Women smoking in Tamil Cinema

The laurels and bouquets for my portrayal of a journalist in ‘Unnaipol Oruvan’ were heart-warming. Yet the compliments were always followed by either a question or a statement about my smoking in the film. Questions like ‘Did you actually smoke for the film?’ ‘Do you smoke in real life?’, ‘Were you not concerned about creating a bold on-screen image?’ were guaranteed. And the statements varied from ‘Your role was nice, especially the smoking scene with Mohanlal’ to ‘Neat performance but the smoking bit was too cool’. The audience emphatically agreed that I had portrayed the reporter’s role to the T. But what was spicier to talk about, for most of them, was the portrayal of a woman confidently smoking on-screen in Tamil Cinema.

We have seen the flawless yesteryear actor ‘Amala’ trying to stealthily give it a shot in the film ‘Agni-Natchatram’ with her gang of girl friends and the way she gets petrified of being caught by her disciplined father. But that was the 80s. The backdrop of today is Year 2010. And a lot has changed in 3 decades. Before I was taken on board for the role, there was only one question that was asked – about agreeing to smoke for the character’s requirement. Reason being a lot of women who were considered for the role were dropped because of their unwillingness to smoke on-screen. In spite of being a non-smoker, somehow I had no qualms about it and very excitedly accepted the role. I had no second thoughts whatsoever. I looked at it from the point of view of ‘Why should someone let go of such a prestigious film marking a legend’s 50th year in cinema for a petty reason as this?’ But little did I know that this was to be a big decision that most female actors hesitated to make.

Interviews during the post-release promotions in all media (press, TV, radio) would compulsorily have a question about my smoking experience in the film. And for some strange reason, the same journalist in the Telugu version named ‘Shilpa Krishna’ (as played by me again) did not smoke at all. Which is when I realized that it is not too often that we see women smoking in a state like Tamil Nadu (except at advertising agencies, few MNCs, call centers and major city pubs) and therefore quite unusual for the audience to accept a woman smoking in ‘Tamil cinema’ even in this millennium era. We still won’t be surprised to see a Priyanka Chopra (an idol for many young women in India) in ‘Fashion’ burning the stick in full style but will definitely take notice of an actor doing just that here because, as someone pointed out, women smoking is not considered as part of our culture.

Never mind men smoking. Even if there’s a ban on heroes smoking on-screen, it lasts only till it is lifted within a few months’ time. We’ve been seeing them puffing out rings as long as our memory can recall and even witnessed a more serious portrayal of addiction to drugs right from the days of Mr. Kamal Haasan in ‘Soorasamhaaram’ to Mr. Suriya in ‘Vaaranam Aayiram’. We’ve seen it all. Never have we asked if they took drugs in real life. ‘Of course not! It’s just for the character’ – is the answer we all would say in chorus and never bothered to ask if they ever hesitated to portray themselves as drug addicts. Like I said, men can do anything on-screen. And the morality of such portrayal will never be questioned. I’m definitely not a feminist but have wondered why we’ve never once raised eyebrows to any of that.

Anyway, the idea is not to debate that if men can smoke, so can women. And bring in the support of women rights activists. No, it’s not even to remotely suggest that we’re restricted in our outlook towards women in cinema. Nobody objected to or made an issue out of my portrayal as a smoker. Thank you Censor Board. And the audiences were more than appreciative of me being daring and therefore different. But the bottomline is, a woman smoking without any inhibitions or societal stigma did have an impact in the audience’s mind. They were pleasantly taken aback to see a female actor unabashedly smoking in a Tamil film.

My inference is we (including myself) are most often used to seeing women depicted as either completely pristine and pure (with exceptions to an otherwise traditionally-dressed girl in the scenes breaking into micro-mini skirts and revealing outfits for the dream songs alone) or shown as absolutely malicious and evil. With a few exceptions like a ‘Jessie’ who mirrors a true-to-life woman in ‘Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya’, the woman of today in reality is far from the way heroines are portrayed in Tamil cinema. Sugar-sweet and gullible yet bold enough to wear revealing clothes but hardly bold in spirit or courage and therefore calls for the hero to play her savior… (Phew! Getting breathless!). Today’s woman is probably closer to the character of Ms. Natasha Rajkumar (independent, decisive, confident and bold enough to flaunt her individuality).

My only point is, we’re definitely going to see more such daring/practical portrayal of women in Tamil Cinema and is not going to come as a surprise anymore. Let’s face it – Superman is passe. The time has come where Zoe Saldana, the heroine of Avatar is the one who rescues the hero in various instances and ultimately kills the villain in the final battle. From International cinema to National or Regional cinema, it is definitely going to be the era of the Super-woman, with or without warning. And it’s not going to be injurious to our health.