MALAISE AFFLICTING TAMIL CINEMA

A strange disease seems to be afflicting Tamil cinema. I don't know if the other Indian movies are affected similarly, due to my obvious lack of knowledge. However I've seen this unhealthy trend for a long period of time and here are my two cents about it. Tamilnadu is the land which has supposedly welcomed the dark hero
Rajnikanth and made him world famous. Rajnikanth is a cult figure here.

In every other movie of his, Rajnikanth harps on his dark skin and says what a great gift it has been , thanking his mother, his country and thanking the Tamil people for accepting him. However all his heroines, and I say all (dispute me if you can) are fair skinned and most likely brought down from Mumbai. They do not know Tamil (obviously) and are pretty bad at lip sync. This is not only restricted to Rajnikanth. Almost all other tamil heroes are dark, but they prance around with fair heroines brought down from the south of Vindhyas. It seems the idea of a dark skinned heroine is anathema to them though most of them encounter dark skinned women all their life. They probably think that their mothers and sisters are ugly too. I don't know. They are dark skinned, they talk at length about the superiority of dark skin and all that crap, but they will act only with fair skinned heroines. This obvious hypocrisy is baffling.

This can be seen particularly in that big blockbuster joke of a movie called Shivaji with Rajni at the lead. In the movie Rajni tries a lot to become fair by dabbing fairness creams, but ultimately his lady love (the fair skinned Shriya) tells him that she likes him just the way he is. It seems this reflects the mentality of Tamil youth (atleast the B and C class moviegoers). They need the constant reaffirmation from fair skinned ladies that they are good looking however dark they maybe. This reflects a deep seated insecurity and self hate seen in Tamil men.
They obviously are not proud of their color whatever dialogues they might mouth in movies targetting the same insecure Tamil youth. And sadly people like Rajnikanth are proprogating this insecurity and self hate unconsciously. Or maybe they have been in the field for so long that they have internalized these values and don't see the obvious hypocrisy involved. I really don't know. This guy is no superstar. He is just super insecure. Pretty pathetic that there are no dark skinned Tamil heroines though 80% of the population here is dark skinned. What message are we sending our girls through these movies? That somehow being fair is superior and beautiful?

These kind of movies are also partly the reason why fairness creams are the highest selling beauty products in our country. These companies tell people (especially girls) that their natural skin color is somehow degrading and ugly and not good enough to be deemed beautiful, and earn millions in the process!! Shame on us Tamilians!