Spoiler Alert: Drishyam, Malayalam movie
What do you do if somebody took unauthorised naked pictures of you, and then blackmailed you with them demanding favours in return for discretion? Assume you are a teenage girl (apparently no-one wants naked pictures of guys, I wonder why). I’ll tell you what Drishyam, a popular Malayalam movie, says you should do. You should plead with the guy to please delete the pictures and save your face (oh, yes, your honour, status of your family etc. rest on how well your body is covered, in case you didn’t know). And in case no amount of pleading worked (if you are wondering why it would work when the guy had no scruples taking your unauthorised pictures in the first place, I am right there with you), and if you accidentally kill the blackmailer because you hit the guy with a hard pipe in frustration, you should most certainly bury the body, and assist your father cover up the death. At no point during these set of events should you approach the law enforcement and ask for assistance.
Oh, what is it that you say? This wasn’t the point of the story? The point of the story was the cover-up of the crime in a masterful manner by a villager with no secondary education, who had a thing for movies? The story was about how far he would go to protect his family and how ingenuous he was in doing that? Oh, I know. My point is, if that is the premise, why take such a volatile issue as your setting? Why not let him or his wife, or even his kid, accidentally murder someone in a completely different and more mundane setting? Something like an argument that got out of hand; can happen with teenagers, right? Why take this issue up and then trivialise it by focusing on the master distracter? Worse, mislead people? Well, I can hazard a guess. So, that you can create sympathetic characters who deserve to be saved; anything more mundane, and public wouldn’t be so a-okay with a cover-up, no matter how wonderful the script. However, the movie with some other setting would still have been well made and better still, it wouldn’t be so damaging (well, I do wish the movie had also shown the actual cost of killing someone and then not paying for it much in physical terms—the toll on your conscience, but that argument is for another day).
It’s just a movie, perhaps you say. It doesn’t mean anything. But, you see, if Drishyam shows anything, it is the power of the visual medium, especially films. The protagonist learns a lot by watching movies. In fact, it is because of his passion for films coupled with his ability to apply what he learnt, that he is able to get his family out of the trouble they are in. And perhaps his family is not as well versed as him in movie lore, but they have seen enough as well. What does it tell you about movies, that neither the girl nor her mother knew what is to be done when you are being blackmailed with a bunch of your naked photos? And now, we have another movie that says much the same thing. That a, if your naked pics ends up in the net, your life is over (only if you are a girl), and b, that there are no legal channels through which you can protect yourself if it is such a big deal for you. Because janamaitri police, people friendly police, is just a myth (unless, the protagonist of your movie is a male police officer).
I am not saying we have the best non-corrupt police officers in the world; police can be corrupt, I know that. Neither am I saying that in certain untenable situations, people don’t end up making mistakes and doing drastic stuff. I know they do. However, the point here is that this is a movie, not a real life situation. The movie maker had a choice. It’s okay when (s)he uses scenarios where public is fully aware and the movie is just an entertainer—like the aforementioned mundane argument, for example. In the case of such a contentious, muddy scenario though (as that of unauthorised breach of privacy and blackmail), where people in general have all these wrong ideas about stuff, it would’ve been more appropriate, more socially aware, to not have used it.
Art can imitate life. But art also needs to be aware of the fact that it influences life.
What do you do if somebody took unauthorised naked pictures of you, and then blackmailed you with them demanding favours in return for discretion? Assume you are a teenage girl (apparently no-one wants naked pictures of guys, I wonder why). I’ll tell you what Drishyam, a popular Malayalam movie, says you should do. You should plead with the guy to please delete the pictures and save your face (oh, yes, your honour, status of your family etc. rest on how well your body is covered, in case you didn’t know). And in case no amount of pleading worked (if you are wondering why it would work when the guy had no scruples taking your unauthorised pictures in the first place, I am right there with you), and if you accidentally kill the blackmailer because you hit the guy with a hard pipe in frustration, you should most certainly bury the body, and assist your father cover up the death. At no point during these set of events should you approach the law enforcement and ask for assistance.
Oh, what is it that you say? This wasn’t the point of the story? The point of the story was the cover-up of the crime in a masterful manner by a villager with no secondary education, who had a thing for movies? The story was about how far he would go to protect his family and how ingenuous he was in doing that? Oh, I know. My point is, if that is the premise, why take such a volatile issue as your setting? Why not let him or his wife, or even his kid, accidentally murder someone in a completely different and more mundane setting? Something like an argument that got out of hand; can happen with teenagers, right? Why take this issue up and then trivialise it by focusing on the master distracter? Worse, mislead people? Well, I can hazard a guess. So, that you can create sympathetic characters who deserve to be saved; anything more mundane, and public wouldn’t be so a-okay with a cover-up, no matter how wonderful the script. However, the movie with some other setting would still have been well made and better still, it wouldn’t be so damaging (well, I do wish the movie had also shown the actual cost of killing someone and then not paying for it much in physical terms—the toll on your conscience, but that argument is for another day).
It’s just a movie, perhaps you say. It doesn’t mean anything. But, you see, if Drishyam shows anything, it is the power of the visual medium, especially films. The protagonist learns a lot by watching movies. In fact, it is because of his passion for films coupled with his ability to apply what he learnt, that he is able to get his family out of the trouble they are in. And perhaps his family is not as well versed as him in movie lore, but they have seen enough as well. What does it tell you about movies, that neither the girl nor her mother knew what is to be done when you are being blackmailed with a bunch of your naked photos? And now, we have another movie that says much the same thing. That a, if your naked pics ends up in the net, your life is over (only if you are a girl), and b, that there are no legal channels through which you can protect yourself if it is such a big deal for you. Because janamaitri police, people friendly police, is just a myth (unless, the protagonist of your movie is a male police officer).
I am not saying we have the best non-corrupt police officers in the world; police can be corrupt, I know that. Neither am I saying that in certain untenable situations, people don’t end up making mistakes and doing drastic stuff. I know they do. However, the point here is that this is a movie, not a real life situation. The movie maker had a choice. It’s okay when (s)he uses scenarios where public is fully aware and the movie is just an entertainer—like the aforementioned mundane argument, for example. In the case of such a contentious, muddy scenario though (as that of unauthorised breach of privacy and blackmail), where people in general have all these wrong ideas about stuff, it would’ve been more appropriate, more socially aware, to not have used it.
Art can imitate life. But art also needs to be aware of the fact that it influences life.
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