Sample these comments received on a Facebook post about Mohanlal's film Pulimurugan:
"Aren't you ashamed to have written this?"
“You won’t accept a man as you dad, even if your mother points at him”
"Don't you have husband at home who would stop you from doing this?"
"Don't you dare talk ill about Lalettan, I dare you to step out and see what happens to you."
"How much did Mammootty fans and the media houses pay you to write this?"
These are just some of the milder abusive messages that a Kerala Facebook user received after she posted a review of Mohanlal’s latest blockbuster Pulimurugan. Her inbox and FB wall was filled with abusive messages for giving a negative review for the film that has been hailed as a mass entertainer.
In her post on Friday, Nisha Menon Chembakassery, a native of Thrissur slayed the film for its badly written script. Like a cooking recipe, Nisha listed down the “ingredients” that went into the scripting of the film.
“Shikkar+Naran+spices: 5 grams each/ Jeeps: 10 -12 nos/ Dialogues that hail Murugan- 50 nos/ Goondas-100 nos. These are the pre-requisites with which the script writer decided to pen the script of the film,” Nisha wrote.
(Shikkar and Naran are two previous Mohanlal movies)
She added that the 56-year-old actor (Mohanlal) was not given even 5 seconds to breathe, in a reference to the sheer number of fight sequences in the film.
“The name is Pulimurugan, but there are hardly two scenes where Murugan and puli (tiger) are seen together,” Nisha said.
Nisha's post that ripped apart the movie became viral and die-hard fans of the actor soon descended on it.
From questioning her merit for writing a negative post about the film, to threats and abusive comments directed at her personal life, and "friendly" reminders that she shouldn't have done what she did, Nisha, an employee at All India Radio, was subjected to repulsive cyber bullying.
However, the 41-year-old mocked by fans who called her ‘ammachi’ and ‘thalla’ (rude slangs for an older woman), is quite a fighter. She says that nothing can deter her from expressing her opinion.
"People who know me are well aware of the nature of my status updates. I used to regularly post movie reviews and comment on current issues. For those people, my post on Pulimurugan did not come across as a surprise. But then people who call themselves Mohanlal fans began abusing me, seeing the post as an attack on the actor himself," Nisha says.
Saying that she is no fan of any actor, but of good films, Nisha says that she will exercise her right to express her opinion.
Calling them goondas, another Facebook user had pointed out that these online abusers often force women to withdraw their posts/comments by verbally ‘raping’ them.
Asked whether the abusive comments also indicate gender issues in the online space, Nisha says,
"If it were a man to have written the same post, I believe it would have got the same response. The difference is that the fans would then abuse not the writer, but the female members of his family."
She recounted an incident when a social media user posted a negative comment on a Dileep film, the abuses that followed were so terrible and he was even warned his daughter would get raped.
More abusive messages followed when Nisha’s post became unavailable for some hours on her profile.
"All my posts were public posts and after the abusive comments began to be directed at my family, I restricted the visibility of the post. Later I changed the settings to ‘public’ again, why should I be affected by the comments?" Nisha asks.
Nisha believes that actors play a major role in how their fans behave, and their behavior reflects on the himself.
"Many young actors have built their careers without advocating a single fan club. Then why do actors like Mohanlal or for that matter any actor of his stature need fan clubs like these to fight over them?"
Read Nisha's Facebook status here: