T’Towner’s, please take a cue from Siddharth

There’s a curse that plagues South Indian cinema. The heroes always propagate the idea that stalking a woman, be it through song sequences or otherwise, will eventually make them fall in love with them. Till now, none of the actors have really spoken about it but actor Siddharth made an exception. He said on Twitter that cinema has been “selling a terrible dream”. In a reply to a journalist, he wrote, “We’ve been selling a terrible dream in our films for long.

That any man can get the woman he wants just by wanting her enough. Must change… When a woman stalks a man in our films she’s a vamp. When a man does it he is a hero. It’s a complicated discussion. But it needs to be had.”  The words coming from the actor will make a difference considering the rate of crimes has shown a steady increase, thanks to the films propagating ideas like “no means yes” and a woman is just being coy when she says so.

In Tollywood, every big hero, be it NTR, Allu Arjun or Ram Charan have stalked and chased women. The masses lap it up and think that is the ‘heroic’ ideal, hence it is completely acceptable, even ‘manly’ to chase women, who would finally give in and fall in love. Sigh! It is high time some of our homegrown stars also spoke up about this aspect.