ABSTRACT
The above comment on Hindi cinema is also apposite for a description of
Tamil film narratives – narratives which by assuming a masculine orienta-
tion relegate women, including the kata˜-na˜yaki (heroine), to a secondary
position.1 An overview of kata˜-na˜yaki portrayals over nearly eight decades
of Tamil cinema indicates that the female protagonist, once hailed for her feminine attributes of accam (fear), madam (tenderness), na˜nam (coyness)
and payirppu (modesty), has now been replaced with a kata˜-na˜yaki who is
indisputably distant from these qualities. There has been an obvious shift in
the way the kata˜-na˜yaki is presented. From having been the traditional, sari-
clad, docile protagonist of early Tamil cinema, representative of a ‘passive
subject’, the kata˜-na˜yaki has become a modern, scantily clad, mischievous
woman, indicative of a ‘pleasurable object’. Despite this transformation, the
secondary position assigned to the kata˜-na˜yaki continues especially with the overt emphasis on chastity or karpu, which C. S. Lakshmi describes as the
‘pet obsession of the Tamils’ (1984: 3). In fact, this attribute is used as a
device to ensure that the Tamil film kata˜-na˜yaki, whether assigned the role
of a passive subject or pleasurable object, remains entrapped within cultural
notions of womanhood constructed by the patriarchal order in Tamil
society. In this chapter, I first explain the terms ‘passive subject’ and ‘plea-
surable object’ which I use as two ends of an imaginary scale to explain the
shifting positions of the Tamil film kata˜-na˜yaki. Using this scale, I then illustrate the transformation of the kata˜-na˜yaki drawing from film exam-
ples belonging to different times. I also devote a section at the end of
the chapter to highlight films with narratives centred on kata˜-na˜yaki to
demonstrate that such films too silently engage in reinforcing dominant
patriarchal ideas.
