Stories on the scribe

One of the earliest journalism-based movies I remember watching was Naalaya Seidhi (1992). In this film, Prabhu plays a diametrically opposite character than in one of my favourite films from then, Chinna Thambi. For filmmakers who didn't want to make their protagonists play the cop or a lawyer, making them a journalist on the heels of a scam or a crime was an alternate way then of bringing in much-needed commercial elements.

A few years down the line, as I began investing time in Malayalam cinema, I came across the seminal New Delhi (1987), which catapulted Mammootty to megastardom. Now, here was a journalism movie that spoke about the power of journalism and how revenge is a dish best served cold. Almost every actor in Malayalam has played the scribe on more than one occasion to right a wrong with the pen. Suresh Gopi and Manju Warrier run a paper in Pathram. Mohanlal was the too-cool-for-local-news journalist in Run Baby Run. Mamta Mohandas was a tough-as-nails journalist in Passenger. There was even a movie called Journalist that starred Sithara, Jagadeesh, and Siddique as... well, journalists. These were press people who went about their daily grind of lives but tried their best to expose the truth to their readers.

The 90s saw Shah Rukh Khan play a journalist twice, albeit with different intentions and results, in films like Dil Se and Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani. Over the years, as the definition of journalism expanded, we had films like Page 3 and Wake Up Sid give us an insight into the world of journalism that was not just about breaking news and Page 1 headlines. Then, as sections of mainstream journalism veered into sensationalism, we had satires like Swa Le, Peepli Live, or Tere Bin Laden. Finally, as journalism entered the social media era, films held a mirror to the TRP-chasing news channels through
films like Kavan, Naradan, Rann, Dhamaka, etc...

In recent Tamil cinema though, with the biggest stars mostly assuming larger-than-life roles of either cops, criminals, or lawyers, the journalist seems to have lost sheen. We got an occasional Ko (2011) about a decade ago, but journalists were still getting relegated to supporting characters, or jobs that could be criticised for sensationalism by the stars who were playing saviours. Take, for instance, the scene in Pokkiri, where Napoleon turns emotional while berating journalists, of course with the disclaimer that he wasn't targetting every single one of them. We have seen many such scenes in major star vehicles that have either belittled journalism or taken a passing dig at the state of news in these times.

During such times, Hollywood churned out films like The Post, Spotlight, and Bombshell, which spoke about how journalism is indeed the fourth estate of a thriving democracy. In Indian cinema, we are often shown that journalism in the second-tier or third-tier cities abides by the principles of the profession, while urban newsrooms largely do it a disservice.

As someone who stepped into the field of journalism with necessary optimism and a side order of pragmatism, I understand how all these observations are both true and false. Utopia is romantic, but we also see journalists getting castigated and relentlessly trolled for sharing ‘the truth’. Stars who deliver box-office disasters seem to receive more support than a journalist jailed for saying the truth. 

However, the truth is, there are still journalists who want to actually make a difference. They are biding their time to reach a place where their voices will be heard outside the din of sensationalism, hierarchical discrepancies, and red-tapism. Some grow disillusioned soon enough. Some lose their sense of reason. Very few have the wherewithal to play the waiting game...

And after coming face-to-face with some of these hurdles and seeing a bunch of friends and colleagues either falling prey to the beast of sensationalist journalism or dropping out of the race, many of us still hold on to the idea of journalism that a bunch of these films, books, and historical pieces of evidence point at. We see the Pathrams, the New Delhis, the KOs, the Posts, the All the Presidents Mens, the Spotlights, and even the Wake Up Sids and Page 3s and remind ourselves that journalism isn't as bad as the world out there is trying to portray it to be.

Then... comes a Maaran.

The flashy and upmarket newsrooms notwithstanding, the film hardly has a single bone of authenticity. Barring the scene where we see Malavika Mohanan's photojournalist Thara moonlighting as a fashion photographer to earn money on the side, probably because of the low pay, there is hardly any representation in the film that rings true. The final act where Dhanush comes face-to-face with a villain with a dull agenda and emerges victorious does more harm than good to journalism. In a world of fake news and post-truths, here is a journalist who is harassed for saying the truth, and without even the barest sense of remorse or regret, he accepts the turn of events with a lopsided smile thinking he was clever.

Right from when Maaran is recruited after acting a silly test (you are not Vijay posting a selfie from Neyveli… get a grip) to his bizarre ascension to "Best investigative journalist of the country" to papers
mentioning the name of the journalist who "cracked the case" right in the headline or strap, there is hardly anything authentic in Maaran.

Investigative journalism doesn't work that way. Hell, any journalism doesn't work that way. 

And if journalists didn’t already have it bad enough in Maaran... Karthick Naren and Dhanush give us a stunt sequence where Maaran wields a pen to fend off the henchmen… because you see, the pen is mightier than the sword. Irony lost a thousand deaths when the film that fails to speak of why the pen is indeed more powerful, interprets it all literally.

Wait, are we now supposed to learn pen-karate as well?

READ: Maaran Movie Review