The launch of the teaser of the film Bad Girl has sent ripples of anger and frustration among netizens while receiving praise and support from the Dravidianist crowd.
The teaser was launched on 26 January 2025 in Chennai – Bad Girl is an upcoming Tamil film produced by Anurag Kashyap and Dravidianist director Vetrimaaran and portrays the story of a Tamil Brahmin girl who wants to be rebellious, break the shackles of “Brahminical patriarchy“, chooses to live the “high” life and defies her parents and family.
At the launch, the film’s director Varsha Bharath who was also assistant director to Vetrimaaran spoke about her intent and thoughts about the film, its name, and why she made one like that. Given the fact that she grew up on movies which idolised flawed male characters, she makes it a case for flawed women also to be necessary for a society.
Explaining why she named the film “Bad Girl” despite people around her stating it might give a negative connotation to the character, Varsha said, “I am not judging her. I’ve just written a very human character, she’s flawed, she makes some bad decisions, she makes some mistakes, she hurts herself in the process, but she doesn’t hurt other people, she repents, she survives just like anybody else. She’s just like all of us and I have not judged the character at all. Anjali did not judge the character one bit and for me I’m just so grateful for that because it was so important for me that whoever comes on board doesn’t feel like oh really do I have to do this because everyone wants to play a character that’s got a lot of redeeming qualities and it’s very easy, it is the easiest thing right giving a lot of redeeming qualities to a character and making it sell basically. But I did not want to do that because, in mainstream Tamil cinema, the narrative has always been that a woman is like a flower, a person with good character, a God, etc. So, there are many things, they are portrayed as a mother and a mother can be interpreted as God, something clean and pure. There are many interpretations like that and I just feel like there’s too much pressure for women to carry on their shoulders. So I just wanted to write a character that is very relatable.”
She further said, “This movie is just the start of a conversation, this movie is not a self-help book, I am not trying to tell women this is how you live life. I don’t think I’m the right person to tell anyone how to live their lives, I have such a horrible life so I’m not telling anybody how to lead their lives. This character is not a hero, she’s just a really flawed person she has mental health issues, she’s just trying to survive and she’s not a hero, one should not follow her or have her as a role model. I don’t think filmmakers are people who can tell you how to live. I have seen male characters who are 1000x flawed and they have all been hero worshipped, I grew up on those films so I hope this character can also be accepted, not hero worship but accept her. I am not endorsing that women should smoke and drink through this film. I’m just telling the story of a girl that’s all this film is, it’s just a story and women can also be humans and not necessarily be of high character, that’s all.
About the politics of the film, I’m not saying this is some feminist Bible, when I started the script, I had a perspective, before I started shooting my perspective changed and it kept changing along the way and my perspective has changed so much it changes every 10 seconds my politics changes every 10 seconds. So I don’t think art should be something that’s set in stone, it keeps evolving and we’re all just trying to start conversations. So I’m not making any declarative statements in this film, it’s just a girl who’s going through her life and
I know I’ve not made a perfect film in some ways but for the Film Festival hopefully for the European audience, it will be acceptable. With the feedback I hope to make a theatrical copy that women here will watch and enjoy, I want to bring women to the theaters but there was some alienation that happened along the way right because those movies were not really made for us uh so I want to bring women to the theaters I want to bring young women to the theaters. I hope this will be the first of many films.”
From her speech, it feels like women must not be considered pure and should not be, and through the film, it seems the director wants to encourage women to choose the wrong lifestyle and defy their parents, especially if they belong to the Tamil Brahmin community.
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