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CinemaThe 22-minute News 18 show pretty much sums up Tamil cinema’s substantial contribution towards upholding patriarchy.Sowmya RajendranUntil a few years ago, feminist analysis of mainstream cinema was confined to academic circles. However, with the explosion of social media and more women journalists writing about cinema, the representation of women on screen and the patriarchal and misogynistic overtones in several films have been discussed with increasing acceptability. The scene is no different in Tamil cinema, which has for long projected a submissive woman as the ideal, and has constantly moral-policed women on screen. Many superstars, starting from Mgr, Rajinikanth and the current generation of Ajith and Vijay, have told women how to dress and behave, often indulging in violence to make their point. Revisiting these celebrated films from a gender perspective clearly shows how misogynistic the industry has been thus far. On a News 18 Tamil Nadu show about how women...