The Tamil movie industry has an almost never ending list of movies that romanticize the social evil of stalking. They portray stalking as a noble means to conquer love. Often the hero in the movie goes after a disinterested heroine and by repeatedly stalking her, he convinces her that 'his love for her' is greater than anything else in the world.
Now, when the whole world is treating stalking as a social menace that has to be checked, here we have movies that openly portray stalking as a glorious act of our heroes and wooing the woman as their ultimate objective of life. The justification that movies are based on reality cannot be universally accepted. If they were honestly portraying stalking as a social reality, they won't be showing it as a trait of the protagonist of the movie, they would rather be showing stalking as a dangerous behavior stemming from psychological delusion and obsession. But we know where they stand.
If stalking is a crime and stalkers are criminals then what about those who are promoting stalking? Are they not equally culpable?
Movies have been influencing youth. It is a proven fact. People try to imitate their stars, copy their style and mannerisms. And they psychologically draw parallels between characters and stories shown in the movies to their own selves and occurrences in their lives. Youngsters, in their adolescent years, tend to get easily carried away by what's shown in the movies.
So, movies that are based on love, predominantly are made targeting the youth audience as it's during the adolescent years attraction for the opposite sex is in its exploratory state. Incidentally, the content of love immediately appeals to them. And the movies with some rare exceptions can be the most misleading source of information to learn lessons of life from.
Most of the movies don't endorse rational views on love, rather they paint fatal attraction, obsession, and stalking as love. One may realize this, as the individual grows older and develops a candid vision free from fantasies and obsessions. But the problem is, by then, perceptions influenced by the movies, which may include larger than life portrayal of characters, a dreamy life filled with fantasies, and deceptive and dastardly ways to achieve them, would have done enough damage to an individual and through the individual many others. The worst part is, when young viewers are fascinated by their movie stars, they start blindly imitating characters enacted by their stars in their own real life. A number of such film stars are a bad influence, whom the society should not only abandon, but also seek the course of law to punish.
We have a number of celebrity on-screen stalkers. Dhanush and Simbu, in the recent times, have proven themselves to be notoriously famous for this. And the latest one to steal the limelight with stalking is Sivakarthikeyan with his current movie Remo. Saner sections of the media are already criticizing the role of the hero and have started questioning how the movie can hail stalking, in spite of the recent cold-blooded murders carried out by stalkers obsessed in love.
For the film stars, directors, producers and the entire movie crew, movie making is a profession and a form of business. When they want to make money by selling a commodity to the society should they not think if it would influence the society wrongly? Even film distributors and theater operators have never stalled a movie owing to this reason. Together they are all responsible for creating stalkers and gullible victims. Their unrequited love for earning a name, fame, and wealth has been killing the life of many vulnerable youths. They just deserve to be tried in the courts for influencing crime in the society, for misleading people and for indulging in unethical business practice. And we, for our part, should raise serious objections to such movies and start boycotting them.
Also read: Sivakarthikeyan's Remo to Dhanush's Kolaveri Di: When will Tamil cinema bid goodbye to misogyny?