There is often no rhyme or reason for why things go viral on the Internet. While a lot of trends are harmless fun, sometimes, what's being enjoyed by a large number of people ends up reiterating a toxic idea in popular culture. The latest in this line is the 'Vasu annan' meme fest on Malayalam social media.
Vasu annan, played by Saikumar, was the villain in the 2002 Malayalam film Kunjikoonan starring Dileep, Navya Nair and Manya. In the film, Vasu attempts to sexually assault Manya's character Lakshmi and she ends up dying while trying to escape from him.
According to a Facebook post put up by Manya, the memes began with Vijay Sanal, who runs the popular YouTube channel 'Sanal editz'. Sanal often mixes up dialogues, music and visuals from different films to create funny videos. His 'Vasu annan' video shows edited scenes from Kunjikoonan to suggest that Vasu and Manya's character Lakshmi are attracted to each other.
The song played in the background is 'Uyirin Uyire', a romantic number from the 2003 Tamil film Kaakha Kaakha, starring Suriya and Jyotika.
Watch: Troll video of 'Vasu annan' and Manya
In the original song, Suriya runs after Jyotika and in the 'Vasu annan' video, Sanal has used visuals of the villain running behind the woman as he tries to sexually assault her. Needless to say, this is in extremely poor taste in a country where a rape is reported every 15 minutes according to National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data. The number of unreported rapes is likely to be way higher, considering the social taboos that the survivor has to confront.
Even if we let the 48-second video pass, the fact that it has spawned a large volume of rape jokes cannot be ignored. Scores of memes show Lakshmi and Vasu happily married or in romantic positions. Sometimes, they're also pictured with their 'kids'. On YouTube, there are several videos celebrating Vasu annan and his 'rise' on social media.
Several have also shared posts with lines and hashtags like 'Respect Vasu annan' that celebrate the character, including people from the Malayalam film industry like director Omar Lulu.
The target of a rape joke is not the perpetrator who has committed a crime. It is almost always the victim/survivor. What does the rape joke in the Vasu annan context tell us? In patriarchal societies, the shame of sexual assault falls on the victim/survior and not the perpetrator. A man who has 'touched' a woman in a sexual way is considered to have laid his claim on her body, and it is she who is supposed to have become 'impure'. Such ideas are ingrained to an extent that it's not uncommon for even courts in India to ask the survivor if she wants to marry her rapist.
Sexual harassment has often been romanticised and glorified in cinema. In fact, it has traditionally been viewed as an acceptable form of courtship. By making Vasu annan the hero, the sexual assault scene in the original film has been turned on its head to present a "romantic" couple.
Why take online trolling and memes so seriously? Because jokes like these only normalise the violence against women and make it harder for survivors to speak up. The joke is on them, and we as a society are colluding in silencing them. What we consume as popular culture defines who we are, and the 'rise of Vasu annan' gives an accurate portrait of our unapologetic rape culture.