Page 123 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

108 Stephen Putnam Hughes

Figure 4.3 The Hindu, 5 April 1935.

studios were so successful that by 1940 all but a small number of Tamil
films were being made in south India. For south Indian film critics this
was a matter of regional pride, but for producers this shift meant that it
was easier for them to address their audiences with familiar settings and
local flavor. Or as one Tamil film producer explained, “A natural and cor-
rect background can be given to the films, thus ensuring the maximum
amount of direct appeal to the illiterate.” 12
As film production increased and became more rooted in south India,
there were increasing efforts to make Tamil films more Tamil, that is, to
address the linguistic and cultural specificity of a uniquely Tamil audi-
ence. This was the beginnings of a regional cultural politics that began to
complicate the nationalist mytho-politics of Tamil cinema during the

period of Civil Disobedience. On one hand the life stories of religious
heroes carried didactic messages of spiritual equality and social justice for
all classes and castes, which could easily be mapped out on to nationalist
political and social reform projects. Clear parallels were made between
Gandhi’s campaign against untouchability and harijan uplift and the
medieval wandering poet saints who used the transformational aspirations
of devotion to preach against caste hierarchy and for the emancipation of
social oppression (Kaul 1998; Kapur 2000).