Before becoming CM, Vijay was known for movies that made harassment and treating women as objects seem normal.
Before Vijay became the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, he acted in the movie Villu with Nayanthara. In the movie, some scenes showed unfair treatment of women, making fun of their bodies and making people think bad things about them.
Welcome back, friends! Have you all gotten over Vishal Scorsese’s Magudam? Or have you been waking up suddenly, dreaming about driving a car (those who don’t get this joke are lucky)? Anyway, enough talk about Puratchi Thalapathy; let’s focus on the real Thalapathy now. Let’s go back to a time when Vijay made lots of not-so-good movies, confusing even his biggest fans about which one was the worst.
Long before Vijay started talking about women’s rights as a politician and before he showed women being empowered in his movie Bigil (2019), his movies—and even he himself—often helped promote the idea that women are meant to be looked at, treated as objects, or judged mainly by their appearance.
The era of blatant objectification of women
Do you remember that gross scene from the movie Sivakasi (2005) directed by Perarasu, where Vijay’s character embarrasses Asin in front of everyone for wearing a sleeveless top and shorts? He says that men touch women because they wear clothes like that outside, and he tells her how to dress “the right way,” implying that if she wears those clothes, men will only admire her. Does that make sense?
We shouldn’t ignore that pictures like this, which blame what women wear for crimes, have helped some men think it’s okay to bother women just because they think their clothes are “bad.”.
But while telling people to dress modestly, stars like Vijay also star in movies that make women seem sexy and just things to buy. Isn’t that strange?
One of his movies that shows lots of similar stories is Villu (2009), which is a remake of Abbas-Mustan’s Soldier (1998). It was directed by famous dance master Prabhu Deva, who also directed Vijay in the big hit Pokkiri (2007). Villu is a funny kind of movie that has plenty of silly moments, perfect for making a parody like Tamizh Padam.
The action comedy movie has silly lines that don’t seem to take much effort and just try to make Vijay look good by making fun of his older movies. Prabhu might have thought he was creating a funny line like “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman” when he introduced Vijay in the movie Villu with “Is he Superman or Spider-Man? He is Pokkiri Man.” He didn’t even try to include a real reference to their past movies, and the person who wrote and directed the movie still thought he could copy the story of Pokkiri, which was itself based on another movie called Mahesh Babu’s Puri Jagannadh made.
Right after that, someone asks him, “Are you Bruce Lee or Jet Li?” and Vijay-na answers, “Ghilli,” which is the name of one of his famous movies before. It looks like Prabhu wanted the movie to be full of lines from his old movies so he wouldn’t have to work hard on making new ones. But maybe someone told him he couldn’t do that.
Villu is very similar to Pokkiri. It has a brave young guy secretly helping the police, just like in Pokkiri. Prakash Raj plays a mean, rich villain who is very bad and has no good qualities. The hero fights and beats all of the villain’s helpers by himself. The heroine likes the hero for silly reasons. Vadivelu is made fun of with jokes about his body that are not funny.
Honestly, if we keep talking about it, the whole story would just be about how the two movies are alike. So, let’s move on.
In his first fight scene, Vijay stays in the air a little longer after most moves, like he has a special power. Later, it seems like a clue that Vijay will be in the air again, but people might tease him for his acting and the movie. The fight is very strange and funny, with sounds like “dishoom-dishoom” even when no one is punching.
Stalking and harassment masked as romance
Movies like Villu are one of the reasons some Indian men still don’t understand that touching someone without permission is wrong and can be considered sexual harassment, even if they say it’s because they love the person.
Look at the silly love scenes with Pugazh (Vijay) and Janavi (Nayanthara). In their first scene, Pugazh pretends he’s not awake after falling in a river, so Janavi has to help him breathe by giving mouth-to-mouth. When she finds out he’s just pretending, she gets mad at him, but he smiles and acts cute, acting like he did something special.
In another part of the story, Pugazh pretends to be sick after being “attacked by bad guys,” but then he touches Janavi without asking, pretending he can’t see well. Villu says that the best way to win a girl’s heart is to bother her many times, find ways to touch her without asking, and show off fighting skills. If that doesn’t work, he says you can also lie to her and make her believe she likes you because in love and fighting, anything goes.
In this movie, Nayanthara is shown in a way that makes her look like a thing instead of a person. Many of the camera shots focus in a strange and uncomfortable way on her chest.
Remember when Prabhu Deva and Nayanthara were really famous for being together, and she even got his name tattooed on her hand? This makes you wonder: if someone can make their girlfriend look bad in a story, how much worse would they be to other female actors?
I hope no one says, “They are both professionals and can keep their personal lives separate,” because we’re talking about how women are being unfairly sexualized and turned into products, not just about some artistic decisions.
Not only the men, but even the women in Villu treat each other like objects and focus on their looks without any reason.
How Vadivelu and Aarthi were targeted
Just like many Vijay movies from this time, Vadivelu’s funny scenes in Villu are the best parts. Vadivelu is very funny and good at making people laugh with his funny movements. But the movie also has very bad jokes that make fun of how Vadivelu looks, comparing him to a buffalo and a chimpanzee. Not only Vadivelu, but actress Aarthi is also made fun of because of her body.
Vijay and his fans might say movies like Villu are just from a different time. But these movies hurt how people in India see things, especially because movies like this helped Vijay become very popular and even become the leader of Tamil Nadu.
Next week, we will watch how a group of young people, who didn’t really care, made an old man travel many miles just because they asked him to. But then, they asked him to go back almost right away after he got there.
Memories of Blunder is a column where we talk about some of the worst South Indian movies and acting ever. We don’t mean to hurt anyone whose name is mentioned here. They might be good, but they made a big mistake in one movie. But if you’re going to listen to the song, you should be ready to hear the truth.