Apr 26, 2006

Tamil vs Hindi cinema: 4. Good Actresses

In an industry dominated by males, the role of heroines, pretty much throughout the country, has been mostly confined to 'dancing dolls'. The actresses can be classified into 3 categories: a) Those who do only meaty/decent roles; b) those who are just glamour dolls; and c) those who do both. In the first category, one can count on Revathy, Tabu, Jaya Bachhan, Shabana Azmi, Konkana, and Aishwarya Rai; the second category has most of the new and young actresses; the third category has artists like Simran, Jo, Sneha, Meera, Kajol, Rani, Preity, Sandhya, et al.

The main problem with actresses is that they have only a limited lifetime in the cine industry.. Unlike heroes who continue to sing duets even well into their 50's, the actresses have to make hay only until their youth lasts; seldom do the fans accept married and mothered actresses. (I sincerely hope Simran and Kajol would break that trend). Due to this, what happens invariably is that there is a seggregation of sorts, based on age and experience: usually, senior actresses tend to act in meaningful roles.

As the parallel cinema doesnt almost exist in both these cine worlds, one gets just a handful of good actresses to compete in this category. A cursory look at the recent National award winners tells us that Meera and Shobhana are the ones from Kollywood (though they won the award for Non-Tamil movies).. and Tabu, Konkana and Raveena won them in Bollywood. Not much to separate one from the other, here again.. So, the actresses on both sides are not only equally beautiful, but equally good in performance as well. Score remains tied at 1-1.

19 comments:

paurna said...

ash rai only does meaty/decent roles??i am not so sure.what bout movies like humse badkar kaun directed by david dhawan.

Me too said...

India Vs Pak maadhiri poradhe unga versus(overall-a equalise pannikitte vareenga polarikku!)!!

Anonymous said...

what abt nandita das, amazing actress. she doesn't act in too many movies, but if she does, she gives good performance. have u seen vishwa thulasi, with her and mamooty, good movie, great acting.

Jinguchakka said...

What a valuable research!! :-))
Jus'kidding.
Nobody would have thought this much, beyond ogling those actresses.

Raju said...

Paurna, mostly.. Humse Badkar Kaun? A new movie? I remember Hum kisise kum nahin.. (remake of Analyze this), which had her in a hopeless role..
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Aparna, well.. score eppadi pogumnu neengaley paarunga..
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Nitin, my bad that I missed out Nandita Das.. I havent seen Viswa thulasi... Since she has acted few in Tamil as well as in Hindi, I think she cant be assigned for either side singly..
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Jinguchakka, welcome here.. I like your ID..

Research doesnt stop only at lab for me.. :-)

paurna said...

hey raju u r right.that's the movie.i got confused with the name.

Blabber-blogger said...

Beg to differ... Aish Rai and meaty role.. pls pls pls.. :((..
No way will i ever qualify her as an actress. There are certainly umpteen other names to be added in Category 2. Sadly :(

Raju said...

Paurna, I was initially wondering how I missed out an Aishwarya movie.. :-)
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Nag, oops.. dont read too much into it..
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Nyneishia, well... a look at her recent movies like Devdas, Raincoat, Chokar Bali, and Shabd told me that her roles are pretty strong.. arent they?

Blabber-blogger said...

Hand full.. but what abt the other half.. I think i will give a lot of credit to the director and the rest of the crew. She as an individual seems to have lil contribution. I find her very bland in most of the roles. Expressions and the involvement in the character not strongly coming forth.

(am i hitting against a mighty gigantic aish n only aish fan :P)

Raju said...

Nyneishia, LOL.. I know that most Indian men dont like ShahRukh.. bcos u know why.. Is there anything like that for Aish and Indian women?

As I said, her recent movies promise a lot.. IMHO, she emotes well too..

Unknown said...

meera is from kollywood?
nopes my friend, she's a malayali & was well-established in malayalam before she got into doing tamil movies.
& she got the national award for a malayalam film, 'paadam onnu: oru vilapam'.

Raju said...

Akhil, welcome here..

as I said earlier, the actresses are more universal.. so it is hard to assign them to a particular film industry.. Since Meera is acting in quite a few Tamil movies of late, I included her as among the tamil heroines. I knew well that she is more famous in malayalam..

Anonymous said...

I know this is an old post, but I wanted to add that you forgot Shobana, who has won two national awards. I believe she was in the Tamil industry as well.

Raju said...

Natyanayaki, Welcome here..

Though Shobana is a terrific actor, she was under-utilized in tamil movies, sadly. Thats why I didnt mention about her..

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the welcome!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the welcome.

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Anonymous said...

most hindi blockbusters are heroine oriented... ddlj, kkhh, hahk for example.

I think kangna ranaut(woh lamhe, metro), konkana sensharma( mr and mrs iyer, omkara, metro), urmila matondkar( kaun, ek haseena thi, pinjar, bhoot, pyaar tune kya kiya), kareena( jab we met, omkara), aish( jodha akbar, raincoat), karishma( zubeida, fiza), dimple( rudaali, lekin), priyanka( fashion, aitraaz), kajol( ddlj, kkhh, k3g), preity( armaan, kal ho na ho), rani( kkhh, black) have been a few of the performances in hindi films that I have liked...

There are many more to be listed