“Oru vaarthai kuda adhula irundhu eppadi vandha nu kekkala la? Avana kolradhu than mukiyama pochu?” You do not care about how I recovered from the trauma. All that is important to you is seeking revenge, rebukes Sakthi (Nimisha Sajayan) when her boyfriend Eeswaran a.k.a. Eesu (Siddharth) prioritises revenge over her emotional well-being in the movie Chithha directed by SU Arun Kumar. Being a survivor of child sexual abuse (CSA), Sakthi tries to make Eesu understand the error of his ways and to place the survivors’ needs over his self-serving emotions. Ultimately, Eesu fails to listen to her and so does the movie.
The massive success of Maharaja, yet another Tamil movie that centres CSA, has sparked heated discussions on social media regarding the portrayal of sexual violence on screen, the insensitive employment of rape as a plot device, male perception of sexual violence, and problematic notions of justice. Nithilan Swaminathan’s movie revolves around the titular character Maharaja (Vijay Sethupathi), who goes on a killing spree when his daughter Jothi becomes a victim of sexual abuse.
While criticising Maharaja, people idealise Chithha and use it as an example of how to treat the subject of CSA. There is no doubt that Chithha has a much more nuanced and sensitive approach than Maharaja — but both movies, despite their good intentions, have fundamental problems that are harmful to the CSA discourse.
The skeleton plot of both the movies is essentially the same. A father figure seeks justice (read revenge) when the girl child he dotes on becomes a victim of sexual violence. There is a quest involved, either a straightforward search for the kidnapped child as seen in Chithha or a warped hunt for the perpetrators in Maharaja, both of which happen with the help of the police. Invariably, almost all of the male police officers who come to the aid of the tortured hero have daughters themselves.
The success of both the movies can be attributed to the fact that they largely cater to a male audience, reassuring them of their own virtuosity. Though centred on CSA, the movies fall under the genre of revenge thrillers in which the heroes are exalted, as evident in the titles themselves, and victims unforgivably sidelined. Despite the subject being different, they hold on to the conventional norms of a male narrative and do not disrupt the status quo.
The story could have been about the survivors themselves, and not the authoritative male figures who are supposed to protect them according to society. The movies largely focus on the emotional turmoil of the heroes, rather than the trauma of the victims. In Maharaja, we hardly see Jothi after the assault, save the final confrontation with one of the colluders. In Chithha, even the scenes that depict Sundari’s difficult healing process end up foregrounding Eesu’s pain. Sundari’s healing journey is chiefly mapped through the renewal of her bond with Eesu. He remains at the centre of it all.
The movies disregard their potential to sensitise the audience about CSA in order to elevate the hero and his experiences. It is evident in the way Chithha frames the scene with Sundari and her mother discussing safe touch and unsafe touch — something so rarely dealt with in Tamil cinema. When Sundari’s mother tells her to report any such incident, even if it involves her uncle (chithha) Eesu, the camera pans to Eesu, and focuses on his hurt and pain. The mother, on seeing him, is ridden with guilt and runs after him, apologising profusely. Instead of remaining a stand-alone powerful scene that sensitises parents, the narrative returns the focus to its misunderstood hero. The scene, instead of prioritising the mother’s valid concern, becomes a plot device to evoke the audience's sympathy and pity for the hero. Especially when you consider the fact that most sexual abuse reported in the country is by a person known to the victim or survivor — whether it’s a family member, neighbour, friend, or person in a position of authority.
One of the major conflicts in Chithha is when Eesu is falsely accused of molesting his friend’s niece and Sundari’s classmate Ponni. Was there any need to include this storyline? This hackneyed trope of ‘good men being falsely accused’, only strengthens the already existing prejudice against survivors of sexual violence — women, children, and LGBTQIA+ persons, especially with multiple marginalisations — and the society’s refusal to believe them. This narrative does a disservice to survivors whose credibility is questioned when they try to seek justice, as men are always given the benefit of the doubt, regardless of whether they deserve it or not.
