Ripples on the brain

I am kind of pissed-off with the way in which the Tamil Nadu state government provides concessions to the Tamil Film industry. This post is a response to the Film fraternity’s so-called thanks-giving to the Chief Minister. This seems to happen once every 5 years and every time the incumbent CM is hailed as the only saviour of the industry and a mega event is held to thank him. This becomes a very good revenue generator for the television channel that supports the ruling party.

All the problems that the industry faces are not unique to it. These are faced by other industries and movie industries of other regions as well. Piracy is not limited to this industry alone. Though they have not been 100% successful, others have found ways to overcome/limit its impact. When piracy was initially detected in the industry, different ways like not releasing the movie VCDs/video cassettes in Malaysia and other countries(as was the normal practice), making proper arrangements to avoid copy of original print before it reaches the editor’s desk (this was how video cassettes were copied before the arrival of VCDs), making original VCDs/DVDs available within a fortnight of movie release etc. were suggested to overcome the effects of piracy. Though some of the solutions (like making original DVDs available within a short period of a movie release) were not feasible without the consent of other parties like the theatre owners, the industry failed to even have a cursory look at these solutions. Right now it is not even able to incentivize the theatre owners who are part of the industry as such to stop blatant recording happening in their movie halls. It went around appealing to the public conscience and the police to avoid piracy instead of finding means to avoid making the first copy that mostly happened under its nose . Obviously once the first copy is made, there is no fool-proof way of stopping that from proliferating.

In most of the cases in the past years, it has clearly been demonstrated that well-made movies with good subjects and acting have always been hits at the box-office irrespective of the piracy problems and have benefitted everyone who has been associated with them.

The other main problem is the technicians and the lower-rung workers who deal with dangerous activies like managing explosives, stunts etc. getting hourly-pays and not even having life insurance. Now I don’t understand who is to blame for such an issue. Aren’t such workers present in every other industry? Shouldn’t the industry itself tackle such issues by restructuring the way in which the riches are distributed? Actors like Trisha, who appear as guest artistes in 3-4 songs in movies where they claim to be lead heroines, I learn, charge 1 crore for each movie, which is neither commensurate with their talent in acting/dancing (which is close to zilch), nor with the work they put in any movie (they appear for not even 10% of the whole movie). The green dhavani that appeared in Saami has continued the association with her for atleast 3 other movies. Now such actors are definitely commodities even if the characters they play are indisposable in a movie. By commodity I mean, X can very well be replaced by Y without affecting the end product. In such a case, what is the reason for most of the lead actors getting such high pay-cheques? Doesn’t this point to mis-management within the industry itself? Even if this is ignored, how will any external concession help in this scenario? Will the money that the producer makes due to concessions ever trickle to the last worker given this structure?

The concessions provided by the current government were atrocious to say the least. For getting the concession extended to movie with tamil names, Jillunu oru kadhal kathai became Sillunu oru kathal kathai, Emden magan became Em magan, Something something unakkum enakkum became unakkum enakkum. I didn’t know that the word Sillunu was more “tamil” than the word Jillunu and also that Em is a meaningful Tamil word. Obviously the current CM, who is hailed as Tamizh himself knows better. It is another story that most of these movies marketed themselves with the original names and only registered with the changed names. Apparently that didn’t affect the concessions.

Every concession provided by a Chief Minister is not from his own funds; it is from the coffers of the State Government which is the sweat and blood of honest tax payers. Transferring that money as a concession to an undeserving industry (any industry for that matter) is akin to abusing the sweat and blood of the tax-payer. Just because he/she is connected with the industry doesn’t give him/her any license to utilize public funds, which have high opportunity costs, for such lousy purposes and does not make him/her a hero irrespective of what people claim on the day of the mega event (which they conveniently change depending on who’s calling the shots).