Ninth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Tamil cinema, with few exceptions, is thoroughly rooted in Hinduism. It is a cinema for the most part made by Hindus for a Hindu audience. Other religious denominations or identities are largely absent on screen, and exist at the margins of popular Tamil cinema. Hinduism, therefore, is both a dominant and hegemonic force within Tamil cinema. By acknowledging that Tamil cinema is inherently Hindu at its core, I want to suggest that it has had an intimate and long-standing connection with Hinduism. In this article I trace the relationship between the technology of cinema and the expression of Hinduism and suggest that this is a complex, shifting and contradictory one. Focusing on specific films and key milestones in the history of Tamil cinema, I discuss the various ways, explicitly and implicitly, that religion has been mediated, the purposes for which religion has been employed, the invention of new film genres, and the relationship between religion and identity to underscore that Hinduism and Tamil cinema continues to have, an intimate and symbiotic relationship.