Popular Media and its Artistic Privilege:

So the past week happens to be the time of experiencing varied forms of media, its proposed messages, disguised messages, alleged messages and the artistic and other privileges wielded by the respective people who helm them.

One of the many people I am writing about is obviously Prince Harry. The world watched or as in my case read his testimony in the British high court against British tabloid media. And here I am very happy to stress the word “Tabloid”. Though it might just be a tabloid, in UK it has had immense success as mainstream news givers and exploiters. Here I very much want to assure you all that I am by no means a royalist nor am a fan of prince harry. I do remember his Nazi themed costume stuff. But in this case it is very very difficult for me to not see the truth and very clearly see the harassment of the British media and of the royalists(including the royal family). What is significant about his testimony for me is - the power of the media, to manipulate, exploit, influence and ultimately change the fate of country. This is not new to the world. We have seen it happen in Nazi Germany, USA, and all the countries in the world. That is the truth of how politics works. It is a fact. These days we do not support a particular party only for its ideology and politics but also for their tech savvy, advertisement budgets, and election winning gurus.

As I was reading and thinking about British tabloids and its effects on many people and their lives, I happen to be listening some popular 90s songs in my television. These were cult classic and truly lovely songs and Franky I was using it to ride over my mother talking on her phone loudly.

And incidentally all the songs I listened were from the movies of a popular director who almost always collaborates with an even popular music director. I must admit that this combination had given some really good songs. And I mean only good songs. The movies, I am here to write about.

I saw three songs in the tv today, and it was in a music channel so I had no control over the song selection. It just happened to be those three songs. The first song was from a movie where the female protagonist is a muslim terrosist. The second song was from a movie where again the female lead was a muslim. The third song was from a movie where the male lead get kidnapped by muslim terrorists. The first and the third movies were very clear in its portrayal of muslims as terrosits but the second movie was on a whole different level. We have grammatical thing in tamil languish Called vanja pugalchi anni. This is where you insult a person in the method of praising them. The insult is very poetically disguised in flowery words. The movie made me think of this particular grammar in tamil. These movie might be 30 years old but they were all block busters.

I had also started watching a recent movie involving the same above mentioned artists two days back and I had finished only the half of it. So after seeing those songs my curiosity increased and I decided to finish seeing the movie. For some context about this recent movie of theirs it is based on a very popular book written about a very popular tamil kings of centuries ago. I have read this particular book and it has been a big favourite of mine for a long time. I know all the characters nd their trajectories throughout the book. So when the film adaptation of the book was first announced I was feeling a bit irritated. I have seen what they did to hp, the twilight saga and many many more book adaptions. But others were very excited. The casting also surprised me so much where I felt only a few characters were aptly cast and the others were not a good fit. Anyway the first part of the movie was long and slow and for me watching it was a bit difficult. But I heard that many people who did not read the book enjoyed it. So when I started watching the second part I was ready for the artistic liberties taken with the story. And I am here to say that I understand artistic privilege and accept it. But I question the form these artistic privilege has taken.

I was flabbergasted to see the storyline change so much, some major characters no where to be found, suicide glorified, mental illness trivialised , real history trampled.

I also wondered why the male royal family had to wear Janeu? I thought kings were supposed to Kshatriyas, and I am very sure that the particular royal house of India did not belong to the Janeu wearing community. So I wonder why artistic liberty was taken in this direction?

I know after reading the book that both the suicides that I saw of the ill fated lovers in the movie were not from the book. The male part of the couple was assassinated and the female part of the couple escaped and was nowhere to be found. So why was artistic liberty taken in such form of glorifying suicide as honourable end of life?

To include mental illness in a movie is always tricky and I found this to be very insensitive to say the least. And again to include a fictional illness that is nowhere to be found in a fictional book is indifference at its highest form.

And where to begin with the historical misrepresentation of the history itself?

So going back to the theme at heart, how do we common people face all these barrages of information coming our way disguised in many forms? How do we figure out what to believe? Who to believe? How much to believe ?

Or Are we all destined to get manipulated, exploited and ultimately used by people who have agendas planned years in advance? Food for thought.