Lower Middle Class Has Faded Away From Malayalam Cinema

 

The impecunious central characters Ramdas and Vijayan portrayed in the hilarious comedy of 1980s – Nadodikattu achieved an iconic and cult classic status in Malayalam cinema. It’s because youth of 1980s could easily relate themselves to the unemployed penniless heroes of the movie. The pivot roles were played by Mohanlal and Sreenivasan, who were not well-established actors then. How many scripts have later been made into films where central character was poor, unemployed and helpless! Mohanlal has played numerous characters of the same trait and truly represented the youth during 1980s and 1990s when unemployment was one of the major problems prevailing in the country. But in the present times, can we even imagine the central character played by Mohanlal in Mithunam or Saikumar and Mukesh in Ramjirao speaking? Definitely not! Yes lower middle class has virtually disappeared from Malayalam scene.

 

Cinema in each era represented and reflected the social life and different factors affecting the social life, whether it was Black and White era where poverty was shown most or the era of 1980s, when movies were mostly scripted on unemployment or gulf dreams. Yes in the era of 1980s, youth dreamt to go gulf countries for jobs, whether educated or not. But since late 1990s, the whole scenario has changed. May be because economic status of middle class and lower class Keralites have improved very much and film makers are interested in digging up some interesting scripts to make movies. Can we even dare to imagine mega stars Mohanlal or Mammootty to portray similar characters they used to do in the 1980s or early 1990s. Never! When both these stars represent the major folk of Kerala, they usually rely on subjects socially reliable in the present scenario.  

 

Currently Kerala is the highest state in India in terms of per capita income and social problems of 1980s have almost disappeared. For the same reason, the common terms – unemployment and poverty have already dissolved away from Malayalam cinema. Only a few movies are made which discuss the lower financial condition of family, liabilities, sister’s marriage, family responsibilities etc, which were quite common and socially relevant subjects in the 1980s. Yes Malayalam cinema has changed with time and as situation demands. Let us see it as the positive move of economic and social life of Kerala people, whom we call Keralites.

Article Posted By : Sandhya RanilView All Articles

Poverty and unemployment are not the subjects of Malayalam cinema now

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Keywords :
malayalam cinema , social status in Malayalam cinema , cinema and social life

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