When cinema brings drama to politics

Politics and cinema have been so interrelated in Tamil Nadu that one finds it hard to recall the last Chief Minister who hasn't penned the lyrics of a film song or danced around trees in a movie. But it isn't often that you see four faces that have haunted Tamil cinema through the nineties outshine the veterans who are competing for the top job.

Over the last week of March, Vadivelu, Khushboo, Vijay and Vijaykanth pretty much shoved Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa out of the headlines. Incidentally, the drama followed a speech the DMK patron made at the launch of a film starring Prashanth and produced, like most of the actor's others, by his father Thyagarajan.

After declaring that he was proving his commitment to cinema by launching a movie during elections, Karunanidhi said the charge that his family dominates the film industry is unfair; the film industry is his family. We're not sure whether the statement was a metaphor - two of the octogenarian's grandsons are acting in movies, while two are producing films, and his late son Muthu tried both.

Now that we've appreciated Karunanidhi's ability to take time off from the campaign trail to hang out at film sets, let's turn our attention to what the vernacular press has said about the people who've done the converse.

Text: Nandini Krishnan

Images: PTI & AFP