Rajinikanth, the superstar
Rajinikanth, the supreme hero
Rajinikanth, the people’s champ
Rajinikanth, the hero of the masses
Every one must have listened to atleast one of the above mentioned titles to the one and only superstar in tamil cinema.
I add one more title to him
Rajinikanth – the male chauvinist.
Rajini, as we commonly call him, came into tamil cinema with a bang through Balachander’s Apporva Ragangal. That movie, when released, was appreciated both by the critics and general public as a classic and it rightly deserves so. The film, which is about a old lady falling for a young guy and vice versa, was heavily based on feminist theme.
From that film, he improved his screen presence from hardly 10 minutes to the main villain in Moondru Mudichu and finally the single hero in Billa. By 1991, when Thalapathy was released, he was having a cult following.
The crowd lived the dream of Rajinikanth, a guy with average looks and dark complexion fighting against the evil Thasildars and romancing with heroins with milky white skin. Rajini kanth was performing all the suppressed longings of the common man.
Some where down the line, he must have realized that, the number of male chauvinist heavily outnumber the number of feminist. So he started living the male chauvinistic dream. More recently so than during his struggling times.
Consider his movie Mannan (1992), the most chauvinistic film I have ever seen in my life. In that movie, Vijashanti, the CEO of the No.1 company in the whole of India was made to be a house wife, as our hero is just a mechanic working in the same company.
You can see in all of his movies that he never looses a bet or a fight to a girl. Consider Pandian for example, where he wins a dance bet against the heroin.
In his movie Veera, he played a guy with two wives, and thus again playing the chauvinistic dream of having two wives.
The movie Padayappa became famous, just for the scenes between Ramya Krishnan and Rajinikanth, with the common man hurling obscenities towards Ramya Krishnan. Rightly in the climax, Ramya Krishnan gets her fitting end. The movie even has a scene where Rajnikanth preaches how a girl should be.
Chandramuki had him teasing the hapless Nayantara and Sivaji had him searching for the proper tamil girl – a girl in pavadai thavani.
Most of his movies never gave any importance to the female lead and even if equal importance is given, they were somewhere subdued in their character.
Instead of living the dream of a chauvinist, if he acts in more movies like Valli, definitely it be of big help to the gentler sex and will help them to break free of the conventions which are binding them down.
PS: Valli became a huge flop.
PS: The pic is taken from here.