ABSTRACT

For those growing up in the fifties, the song from the film Manamagal

(1951) that enumerated what a good woman was became a kind of theme

song. Coming soon after the years of struggle for independence, this song

telling a woman what her patriotic duty as a woman was – nothing more

than being a ‘good’ woman – one could say, contained all the elements that

went into the making of a Tamil woman. The woman who did not fall into

the purview of the song was, of course, the bad woman. Good and bad

women, in clear black and white divides, have been the obsession of Tamil cinema in a way. Not only are their physical features different but even their

language, dress and body structures are different. The good woman embodies

all that Tamil culture stands for where women are concerned. She is chaste,

intelligent, motherly and divine. The bad woman is a coquette, a temptress

and a loudmouth who finally gets her dues. Built into these oppositional

black and white portraits are complicated symbols like the thali, turmeric,

kumkum and widow-white. That is how the basic ground plan is drawn.