I needed a break from applying for internships I probably wont get, so I watched a Malayalam movie. While ultimately it was disappointing, it did have a lot of moments that needed to be thought over. So. Spoiler alert- if any of you are planning to watch and I highly doubt you will, the movie is called Akasmikam which loosely translates to- Accidental.
It starts off interesting, a couple with the woman pregnant at 40, played quite nicely by Swetha Menon. Siddique as this moshakodan husband. Non malayalees, feel free to guess what that means. And their son-a hormonal teenager. So it's basically what happens with the son. The son has a friend, another horny boy.
They attend a malayalam tuition class because you know it's not enough that you are living in the state of your origin and can speak fluently but since no one has any time to tell you epic stories, you go for tuition. There the boys meet a girl- a small thing really. Barely 14 ish, portrayed very innocent, all patu pavadai and stuff- quite annoying.
The boys go to an all boys school so they are very fascinated by women and bodies. There is a lot of porn exchange going on apparently smuggled from the respective fathers. Titled- MILF and what have you.
Jagadhy plays the father of the school and here begins my problem. Jagadhy is shown as possibly gay but it's a cutesy gay-you can tell by the kind of background tone that plays when he is flirting with the boys. I just did not feel like that was the right way to go about portraying gays. Its so misleading for so many reasons. First off usually it is never as innocent as shown because of the nature of our fucking society. There is a lot of sexual abuse that goes on unrecorded and unspoken. And the more we try to shove it under 'cutesy tones and funny gestures' the more it will remain so. Young boys will not speak up for a variety of reasons-shame, scared, being teased etc. Secondly, in a country like India and more so in a society like Kerala where there is still so much antipathy to gays, its high time you stepped up in movies and ended these bullshit scenes which is the only way we seem to want to handle gay characters. It is some kind of blindness, as though by making them unreal or funny we can heave a collective sigh of relief. Like, oh look, gay people are not soo bad, they are cute! How could cute be bad? This was my problem with that highly annoying movie- Dostana-too. Ugh.
Jagadhy of course did his part super well.
So the dramatic arc begins with the girl visiting our boy in his house. He panics because his parents are out, only grandmother home. I could totally understand his predicament even though it seemed a tad exaggerated. There is just no safe space for boys and girls to mingle and just be..normal or themselves. There is so much doubt and 'why is she coming home, eda?' kind of questions from parents that I wasn't surprised with this boys reaction at all. His father comes suddenly home with a friend to vellam adi -get drunk--and the boy decides to hide the girl in a Godrej almirah!!
His father sends him to buy soda so he can adichu fit aval in the afternoon hours. :/ When the boy returns he finds that he has lost the key to the almirah. And blah blah panic, fear etc.
What is amazing is at no point does the boy think-let me tell my parents. Instead he turns to his equally dim witted friend and together they hatch stupid plans. This is the reality that the movie showcases really well but tapers off in the end when all is well. Good ol grandma had seen the hiding and had let the girl out. All the panic was for nothing. Grandma has bad memory so she forgot to give almirah keys back and then it is all all laughter and walking through green fields where there is sufficient peace of mind apparently. But where the movie fails is in the end it doesn't address even for a second the most important q that begs to be asked. Shouldn't the parents have asked: Dude, why the fuck didn't you come to us, man? Or in other terms.
but they are all like: haha, you are such a silly boy.
And I thought: huh? Someone ask him what the hell he would have done had the girl died in there? But nope.It was such a clear stepping back from accountability and responsibility and how parents had failed and it's like the pink elephant in the room! Or the fact that why did he have to hide her in the first place? Why couldn't he have been like, oh hey, this is my house, come sit, have some chaya. Why did he panic about his parents finding a girl in the living room.
Why why.
Sigh.
Disappointing.
