"Corporate" Stereotypes in Tamil movies

The title is quite self explanatory.Tamil movies have a conscious bias in the way they portray large corporate organizations and the employer/employee relations. There is black and white and typically if you see its always one point of view. The employer or the boss is irrational, stubborn, and just wants to make money. Profits anyone? You will always have a secretary or executive assistant and based on the budgets this will either be the heroine ( in older movies) to a "sexy siren" or bimbo in later ones. The only role of this person is to either fudge/steal data or help the hero break in to the CEO office. Anywhere close to reality, frankly this is such a difficult job to do and you need to be really organized to actually run a CEO's calendar. To an extent that graduates aspire for this job to jump start their career.

The CEO is of two versions. The pro-employee version (far and few) just fights for the underdog (mostly the hero) and is just blinded to anything that's close to business. Then you have the anti-employee version who's only goal is to ensure that nothing that the employee's say is heard. Ironically both versions have a flourishing company that never stops making money. Clearly this is such a winning strategy that companies should start adopting.

Boardroom scenes next to courtroom ones are the high power centers where songs are sung/papers are thrown, people storm out and CEO's can be changed by just that one vote. Of course you need the exaggeration but it need not be fantasy.

Then you have the IT organizations that are the hub for everything fun. Just wear fancy clothes, romance all around, unlimited money and a great workplace that just encourages all of this. Team outings in between team lunches and dinners. To top this you can move over to foreign locales as you get onsite opportunities. Maybe this they got it right? :-) Na, there is still technology and late nights and deadlines and codes crashing. Who's to ask? Call center is another separate world where night shifts form the perfect backdrop for a lot of crimes and its hard to steer away from that stigma.

The entitled employees who demand pretty much everything under the sun and get it as well because the hero usually spearheads this group. Oh, then there's this uber cool awesome businessman who owns private jets, run pretty much any mafia in town, has the politicians in control and can escape the country in case they are in trouble. Finally they get it right, but please revisit the rest. Not saying its totally flawed but there is a certain amount of bias that's just influencing the way the larger society views the common office going man/woman.

What's your pick?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Made of Chennai

Image
  The most common adage you hear when you say Chennai is "Madras is an emotion". The metamorphosis of Madras and it's old world charm to the current Chennai of CSK fame is something that only hard-core Chennaites or if you must Madrasis understand. Growing up in the area Mylapore (South Chennai) that is synonymous with filter coffee, temples, classical music and dance scene , I have always had a part of this city in me.  Something as simple as the Vinayagar Chaturthi celebrations in the Warren road pillayar kovil formed the basis of many friendships and cultural exchanges in my life. While the beach made for a simple outing on Sunday evenings with family where the sand meets the sea and the cool breeze drowns away your worries.  The drive in woodlands introduced me to the Bhel puri , Channa Batura and butter naan  that did  tease the palette from it's traditional south indian fare. It's hard to imagine my childhood without the FDFS( First Day First Show) adrenal...
Read more

"Woe" MENs Day

Image
March 8th is around the corner. If you haven't still been invited to a panel discussion, debate or awards ceremony to felicitate women consider yourself lucky! Don't get me wrong but till date I have never understood what this fuss is all about.The level of celebration has been taken up a notch. Pink balloons and roses at work, thank you cards and what not. While I am not an anti-feminist each year I wonder if something meaningful can be done this day for the women it actually matters. Gender equality, pay gap issues are all great topics for panel discussion around like minded people in an environment that is doing almost everything right to be conducive to woman. I will say this aloud. I am happy in my current state of being a working woman and the only real issue I may want to discuss is how to empower women who aren't as lucky as me to get here. I understand the intentions around the hype surrounding this day. But can this be channeled to something meaningful? Even if i...
Read more

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

    In today's world t his almost seems outdated and binary in its approach now. We cannot stereotype Mars or Venus either. Though this caption caught my attention for an entire different reason. In our strength training plan there are heavy days, medium days and light days . The weight choices you chose with the rep range defines these. So there are days you are asked to work with your maximum weight, days when you go one level lighter and days when it is just possibly bare minimum. I am writing this from a personal experience and please do not blame me for stereotyping. There are exceptions to every rule and you can be a women from mars or a man from Venus or you don't even need a planet. You get the drift.  This pattern I am describing below, has been almost consistent . Simple training plan of t ake your max weight/one less and grind and do reps. My immediate thought was go lighter and do the reps and not grind. The reason is not to make this an easy workout, it is ...
Read more