The movie seems to strongly advocate for trusting Eesu as he is considered an affectionate man who is protective of children. When he is questioned repeatedly about taking Ponni home and leaving Sundari behind in the school, Eesu refutes the accusation and doubles down, insisting that there was nothing wrong in his conduct. Eesu’s character perfectly falls in line with that of a groomer’s. He is someone who has gained the trust of children through his gestures of love and care, and has full access to them, as he is not seen as a threat. If Chithha had taken Gargi’s route and shown how a nice and decent guy like Eesu could also be an abuser, the movie would have contributed immensely to the discourse. Given the choice between educating the audience on child safety and stroking the hero’s ego, Chithha picks the latter, repeatedly.
A policeman who has indulged in custodial violence throughout the film in Maharaja says in one scene,“Namma ponnuku nadandha, paathutu chumma irupoma?” ( Would we stay quiet if something had happened to our daughter?) Such dialogues are used in different contexts to reassure, evoke empathy, explain righteous anger, permit extrajudicial killings — ultimately revealing the characters’ inability to empathise with a survivor’s suffering unless there is kinship. This is part of our own refusal to see and treat girls and women as individual beings separate from their menfolk and accord them inherent value. Rape is not seen as a human rights violation and we constantly fail to empathise and engage with victims as fellow human beings. So, when men respond to these crimes, there is no way of knowing where affection ends and proprietorship begins.
Instead of calling out such dehumanising sentiments, Maharaja reinforces and milks it for emotional shock value and didactic purposes. It is the realisation that Jothi is his biological daughter that leads to Selvam (Anurag Kashyap) repenting for his crimes. It is the same message carried by the film — “What if the victim happens to be your loved one? Don’t rape.” It is necessary to establish the severity of the crime in itself, regardless of who the victim is. There is no room for selective outrage.
Maharaja also seems to take its didacticism a little too far and in the wrong direction. Yes, the villain is “punished” and “justice” is served. But how? Sexual assault of a child should not be used to teach someone a lesson. There should be no Karmic consequence attached to a heinous crime. The film also frames it as an apt punishment for the villain and gains the approval of the audience, which makes the whole affair all the more horrendous.
For movies that are centred around CSA, the screen space that the survivors get is diminished by the men who are supposedly more affected than the survivors. Instead of focusing on how the survivors navigate the world post the traumatic event, the movies choose to chase after the perpetrators. Chithha has three survivors – Sakthi, Ponni and Sundari – but the movie does not bring them together and further the dialogue on trauma response and healing. Sakthi helping Ponni and Sundari deal with intense emotions, such as shame, self-loathing, and disgust, often associated with sexual assault, would have been powerful and meaningful. If Sakthi’s trauma can be used for Eesu’s education, it can very well be used to comfort the children.
The same could be said for Maharaja as well. Though the portrayal of a brave survivor is heartening, a little more on the arduous journey that she had to undertake to reach this frame of mind could have been included, instead of the hero “avenging” her “honour”. Because frankly speaking, even though trauma responses can vary, a teen showing such profound understanding of sexual assault and her maturity in handling the same, is unrealistic. Most survivors would agree that their first response is not to desire meeting the perpetrators. A survivor mustering the courage to face their demons, is something to be applauded, but in this case, the maturity that is thrust upon a 15-year-old cannot be normalised. The movie seeks to idealise a certain kind of response and by doing so, runs the risk of invalidating other trauma responses and makes it a victim’s personal failing if they are not as brave as Jothi, the ideal survivor.
When any kind of criticism is levied against a movie, people jump to defend the movie and go to the poor excuse of, “It is just a movie.” But CSA cannot be used lightly. CSA is a real issue that has and continues to affect countless children, and survivors who still struggle after reaching adulthood. These movies can’t afford to use it as a mere plot device so that the heroes, the saviours, can mount their white horses and go around brutally killing people to inflate their male egos. The men who watch these movies identify with the heroes and feel good about themselves. This is not the case for survivors — women, LGBTQIA+ persons, and children — who have to navigate a maze of triggers throughout the movie and end up feeling alienated at the end of it. These movies are not merely movies for scores of survivors, and the filmmakers have to bear some responsibility in the handling of such sensitive issues. The movies need a sensitivity reader at least, so that the subject can be handled with some nuance.
Listen to what Sakthi has to say. Listen to what survivors have to say. That is half the battle.
Aazhi is a research scholar in the Department of English at Stella Maris College, Chennai.
Views expressed are the author's own.