthy young woman who falls in love with a poor, simple young man. Is it really though?
Allegedly Problematic: 30 years later, revisiting the Prabhu-Khushbu starrer Chinna Thambi
Kuzhali Manickavel • 4 years agoI don’t know if you have ever experienced the sensation of being part of a community that is collectively falling in one-side-love with something. This is what happened between our town and the movie Chinna Thambi.
Revisiting Murder by Death: 1976 film showed how not to play race, sexuality for laughs
Kuzhali Manickavel • 5 years agoIn Murder By Death, the homophobia is served up by the character Sam Diamond, a parody of the fictional detective Sam Spade.
20 years of Minnale: How does the Madhavan-Reema-Abbas romance hold up in a more woke era?
Kuzhali Manickavel • 4 years agoMinnale, which released on 2 February 2001, seemed to be one of those progressive, liberal movies that were just a hop, skip and jump away from being an outright feminist treatise in English.
As Minnale nears its 20th anniversary, revisiting the good, bad and problematic of Gautham Menon's film
Kuzhali Manickavel • 4 years agoMinnale goes from relatively harmless, goofy rom-com to a story about dudes engaging in rather alarming behaviour.
Allegedly Problematic: The feminist analysis of Ramarajan's Paattukku Naan Adimai no one asked for
Kuzhali Manickavel • 4 years agoOne of my favourite kinds of Tamil cinema is the heavy-handed, predictable and alarmingly dramatic kind with aggressive songs, precise, staccato dishum-dishum sounds and wounds that look like smears of ketchup. Paattukku Naan Adimai was one of those movies.
Revisiting Ramarajan's 1990 film Paattukku Naan Adimai: Of village heroes and small-town favourites
Kuzhali Manickavel • 4 years agoPaattukku Naan Adimai was released in 1990 and stars Khushboo, Rekha and Disco Shanthi, which means there will be an item number. Which is awesome. Which is also probably problematic to say.
Revisiting Singaravelan: Nine thoughts on watching '90s Kamal Haasan-starrer
Kuzhali Manickavel • 4 years agoSingaravelan was released in 1992, a time when in our little corner of the world, the only options for entertainment were the non-AC cinema theatres and hanging out at the railway station. If you were a dude, I mean. If you were not a dude, lol.
Singaravelan: Was Kamal Haasan's 1992 film swashbuckling bucket of family fun, or sexist stalking saga?
Kuzhali Manickavel • 4 years agoSingaravelan was released in 1992, a time when in our little corner of the world, the only options for entertainment were the non-AC cinema theatres and hanging out at the railway station. If you were a dude, I mean. If you were not a dude, lol.
On loving problematic Tamil cinema, and where 1999's Monisha En Monalisa fits on that spectrum
Kuzhali Manickavel • 5 years agoIn this column, we'll be assessing the alleged problematic-ness of a movie called Monisha En Monalisa. Those who are familiar with the oeuvre of T Rajendran and remember this one may be saying, oh my God why in the actual everloving heck.