Popular Cinema and Politics in South India
The Films of MGR and Rajinikanth

This work breaks new ground in the understanding of South Indian cinema and politics. Through incisive analysis and original concepts it illustrates the private, public and cinematic personas of MGR and Rajinikanth. It challenges the popular and scholarly myths surrounding them and shows the constant negotiation of their on-screen and off-screen identities. The book revisits the entire political history of post-Independent Tamil Nadu through its cinema,and presents a refreshing psycho-political and cultural map of contemporary South India.

This absorbing volume will be an important read for scholars, teachers and students of film studies, culture and media studies, and politics, especially those interested in South India.

Introduction: Popular as Political. Part 1: Politics of Narrative. 1.Assemblage Structure2.Image-Building DevicesPart 2: Politics of Body 3.Imaging Male Body 4.On Being a Man’s Woman5.Psycho-Cultural Mapping of Body6. Double Bodied Migrantcy 7.Wealth of Poverty 8. Dispensation of Justice Part 3: Politics of Imaging Politics 9.Image and Imagining 10.Politically-Loaded Octa-Motifs 11. Imaging by Tactexting 12. MGR: Politics as Co-text 13. RK: Politics as Context 14. Cinelating Politiking 15. Politics beyond Politics: Trans-Image Voting. Select Bibliography.

S. Rajanayagam is Director, People Studies, Chennai; and Associate Professor, Department of Visual Communication, Loyola College, Chennai.