A STUDY OF THE VISUAL AND TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION OF CASTE AND POLITICS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE TAMIL COMEDY FILM MANDELA (2022)

Abstract

Cinema is essential in creating, shaping and strengthening people's ideas and feelings. Cinema plays an important role in caste and politics in India. Films have always engaged in a constant struggle to erase and maintain the boundaries between the mainstream and the minority. Since time immemorial, Indian society has seen atrocities based on caste ideology. Occupation (work) is an element that represents the formation of a community's identity in the minds of people. Separating caste and politics is challenging. In many states like Tamil Nadu, caste based politics is using caste for politics. Caste and politics are handled very sensitively. They will go to fight for caste and riot for political parties. But it is the common people who are affected by caste and politics. The Tamil film "Mandela", which came out as a reflection of the common people, shows many factors that can raise awareness as a political satire. The fact that the movie "Mandela" won the National Award for the best film of 2022 indicates the creative quality of the film. The most important objective of the study is to investigate the awareness responses to the Tamil movie "Mandela" in society regarding the serious political scenes and humorous lines. This study was conducted through content analysis method. The research section analyzes the scene through levels and subtitles.

Keywords: Mandela, Political Satires, Caste, Community, Ideology