Apr 22, 2006

Tamil vs Hindi Cinema: 3. Beautiful Actresses

There was a time in Hindi cinema that all the dream-girls were from South - Rekha, Jayapradha and Sridevi. After their retirement, the likes of Madhuri, Juhi, Kajol, et al. took over. In Tamil, it was quite the opposite.. until recently, most heroines were from the South India - Ambika, Radha, Revathi, Gauthami, Soundarya, Meena, Rambha, and Devyani. No one ruled Tamil cinema as much as Simran and Jyothika did.. and they both are Punjabis.. So, unlike in case of heroes who usually dont break language barriers towards complete shift, the heroines tend to act in more languages. It would be more suitable to call Sim, Jo, Sonia, and Namitha as Tamil heroines, simply bcos they act most in Tamil.

Currently, the heroines most-in-demand in Hindi are Preity, Rani, Kareena, Priyanka, Bipasha and Mallika. In Tamil, they are Jo, Asin, Nayan, and Trisha. Right now, my heartthrob is Katrina Kaif, whose first film, I think, was 'Malleswari' in Telugu and now she has a handful of movies in Hindi. Aishwarya Rai, arguably the most beautiful Indian celebrity of recent times, was introduced first in Tamil. Hindi has heroines from Punjab, Bengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra, whereas Tamil gets its heroines from pretty much all Indian states. Analyzing all these factors, kootti kazhichu parkkumbodhu, right now, the scenario in both sides is similar. So, I would say that both sides have some equally good-looking actresses and some so-so ones too.. The score still is tied at 1-1.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Raju, u forgot shreya in ur list. Katrina Kaif is really sexy, but not a good actress. See any movies recently? saw thirutu payale, it was different, and i liked that. waitin to see chithiram pesuthadi.

Anonymous said...

GP,
the front benchers will be very happy to see the criteria you use for the comparison!!

Raju said...

Nag, mm.. I remember you telling me this...
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Veda, yeah. true.. When I can think of Captain, Vijay, and Surya as the heroes who acted in only tamil movies, I cant think of a single heroine who stuck to tamil... truely cosmo.. :-)
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Nitin, forgot Shreya.. my bad.. Katrina is slowly improving on the acting front.. Due to the busy time of late, I havent seen any tamil movie.. Saw 'Humko Deewana kar gaye', for Katrina.. :-) New Year tamil releases sound interesting.. I need to wait till weekend.. Chithiram pesudhadi is a good movie.. see it soon..
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Ttm, well.. similar to the way I compared the handsomeness of the heroes, I choose looks as the factor for heroines too... Performance will form another post soon..

Raju said...

Nag, LOL.. after 'captain Prabhakaran', he acted in a few such movies, which were dubbed into Telugu..

I think Ghajini was dubbed into Telugu, wasnt it? May be it was named Ghajiniudu or something? ;-)

Marutham said...

Tag Gnabagam irukka?? Padam Pakka than Neram irukku pola :P Cool post on Do's and Dont's

tt_giant said...

I guess Simran, on accont of staying in the field for a long time, probably thought, "well.. what is this thing called ACTING.. lets try it out!". Though she turned out to be a late bloomer, her peak was in Kannathil...

Geeta indha post padikka maataanga ndra dhairiyama?? enzoy!

Mathapadi, indhi fleem laam paakaradhu illa.

Raju said...

Marutham, my 'tag policy' wont allow me to answer your tag for atleast 5-6 posts.. Sorry.. I dont like to leave any tag unanswered.. so I will.. plz do wait..
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Deepak, mmm.. I thought Simran showed her acting prowess in 'Vaali', early in her career.. So, I cant say that she was a late bloomer..I agree with you that it peaked in KM.. I hope she makes a comeback as a mainstream heroine.. I am ready to watch her movies.. Tamil cinema rasigargal eppadiyo?

Anonymous said...

Simran was awesome in Vaali. She and Agit got my respect from that movie.

i think it's hard to compare North and South heroines. South heroines sometimes seem like north indian rejects...(ok that's a bit harsh but it can be true when u compare tot he numerous bollywood movies.)
I can't speak a word of hindi but I have watched a few movies and I live with a Guju girl who can't stand to watch south indian movies esp. tamil cuz the ppl look too ordinary or ugly for her. everyday it's a comparison of north and south. I hate hindi movies cuz their productions always seem stolen from other movie industires and the girls are plastic. One of the things I can be proud of it that i can't think of a Tamil actress u got a boob job (that's be wierd).

Raju said...

Anon, mm.. I can understand.. I agree with you on Simran.. She was great in Vaali.

I am very sceptical of showing movies of Cheran, Rajkiran or Bhagyaraj to my northie friends bcos they dont, in appearance, belong to the 'hero' tag.. This is reflected in hindi movies as well.. Though a few movies are made with heroes who are not handsome (like Rajpal Yadav), they dont succeed. Unfortunate..

Anonymous said...

Hi, I am Vijay.

Anybody cn act in any movie, provided they know the language, or they promise that they will learn it within 2-3 years.

Simran and Jothika are fine, because they can understand Tamil. Raghu Mukherjee had also acted in Kannada Movie, and it is fine because he can speak fluent Kannada (Same is the case with Sindhu Menon and Chaya Singh). But what are people like Bhumika Chawla and Shreya doing? Bhumika can neither speak Tamil nor Telugu (even after acting for such a long time). Shreya claims to speak Telugu, but she cant speak Tamil.
Isnt it disgusting?

Sharis said...

Comparing South to North is comparing Dravidian to Aryan. Purity differs from Diversity and the representative analysis of South-North with Heroines is awful