This paper explores how heroines' voices are presented in Tamil movies and provides empirical evidence about gender inequality in the aural practices of Tamil movies. Without understanding the use of sound in films, a comprehensive knowledge of the meaning and ideology of movies is not possible. Scholars have argued that sound in films has not been given much theoretical attention. Taking Jackson as its case study, this thesis is a sliver of a starting point towards a more enriched film theory for non-Western films. References to Jackson’s canonically Tamil characters as “the white chick,” transgress the borders of the film text and create new meaning in the reception of both the character and the actor who plays her. The self-aware characteristics of Tamil cinema, referred to as cinematic excess, interfere with a conventional close-textual analysis and as such, I will approach Jackson as a parallel text. A closer look at the history of the involvement of Dravidian (nativist) politics within the Tamil film industry further indicates the need to discuss the incongruous figure of Jackson. An intersectional feminist approach to both Jackson’s gender and race is necessary in understanding her on-screen representation. This thesis attempts to understand how the fantasy of Jackson’s femininity is produced through the clash of these two racially divergent figures. These films position two vastly different Amy Jacksons: the on-screen Indian and the off-screen westerner. I will focus my analysis on a recurring reference to Jackson’s characters as “the white chick” in two of Jackson’s more recent Tamil films, Thangamagan (2015) and Gethu (2016). More baffling are the recurrent in-film references to Jackson’s Tamil characters as White.
MAHESHINTE PRATHIKARAM SCRIPT SKIN
Despite her Caucasian background, Jackson is nativised for these roles, her skin spray-tanned, her hair dyed, and her blue eyes hidden behind dark-brown contact lenses.
Since Liverpool local Amy Jackson’s debut in 2010, where she played a young British woman in the Tamil period-drama Madrasapattinam, Jackson has played exclusively Tamil/Indian characters in all of her films.
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