It starts off interesting, a couple with the woman pregnant at 40, played quite nicely by Swetha Menon. Siddique as this moshakodan husband. Non malayalees, feel free to guess what that means. And their son-a hormonal teenager. So it's basically what happens with the son. The son has a friend, another horny boy.
They attend a malayalam tuition class because you know it's not enough that you are living in the state of your origin and can speak fluently but since no one has any time to tell you epic stories, you go for tuition. There the boys meet a girl- a small thing really. Barely 14 ish, portrayed very innocent, all patu pavadai and stuff- quite annoying.
The boys go to an all boys school so they are very fascinated by women and bodies. There is a lot of porn exchange going on apparently smuggled from the respective fathers. Titled- MILF and what have you.
Jagadhy plays the father of the school and here begins my problem. Jagadhy is shown as possibly gay but it's a cutesy gay-you can tell by the kind of background tone that plays when he is flirting with the boys. I just did not feel like that was the right way to go about portraying gays. Its so misleading for so many reasons. First off usually it is never as innocent as shown because of the nature of our fucking society. There is a lot of sexual abuse that goes on unrecorded and unspoken. And the more we try to shove it under 'cutesy tones and funny gestures' the more it will remain so. Young boys will not speak up for a variety of reasons-shame, scared, being teased etc. Secondly, in a country like India and more so in a society like Kerala where there is still so much antipathy to gays, its high time you stepped up in movies and ended these bullshit scenes which is the only way we seem to want to handle gay characters. It is some kind of blindness, as though by making them unreal or funny we can heave a collective sigh of relief. Like, oh look, gay people are not soo bad, they are cute! How could cute be bad? This was my problem with that highly annoying movie- Dostana-too. Ugh.
Jagadhy of course did his part super well.
So the dramatic arc begins with the girl visiting our boy in his house. He panics because his parents are out, only grandmother home. I could totally understand his predicament even though it seemed a tad exaggerated. There is just no safe space for boys and girls to mingle and just be..normal or themselves. There is so much doubt and 'why is she coming home, eda?' kind of questions from parents that I wasn't surprised with this boys reaction at all. His father comes suddenly home with a friend to vellam adi -get drunk--and the boy decides to hide the girl in a Godrej almirah!!
His father sends him to buy soda so he can adichu fit aval in the afternoon hours. :/ When the boy returns he finds that he has lost the key to the almirah. And blah blah panic, fear etc.
What is amazing is at no point does the boy think-let me tell my parents. Instead he turns to his equally dim witted friend and together they hatch stupid plans. This is the reality that the movie showcases really well but tapers off in the end when all is well. Good ol grandma had seen the hiding and had let the girl out. All the panic was for nothing. Grandma has bad memory so she forgot to give almirah keys back and then it is all all laughter and walking through green fields where there is sufficient peace of mind apparently. But where the movie fails is in the end it doesn't address even for a second the most important q that begs to be asked. Shouldn't the parents have asked: Dude, why the fuck didn't you come to us, man? Or in other terms.
but they are all like: haha, you are such a silly boy.
And I thought: huh? Someone ask him what the hell he would have done had the girl died in there? But nope.It was such a clear stepping back from accountability and responsibility and how parents had failed and it's like the pink elephant in the room! Or the fact that why did he have to hide her in the first place? Why couldn't he have been like, oh hey, this is my house, come sit, have some chaya. Why did he panic about his parents finding a girl in the living room.
Why why.
Sigh.
Disappointing.
2 comments:
True. I saw the movie last week, and felt pretty much the same thing. Jagathy I thought was more of a pedophile than gay - at least from the way he portrayed (we had a similar headmaster).
I thought Siddique portrayed the moshakodan husband/father well, though i couldnt grasp his sudden change of mind at the end.
Could have been a much better movie had.
If pedophile was what they intended, then oh lord! That's a zillion times worse kind of characterization! Yeah in the end, it was all, and on they walked to the bright sunset :/ Jagadhy also redeemed with a stupid message. Kashtam!
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