[WeestDype]

Originally Posted by equanimus Do those filmmakers intend to make a film that is, say, pro-casteist or anti-feminist? Are they consciously trying to make it that way? No, it's what we see in them.

I think this takes the beholder thing too far. Most of the times it is what it is. adhuvE illainreengaLA.

Take anti-feminism a popular trend - or even fetish - in our films.
Do they intend to make an anti-feminist scene. Sure as hell they do. They don't think it is something to be queasy about. We react because we see it through our prism, granted but that does not take away that the creator "wanted" to have his hero cut a woman down to size. It didn't happen incidentally. Nor does there seem to be alternative ways of reading it. It is what it is, PR, but still I am the one who is seeing it. The artist's consciousness is only incidental. Even with some of most literally constructed anti-feminist films, the maker might not have consciously thought of it to be so. What is literal to me is not literal to the maker. It could just be a reflection of his repressed sexuality. Or just a fetish of sorts. Obviously there's no clear line of difference. (What is consciousness anyway?) That's the equivalence I'm drawing between the unconscious layers in the creative process of bad films and good films.

And I didn't mean only the "literally constructed" anti-whatever films when I say mainstream films. What about the films in which the filmmaker doesn't consciously frame anything of that sort and is actually trying to make a sensitive film and all? There the consciousness is even more conflicting. Cheran's films for example. Are his films consciously chauvinist? (Let's just say I tell him that they are. What would be his reaction?) Probably not. Do I care? Hell, no. Some films just don't cut it for whatever reasons. Why? Is it because the filmmaker wants it to be so? No. Surely, Cheran wants his films to be sensitive? But to the viewer (that is, me), it makes no difference.