'Allegedly Problematic' is a monthly column by Kuzhali Manickavel, which takes a cheeky look at literary/cultural offerings from the past that would now be considered, well, problematic — and asks, 'But are they really?'.
Read more from the series here.
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Hello problematic fam! So I have just finished watching Chinna Thambi. And here’s the thing — if you don’t think about it too much, it’s easy to classify this movie as ‘I enjoyed pah.’ That’s what you’re supposed to do with movies like this — you enjoy pah and then you get on with the rest of your life. This is not a movie you’re supposed to ponder. Because if you do, you realise that Chinna Thambi is a really, really, wtf movie. It’s a movie that makes you say ‘haha wait, what?’ so many times you guys like I’m not even kidding.
Chinna Thambi is about a wealthy young woman who falls in love with a poor, simple young man. Is it really though? No it is not. Chinna Thambi is supposed to be a guy who ‘just takes a bit of time to understand things’. In this particular movie, that means he has the mental capacity of a five-year-old. Chinna Thambi does not walk — he puts his arms out and runs while saying ‘vroom vroom’. His mom feeds him. He does not know how to put a bed sheet on a bed. Chinna Thambi does not know what a thaali aka marriage necklace is or what it’s for. When the heroine tells him that tying it around her neck will stop her brothers from beating him up, he believes her. Obviously this seems like the right kind of dude to be a love interest, no? Yes.
Now let’s take a look at the heroine. Nandhini has spent her life locked up in her house because her brothers are scared she might marry the man of her choice. They love her so much they have become full-on psychotic criminals. Enter Chinna Thambi who is not a threat because he is
essentially a five-year-old. And who would want to marry a five-year-old, right? Right? One day, Chinna Thambi puts pottu for Nandhini and a variety of inappropriate feelings begin to course through her. That’s right. Even though she interacts with him like he is a child, even though she watches him go vroom vroom, she decides that this is a cool guy to marry. And so, she tricks him into tying thaali for her. Let’s remind ourselves that this dude does not know what any of this means.
Later, she brings him into a room, closes the door and makes Chinna Thambi and me feel so uncomfortable that he runs away. She yells at him in public, saying bro we are married! I need you to understand this before I get my brothers to understand this! Chinna Thambi runs away again because he literally has no idea what is going on. When he is called back to Nandhini’s house, he sings a song about breaking peacock’s legs or something? Idk. Anyway, Nandhini is so moved by this that she screams his name, grabs him and starts kissing his face. Non-consensually. Kissing a dude who is basically a child. Chinna Thambi pushes her to the ground and runs away again. Then, when it looks like Chinna Thambi has left her and the village, she destroys her room, walks on broken glass, sings and dies? I think? Anyway, Chinna Thambi sings her back to life. And then I
guess they get married. Which is great.
And that’s all the wtf stuff that happens in this movie, yes? No! There’s also the rather alarming behaviour of Nandhini’s three brothers, who have such deep dude feelings that it drives them all bananas. There’s Chinna Thambi’s mom who tricks him into seeing a girl for a marriage proposal and then, when he asks what marriage is, she says ‘When you get married, you will understand what marriage is.” And of course there are the brothers who kidnap Chinna Thambi’s mom, tie her to a post and since she is a widow, they torture her by throwing coloured water on her, putting flowers in her hair and a pottu on her forehead. Luckily, in the process of doing fight scene, Chinna Thambi manages to splash his mother with water, thus restoring her former pristine state and he doesn’t even use detergent or anything.
Anyway. All that aside. Is it gross to trick a developmentally challenged dude into marriage? Obviously no, because it doesn’t matter when it’s a dude. Is it gross to trick a developmentally challenged young woman into marriage? Absolutely omg I can’t believe you even had to ask. Fam, how can this be a love story between wealthy young woman and poor young man when the young man is basically a child who goes around saying vroom vroom? Am I the only one who thinks this is super-gross?
Who cares! Let’s end this here, shall we? Join us next time for another column, similar to this one! Bai!
Kuzhali Manickavel is the author of the short story collections 'Insects Are Just like You and Me except Some of Them Have Wings' and 'Things We Found During the Autopsy', both available from Blaft Publications
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