Bending gender roles, exploring sexuality: How Tamil web series are changing norms

From reversal of gender roles to gay love, here's a detailed look at how Tamil web series are challenging mainstream norms set by cinema.

Delve Entertainment

A couple living together discuss their dinner making plans - odd days of the week for the man and even days for the woman, with the guy complaining that he has to make dinner more number of times than her.

The woman is an aspirational writer who isn’t looking for a long-term relationship while the man is a wedding photographer who thinks that their relationship would one day lead to marriage. She isn’t a stickler for cleanliness; we’re shown dirty towels on the bathroom floor and she’s often running around the house trying to find her misplaced items; she’s even shown licking Nutella straight from the jar, character traits that are often reserved for men.

Later in an episode, there’s a situation when it’s her turn to cook and she’s supposed to make a dish she’d promised him but doesn’t do it because she gets busy. The fridge is almost empty and he hasn’t eaten all day.

If this were a television soap, the background music would’ve started building up the tension and a full-blown argument would have ensued. And in cinema too, a situation like this would not have played out too differently.

But here, the woman comes back to her partner and tells him happily about the show she was at and then proceeds to make bread upma for the two of them instead of the chicken delicacy that was promised. There’s no fight.

This episode is from Put Chutney’s Livin’, a 12-episode web series that came out in 2017. The show isn’t without its flaws but there’s a clear departure from conventional gender roles in series such as these.

Livin'

Tamil web series are at a promising stage where a myriad shows ranging from real-life inspired stories to comedies are being made. The entry of Indian OTT players like Zee5 Tamil and Viu have opened up a big canvas for storytellers and directors.

In the spectrum of entertainment, web content falls between television and cinema, bridging the gap between the two.

Exploring sexuality

Consider Kallachiruppu, available for streaming on the Zee5 app, directed by debutant Rohit Nandakumar aka Roju who also appears on this show produced by Karthik Subbaraj’s Stone Bench. The show, which was conceived in 2016, made in 2017 and released in 2018, has an interesting premise with an unconventional female protagonist.

Mahati, played by Amrutha Srinivasan, is an angry young woman who lives in a forced marriage that was arranged by her parents. Her husband, a gay man, hides his identity from Mahati and the two have their own reasons to end the marriage just six months into it. She also has a very strained relationship with her overly patriarchal and domineering father, a despicable character, and the main reason why she’s angry all the time.

In the first episode, a volatile argument ensues between the couple while they’re discussing their divorce and when the husband turns violent in the heat of the situation, an accident leads to his death. With the clock ticking, Mahati finds herself in a suspenseful situation with a body to dispose and a lover to handle even while one dirty secret after another tumbles out from the cupboards of almost all the characters in the show.

Kallachirippu

Kalachiruppu was appreciated by critics when it released for its unconventional storyline and characters. Film critic and writer Baradwaj Rangan called the series “closest the Tamil entertainment space has gotten to those noir films about a nest of vipers.” Ashameera Aiyappan of The Indian Express called it “a deliciously dark tale”, drawing attention to Mahati’s character. “What joy it is to see Mahati on screen — she is ruthless, cold and logical, something we don’t get to see in woman protagonists. And her relationship with Indra is, ironically considering it’s an extra-marital affair, the most practical relationship I have seen in recent times,” she writes.

While Mahati is leagues apart from the typical heroine, her husband is a gay man. The show tries its best to balance a full plate that has a take on almost all gender-related topics, right from patriarchy to sexuality.

Roju, the creator, says that the show was made with a conscious decision to take every social construct of gender and sexuality and flip it on its head.

“We made a few decisions in representing homosexuality on the show. We wanted to shy away from showing the lust side of it mainly because everyone thinks that sexuality only has to do with what happens inside closed doors. Who is the one with the dirty mind here? We wanted to avoid showing this entirely. Instead we gave them a fairy-tale like story. showing them only in the light of love,” he says.

Roju further adds that the show elicited a good response from the LGBTQ community, with a member, who has now become his good acquaintance, sending him a long email appreciating the portrayal and the storyline.

