Superstar
The hype surrounding Rajinikanth's movie "Sivaji" is nauseating.
When I was a kid (long long ago), Rajinikanth was my favorite star. And that was true for all the kids then. Rajinikanth was the "Dirty Harry" of the Tamil movies...sometimes he was like "the gun-man with no name"...
Everything about him was "cool"...
He was stoic...he was heroic and "masculine"...he would beat-up all the bad guys...he was funny in a childlike manner...
And more than all, he certainly was stylish...there was a raw magnetism in him...may be that was because the other actors back then were kind of square
and Rajinikanth was far ahead of them...
He had it all -- gait, gesticulation, invincibility in front of bad guys...he was what a man would want to be...in other words he was the personification of all our wishes...
He was the Tamil James Bond, minus the gun, plus more girls...
So he naturally ended up as the greatest Tamil movie star.
So far, so good.
The cult following that emerged in the early 1980s has increased ever since...this is because, I think, there was a critical mass of fans who could influence the rest...and the fans of other actors did not have much to be proud of, because their idols were no match for Rajinikanth...so Rajinikanth's fan base increased.
What happened over the years was that the cause and the effect were reversed...
While the cool guys among the fans would also have been the first among Rajinikanth's fans, it became a fashion to think of oneself as cool when one
called himself or herself a Rajinikanth's fan...this started the phenomenon of people wanting to call themselves Rajinikanth's fans because "if you aren't a fan,you do not belong to the league"...If you aren't a fan, you haven't arrived there yet...
This category of "fans by force" do not even have the consciousness to understand if they really like Rajinikanth or not...Rajinikanth is certainly the opium of the modern masses...
Having said all this, am I against his movies...? No...what does it matter if people watch one movie or another...what I am concerned about is the
hype surrounding his movies...people with a herd mentality living and talking like slaves and wasting hard-earned money on a phenomenon that does not even exist in reality...I shall explain what I mean...
Rajinikanth was the personification of "being cool"...25 years ago what he did on screen absolutely gelled well with what he really looked like and did...but he has aged now...now, he is not what we see him as on his movies...he is no match for bad guys...he certainly is not
invincible...that is why he acts only once in 3 years..his political attempts are a failure...the aura is gone...as a fan I feel sorry for that...
Rajinikanth rose to demigod status because people thought his acts on screen were consistent with his real-life potential...now that all that has vaporized, he should call it a day and do a favor to his fans.
Or at-least he can act in harmony with his age and his real self. That is the least that he can do for his fans who will even die for him. That is what the Superstar who I once knew would have done. He would not have been afraid of anything, including old age.
When I was a kid (long long ago), Rajinikanth was my favorite star. And that was true for all the kids then. Rajinikanth was the "Dirty Harry" of the Tamil movies...sometimes he was like "the gun-man with no name"...
Everything about him was "cool"...
He was stoic...he was heroic and "masculine"...he would beat-up all the bad guys...he was funny in a childlike manner...
And more than all, he certainly was stylish...there was a raw magnetism in him...may be that was because the other actors back then were kind of square
and Rajinikanth was far ahead of them...
He had it all -- gait, gesticulation, invincibility in front of bad guys...he was what a man would want to be...in other words he was the personification of all our wishes...
He was the Tamil James Bond, minus the gun, plus more girls...
So he naturally ended up as the greatest Tamil movie star.
So far, so good.
The cult following that emerged in the early 1980s has increased ever since...this is because, I think, there was a critical mass of fans who could influence the rest...and the fans of other actors did not have much to be proud of, because their idols were no match for Rajinikanth...so Rajinikanth's fan base increased.
What happened over the years was that the cause and the effect were reversed...
While the cool guys among the fans would also have been the first among Rajinikanth's fans, it became a fashion to think of oneself as cool when one
called himself or herself a Rajinikanth's fan...this started the phenomenon of people wanting to call themselves Rajinikanth's fans because "if you aren't a fan,you do not belong to the league"...If you aren't a fan, you haven't arrived there yet...
This category of "fans by force" do not even have the consciousness to understand if they really like Rajinikanth or not...Rajinikanth is certainly the opium of the modern masses...
Having said all this, am I against his movies...? No...what does it matter if people watch one movie or another...what I am concerned about is the
hype surrounding his movies...people with a herd mentality living and talking like slaves and wasting hard-earned money on a phenomenon that does not even exist in reality...I shall explain what I mean...
Rajinikanth was the personification of "being cool"...25 years ago what he did on screen absolutely gelled well with what he really looked like and did...but he has aged now...now, he is not what we see him as on his movies...he is no match for bad guys...he certainly is not
invincible...that is why he acts only once in 3 years..his political attempts are a failure...the aura is gone...as a fan I feel sorry for that...
Rajinikanth rose to demigod status because people thought his acts on screen were consistent with his real-life potential...now that all that has vaporized, he should call it a day and do a favor to his fans.
Or at-least he can act in harmony with his age and his real self. That is the least that he can do for his fans who will even die for him. That is what the Superstar who I once knew would have done. He would not have been afraid of anything, including old age.