Oh you dark southie...

Stereotyping is in our blood. I had this epiphany quite recently. I figured it out, so it's my epiphany, ok? Don't say no, I will get offended. These days it's super easy to get offended and get you banned for anything.

Where was I? Yes, stereotyping. We have all been part of jokes about the other side, whichever direction it might be. We have all made fun of other 'groups'. Somehow, it is easier to categorize and put people in their place - square pebble in the square hole is what we assume it to be. But, it would never occur to us that the square hole in which we place the square pebble could actually be a rectangle, not much difference there, right?

It all began with Chennai Express and escalated with The Two States. As a full blooded south Indian, I was offended! Is that supposed to be South Indian style? Is that supposed to be Tamil?! And all the related blood pressure heightening questions. And then, ta-da, my epiphany - we are no less in stereotyping. No one is, actually.

I was watching Lingaa (yes, yes, horrible movie, I agree) and there is scene where a stolen jewel is pawned for and naturally the scene involved a Seth. And I thought: Do all Seths in Tamilnadu speak this "nambillki, nimbillki" Tamil? All those people living there for generations together must possess a definitive knowledge of Tamil - might be accented, but definitely there - right? Christian bar dancers, mundu wearing Malayali women, "naekku nokku" speaking Brahmins, Kongu tamilians calling every woman on the road as "ammini", sickle wielding Madurai men and the worst of all - those striped underwear wearing, cloth bags using, poor, poor, villager. We are no less, give us one community whom we do not know or barely know and we stereotype them. 

I am with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about this issue: "The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make the one story becomes the only story." This, I can totally agree with.

Does it mean that shouting at the top of our voice and holding protesting placards make people realize this. I don't think so. The simplest thing, ofcourse, would be to ignore it. But, in this globalised world, where everyone easily has an opinion about something (even if you don't have one, all you have to do is to Google it and form a opinion on it), it seems silly to stereotype anything or anyone. But, getting offended on it doesn't seem to have any impact either. I am not trying to find a solution to this, just putting across my thoughts on how one can be a stereotype-e while being a stereotype-r. These days, I am trying to stop myself from it. As I said before it is much easier to fit people into a mould, but with everyone's knowledge growing leaps and bounds due to social media and awareness (including mine), I would probably typecast people wrong. So, not doing it definitely helps. No, it is not easy, but I feel as if it helps. Viewing the world and the people in them with new eyes probably makes me a little bit more naive, but it can't be that bad, can it?

Also, if someone could convince these movie makers to be a little less stereotypical, it would be great. Not every guy who tiffs with this sweetheart needs to quench his tears in TASMAC. Not every person who has a drink or two throw a drunken fit, I have met people who can hold their drink, thank you. And when we are on that, not every person who doesn't want to drink is a prude, some of us just don't want to drink. And my major peeve - not everyone who works in IT have a la-la-la life in which we earn in six figures a month.

Standard disclaimer: By community, I am talking about the regional/religious/caste divided set of people. By "us" and "we" in the "we are no less" context, I am talking about Tamil movies. After all, I largely watch Tamil movies and English, Malayalam and Hindi to a certain extent.