This street in Chennai has a way with things. Unmarked mobile phones and pirated DVDs of all new Tamil films surface with astonishing regularity. However, uncharacteristically, the shops here drew a blank when enquired about the Tamil version of the much talked about film, “Quick Gun Murugan”. Not wanting to let go the opportunity, an enthusiastic shop owner offered to discuss “Vedigundu (Bomb) Murugesan” another recently released Tamil film in its place.
Far apart
Barring the three and a half things in common, these two films – “Quick Gun Murgan” and “Vedigundu Murgesan”, are as ‘far apart as nuclear physics and voodoo.’ If we cross the common Murugan name they share, the prefixes that evoke an arsenal and the similar character naming styles such as Rice Plate Reddy and Low Sugar Ganesan, they are worlds apart. Even the additional half a thing in common - the earlier one is an English- Tamil film (also dubbed in Tamil) and the later a Tamil film – does not get them any closer.
Despite the un-connectedness, the sheer act of putting the names together out of ignorance is probably the most revealing moment that offers an insight to the Tamil audiences’ perception to the film Quick Gun Murugan.
Like any spoof film, Quick Gun Murugan represents ‘the dramatic and weighty as silly and absurd,’ and parodies Tamil films and popular culture. In brief, it is about the adventures faced by the thin moustached, lipstick smacked, more than middle aged protagonist Quick Gun Murugan who wears the pink and green western outfit with guns in sling. He protects the cows and saves the country from the villain who wants to convert all vegetarian restaurants into non-vegetarian. In order to enjoy this film, as Roland Barthes would remind us about wrestling, audiences abandon themselves to the film’s primary virtue – its wackiness and do not think that there are serious questions to ask about its motives and consequences. As a result, even if they do not find it as a rip roaring comedy, the half bag full of ticklers it offers is enjoyed.
However, in spite of not wanting to probe the film, one question lingers in many - why this movie that unsparingly parodies the revered Tamil heroes and popular culture has gone without a protest? It is more puzzling when viewed against the typical understanding that the Tamil film going public is irrationally sentimental and even a slight provocation would be fiercely opposed.
It is true that parody and spoof are not new to the Tamil audience. They have enjoyed comedians mock all the leading stars including Rajinikanth and ‘wacky films’ such as ‘Imsai Arasan’ have been well received. The indifference displayed is borne more out of disconnect than familiarity.
While the other well known comical caricatures in films such as Mr. Bean and Austin Powers who rely on haplessness and shamelessness respectively, Quick Gun Murugan has less to do with clowning or self mockery, instead relying excessively on obsessive and unchanging stereotypes about South Indians dished for and made familiar to Hindi film audience.
Spoof works successfully by keeping the original it makes fun of in sight. The western genre is possibly the least ingrained and almost forgotten in Tamil films. Including Jaishankar who had acted in most of the western Tamil films, there are no enduring images to parody. What is parodied is also suspicious.
Cuts no ice
In the southern land of Thalapakati and Hyderabad Briyanis, even with wackiness as its licence and fun as purpose, the movie’s moralising attitude in favour of vegetarianism can never cut ice and is bound to be viewed as an upper caste obsession. Dialogues in the film that spoof scriptures only confirm that Quick Gun Murugan’s fight with non-vegetarianism has not moved much further from the Hindi comedian Mehood’s genre of stereotyping south Indians as a brahminical, vegetarian obsessed and English speaking tribe.
The dress of Quick Gun Murguan, which is the first and fundamental indication of both the anachronism and fun the film intends to provoke, is yet another archaic trope. This image and its provocation has more to do with the much celebrated Mel Brooks spoof film Blazing Saddles (1974) than all Tamil films put together.
The protagonist in the Blazing Saddles appears in a sheriff’s costume that is meticulously designed with the Gucci designer label name written big and bold across the bag he carries. The audience laughs at the incongruity of the costume by relating it to the purpose of his trip and his African American origin. “Quick Gun Murugan” takes this idea of the incongruous attire literally and converts it into a wacky pink and green outfit that stereotypes the Tamil or by extension South Indian films’ ‘dubious dress sense’. The idea cannot get anymore dated.
“Quick Gun Murugan” draws from an assorted set of archives including TV commercials, Hindi movies and Hollywood films such as Austin Powers’s series. The most visible of them are its references to the Blazing Saddle. Both the films deploy politically incorrect jokes, the use of Yiddish with English in Blazing Saddles and Tamil-English in QGM, literal references to cows and cowboys, the connection between seductress Lili Von Shtupp and Mango Dolly and the crazy Mongo and Dr. Django cannot be missed. The film connects with those who are familiar with such archives and are willing to buy in the stereotypes.
Here is the link to watch the movie online.Just copy paste the link below.http://www.iplcricket4u.com/watch_video.php?num=5&id=3247
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