Story Brunch
Ever wondered why the craze among public for movie stars in South India is more than that in North India?
In fact some of the South Indian superstars have used this popularity to gain electorally reaching the supreme heights in political career,becoming even Chief Ministers multiple times.Each superstar has a super loyal support base which sometimes goes to an extent of being intolerant to other superstars.
Some of the most famous names who had movie background and also became huge political icons are M G Ramachandran ,N T Rama Rao, Jayaraam Jayalalitha, M Karunanidhi, Chiranjeevi, Pawan Kalyan, Vijayakanth, Ramya.
Its not that the Bollywood actors did not have a political success in North India,but their popularity and influence has been negligible compared to that of South Indian actors , and most of them have been Members of Parliament at maximum. Some of the Bollywood actors who succeeded electorally in Parliament elections are Amitabh Bachhan, Hema Malini, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna, Sunny Deol, Govinda.
The reason for the massive popularity of movie stars lies in the socio-political history of South India. Anti-religion, specifically anti-Hinduism and Anti-Brahmanism movement by Periyar in the early 20th century uprooted many people from their own religion. Calls to boycott temples, the religious scholars, the ancient texts left people bereft of the rich heritage and culture.
Religion plays a pivotal role in filling the vacuums when the society looks for moral guidance and support,it has answers to dilemmas which arise in our day to day lives,its a source of hope. Religious philosophies guide us through crisis by giving us solutions enshrined in the ancient texts.
The Periyar movement in South India snatched this support system of people. They had no God to look upto in times of crisis,no source of hope. Philosophically and culturally they had become orphans in modern set up when guidance was most needed.The guidance of Hinduism, the ancient scriptures,the wisdom derived from thousands of years of study was snatched away by anti-Brahmanism movement.
This vacuum had to be filled by someone or the other. Movie stars became that support system,people started associating the miracle value with them, which is generally a domain of religion. This led to intense attachment with the movie stars. Their performances in movies depicting struggles of a common man became the source of hope. Different people had different Gods now,ie different superstars. Each superstar had a different loyal support base,which more often than not,overlapped with that of other stars.
The ground became ripe for the political expeditions of these actors and actresses and they gained massively in the field of politics too.
In North India there was no such anti-Brahmanism or Periyarism and hence there was no similar vacuum to be filled by stars,which explains the limited popularity of Bollywood stars in North India.Its generally a feature of Periyarist or communist societies in which personality cults get created as they become the only source of hope. South India just replaced real Gods with a set of personality cults.
Regionalism
Dravidian movement ,the call by Periyar and later by other South Indian leaders for autonomy, separate identity assertion led to birth of regionalism in Southern states and a dislike for North Indian culture and Hindi language . The people of these states wanted to reinforce their separate culture through movies,art and literature. Though regional language, literature ,art and culture needs to be preserved and its a sign of healthy society, but in an exaggerated attempt to assert the identity the regional movie stars were seen more as cultural regional icons than as mere actors and actresses. This led to more affection and popularity of South Indian actors as they were seen as answers to Hindi/Bollywood stars. Since the feeling of anti-Dravidianism was absent in North India, and Hindi was not a language of any particular region, no actor was seen as regional cultural icon. At maximum there was a feeling of pride if the star hailed from the same state,like UP people being proud that Amitabh Bachhan was originally from Allahabad. But he was never seen an answer to South Indian stars or a mean to assert regional identity by UPites.
This is another prominent reason behind massive popularity of South Indian actors.
