'Me Too' Allegations Of Kollywood And Its Impacts On The Industry
As Mollywood is witnessing a storm with the release of the Hema Committee report and the series of sexual assault revelations, social media and other spaces are packed with debates on the working condition of women in other industries as well. When the MeToo movement hit the world in the past, Malayalam, among other industries had also witnessed several allegations, and some of them are surfacing with the current storm.
The MeToo revelations happened across industries then. This reminds us of Kollywood’s MeToo campaign and its subsequent impacts on the industry.
The year 2016 marked the awakening of the Me Too movement in India and then spread like wildfire to Kollywood. It all started with the allegation over the diamond man of the Kollywood music industry- Vairamuthu when journalist Sandhya Menon posted an anonymous tweet.
The major allegations over the national award-winning lyricist followed when the popular singer and voice artist Chinmayi Sripaada then tweeted about several instances where the lyricist had apparently misbehaved with young girls. She then went on to narrate her own ordeal with him during an event in 2006, claiming that she was asked to stay with Vairamuthu in a hotel room.
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Though Vairamuthu denied the allegation with a statement on Twitter, the issue reflected on the revelation over other big heads of the Tamil music fraternity like OS Thyagarajan, Raghu Dixit, Mandolin U Rajesh, playback singer Karthik, and several other Carnatic musicians.
Filmmaker Leena Manimekalai accused director Susi Ganesan of sexually harassing her during the shoot of Thiruttu Payale 2. Actress Amala Paul also stood by her and expressed her support. But Susi Ganesan immediately denied the allegation and called out the claims as “disgusting lies” and he also called Leena “immoral” and added that her character was flawed. The director demanded a public apology and expressed his readiness to approach the court to clean up his name. However, Leena stood by her claim and called the director’s threat a “weapon of patriarchy”.
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Veteran actor Radha Ravi was also accused of sexual misconduct by an anonymous victim. This complaint over the actor was exposed by the actress Varalakshmi Sarathkumar. This case was taken to court, where the singer Chinmayi, who was the prominent voice of the Me Too movement in Kollywood faced “Character assassination” and the case deviated by the lawyer of the actor Radha Ravi.
Popular RJ turned VJ Sriranjini, also filed her accusation over actor John Vijay and shared the incident that happened in 2014. With all these happened and leading the Me Too champion in Kollywood, in November 2016, Chinmayi Sripaada was expelled from the South Indian Cine and Television Artistes and Dubbing Artistes Union without any intimation, citing non-payment of ‘subscription fees’ for the past two years. The singer was then asked to pay a random 1.5 lakhs and tender an apology letter if she was to be reinstated into the Tamil Nadu Dubbing Union.