Another web series that explores sexuality, homophobia and coming out is director Praveen Padmanabhan's America Mappillai, also streaming on Zee5. With 10 eight-minute episodes, the show features Arjun Chidambaram, Gokul Anand, Namita Krishnamoorthy, Rakesh Ram, Raja Krishnamoorthy (Kitty) and Leela Samson with Sruthi Hariharan and Delhi Ganesh appearing briefly.

America Mappillai’s lead is a young man (working in America) who tries to escape marriage by lying to his family that he’s gay and in the process, comes to terms with his own sexual identity.

America Mappillai

The show’s portrayal of homosexuality feels very natural, neither over-sympathetic nor treating it insensitively. The openly gay character in the show, the lead’s room-mate in America, is not the stereotypical gay man we’ve seen in cinema. The show’s writer, Raja Ramamurthy, in an interview had shared that his writer-friends who are gay had given him a lot of feedback on the script.

The Tamil web space, however, has not explored beyond male same sex relationships so far. While there are quite a few web series like Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor’s Dev DD in Hindi and Roopa Rao’s The Other Love Story (dialogues in English, Hindi and Kannada) that explore lesbian relationships, Tamil content is yet to come up with such stories. We are also yet to see narratives on transgender relationships, and love involving other sexual identities.

Flipping gender roles

While exploring sexuality is still at a nascent stage, makers have been bolder when it comes to flipping gender roles.

Elaborating on Mahati from Kallachirippu, Roju says, “It was a conscious decision to take the whole angry young man image and flip it. Whatever is associated with a female character and shown on screen, we wanted to flip it on its head. Female characters are never shown speaking about their menstrual cycle, we made that an important aspect of our show. Also, a woman masturbating was not considered natural. We made that a major plot point. Her very introduction was not what we’ve seen on screen - she appears with a bloodied face,” he says.

Actor Swayam, who played Chandrika, a sex worker in Auto Shankar, a 2019 series made on the most sensational convict from Madras/Chennai in the ‘80s, says web series offer an opportunity to show the raw and natural side of characters.

“My character in Auto Shankar was not sugarcoated. Chandrika is a sex worker and I believe her character felt most natural. In fact, they have made her acceptable in a lot of ways. I’m sure the things that a sex worker goes through in real life are far worse but the series has come very close to depicting it,” she says.

Auto Shankar

Director Balaji Mohan who made As I am Suffering from Kadhal that came out in 2017 also agrees that web series have more creative freedom to explore the multiple shades of a woman.

“They are not stifled in any way. They make mistakes and there are multiple shades to their characters. There is freedom in web content and it has to be used responsibly. Filmmakers can tell stories that can’t be told in theatrical films on the web,” he points out.

The show covered a multitude of women characters: a no-nonsense woman who does not put up with a bad relationship for the sake of society, another who lives together with her partner, quite happy where her relationship is, to name a few.

Behind Closed Doors, a 12-episode anthology series with a different set of cast and crew for each episode, can also be taken as a good example when it comes to discussing diverse women characters. The show covers a number of interesting topics, right from sustaining a long distance relationship on a web cam to a couple coming to terms with their divorce. In this particular episode, while the woman seems to be confident in her decision, it is the man who wonders if at all their relationship had a second chance.

There are two particular episodes that deal with taut marital tension - while in one, the newly married bride is firm in not letting her in-laws dictate her life, in the other, the wife makes a choice to not lead a double life with her in-laws, soon after she gets to see her husband’s hypocrisy in full force.

Behind Closed Doors

Web series are also becoming adept at representing female sexuality. The women do not shy away from expressing their desires, swear when they want to and are more natural than the sanitised counterparts we’re used to seeing in cinema.

Take Behind Closed Doors, for example. There’s one particular episode where a couple which has been dating online for a while meet in person for the first time. When they do, it is the woman who makes the first move for physical intimacy while the guy is still undecided about it. She makes her desires very clear and the episode feels like a deliberate flipping of gender reactions. The whole idea of consent and forcing someone into a space that they are not ready for is discussed here with the woman on the other side of it.

In Kallachiripu, when Mahati overhears Indra, the photographer with whom she gets into an affair later, lusting over her on her wedding day, she is at first furious. She does not hold back in hurling abuses at him in front of a gathering crowd and even threatens to cancel his assignment. Later, in a different scene, when she’s calmer, Mahati forms a connect with him out of her own volition while explaining that women tend to have stronger desires than men. “And if we can keep it under control, so can you,” she smiles seductively.

