ABSTRACT
Kodavatiganti Kutumbarao (1909–1980), popularly known as Ko Ku, is a pioneering progressive thinker and writer in Telugu who has exercised tremendous influence on society and literature in Telugu which continues to exist even in contemporary literature, literary thought and literary criticism. Particularly, he voiced his anger against the double standards for men and women in society, family and relationships. The essay in this chapter attempts to focus on the complex relationship between art and cinema. Ko Ku’s essays on cinema are an important contribution as the critical discourse in Telugu has not really given much importance and space for film criticism. Cinema was going through major changes when he wrote this essay. Similarly, cinema in the Telugu context like it is in the Indian context has been a product of radical developments in the genre and purpose of performance. Also, it has a base of the performing women from the performing communities, performing spaces that prohibited the entry of family women as performers and spectators and the evolution of a theatre from people’s performances, designating a space and a time and a politics for it. In this context, cinema becomes an important space, activity, art form and politics that reflect the changing dynamics in society. Like the temple in the previous times which was a centre of wealth, power, politics and oppression of women in the name of religion and tradition, cinema in later times became a centre of wealth, power, politics, hegemonic oppression of women in the name of art and success.