But sometimes, these representations might feel tokenistic, as if they were forced into the narrative for the sake of appearing inclusive.

Talking about Kallachirippu, Roju says that back when they created the series, web content was at a stage when certain representations had to be obvious for the audience to get it.

“The time we did the series was when we had to be very conscious about ticking all these boxes. I didn't want any of it to be subtle. I know I was risking the breaking of the illusion but we were all a little excited and it was our only shot at expressing ourselves,” he reasons.

Elaborating further, Roju who is working on his second series, says, “But the atmosphere has surely changed today. We don’t have to openly tick all boxes anymore and all the series are enjoying the liberation with respect to censorship. Web content is not time bound or censor bound, so you have better freedom here. But we are still taking baby steps.”

Will it seep into cinema?

While we still have films like Kanchana 3 where women are reduced to mere props and Mr Local where the hero is a misogynistic, relentless stalker, we are also seeing characters like Nayanthara’s Niranjana in Viswasam where she plays a single, working mother who does not bat an eyelid to separate from her husband, and Anjali Patil’s Puyal from Kaala where she stands up, stick in hand, beating policemen who publicly disrobe and shame her.

Yet, the medium is far behind when it comes to discussing sexual identities, especially same sex relationships. Except a few films like My Son Is Gay, which isn’t considered to be mainstream cinema, and Goa and Taramani, the gay identity is something we don’t see often on the big screen.

Subha J Rao, film writer and consultant editor with Silverscreen.in, agrees. “Tamil cinema, has, for long, been following a certain stereotypical portrayal of gay romance or even a gay-heterosexual friendship. It is invariably showcased as a less-masculine thing to do, or is looked upon as something that will bring in the laughs. Even the recent hit LKG fell in this category. Consent is almost always taken for granted, and the exaggerated mannerisms only serve to please those who don’t view cinema sensitively,” she says.

She further adds that when younger, sensitive filmmakers venture into it, there’s a better scope for change. “While Lokesh’s attempt with My Son Is Gay is laudable, I’d like to see more mainstream films showcasing gay people in all their shades. And for that acceptance to permeate down to the audience, we need mainstream actors to take on such characters, and directors who will treat them as part of the script and not as a novelty factor that will draw in the crowds. Something like what they achieved with the deeply sensitive take on Karan Mehra by Arjun Mathur in the hit Amazon Prime original series Made in Heaven,” she points out.

Balaji Mohan, too, is of the opinion that the series should be appreciated for its portrayal of the gay identity, adding that when it comes to changing narratives, he strongly believes that both creators and the audience have an equal responsibility.

Kallachirippu

“As a society, we are just starting to open up to such representations. Art has to reflect changing times and speaking about web series, they are in their nascent stage. In Hindi, Made in Heaven’s lead character is a gay man and it hasn’t shocked the audience,” he says.

He goes on to explain that receiving and understanding the content for what it is, also plays an important role in making more progressive stories. “I am sure we will also get there but the main thing is that when someone starts to show it, it has to be received in the right way. If the creator receives a shocking reaction, it will be discouraging for content makers. We will go back to square one again,” he adds.

Web content, as of now is unregulated by any body unlike cinema that is strictly censored by Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). This, however, will not last long since the Supreme Court has already issued a notice to the Centre to regulate OTT content in January this year. TRAI too is in the process of drafting guidelines for OTT operators in India by the end of May.

But, is the fear of censorship the only reason why the mass medium has not opened up to more inclusive characterisations and better representations of gender?

Roju is of the opinion that a change is in the offing especially when web content such as these are encouraged by audience.

“It is not that cinema has not represented strong, independent women. It is the same CBFC which was fine with a character like the protagonist from Arangetram, K Balachander’s 1973 drama, where a young Brahmin woman turns into a sex worker to support her family. The main reason why such narratives don't work out in cinema is that the market is mainly a male-dominated audience. I aim to create characters like Mahati on the main screen. I don't want to create female characters who are merely aspirations for men. We need not unnecessarily glorify nor put them down,” he says.