Not everything is black and white in casting of Parvathy as Rachiyamma

“When the time is right, we will have a conversation about Uroob’s Rachiyamma and why I played the character and what my take is. As for if I will ever represent a woman who in real life is dark, it’s a very big question and the answer will be ‘no’. But when it comes to a fictional space and when the thing is about adaptation it is a big tricky space.” This was Parvathy Thiruvothu’s response to the criticism about her role in director Venu’s short based on Uroob’s story Rachiyamma. Parvathy has been in the eye of a storm with activists and a section of social media voicing their opposition to the makers of the film for casting a fair-skinned heroine to play a character that the writer had unambiguously visualised as a dark-skinned woman with striking features and a voice of her own.

A previous edition of this column had discussed casting lookalike actors as real-life characters and to what extent does it help a biopic achieve authenticity and the desired impact. There is a marked difference in treatment when it comes to bringing the life story of a real-life character to screen and adapting a literary work of fiction. While creative liberties in the depiction of facts can be questioned in the former, you can see a lot of grey areas and room for interpretation in the latter. The primary reason for this is, any work of art leaves enough room to be interpreted in so many different and unique ways by everyone in the audience. Moreover, insisting that a real-life character should be played by an actor who has life experiences and a similar background would cripple creativity.

The question about Parvathy’s casting in the drama has relevance beyond her mismatch with the skin colour of Rachiyamma. It’s more of a question of the fair-skinned actors exercising their monopoly over all the opportunities without any concern for creating a level-playing field. We have a large number of talented dark-skinned actors and wannabe actors who are marginalised because the industry as a whole does not think that they can be cast as heroines. This discrimination exists in all sections of the glamour industry worldwide, be it in cinema, fashion or advertising.

Anyone who reads Rachiyamma would agree that it is indeed possible to visualise the character differently in an adaptation. After all, Uroob had created her as a blend of different ethnicities, whose parents and grandparents hailed from different places. It should be noted that Uroob’s Rachiyamma is not an untouchable, marginalised, or discriminated character but a bold woman who stands tall on her own feet till the end. Other than showing her as a bold personality, the story does not throw much light on her struggles as a lone woman or as a dark-skinned. Her complexion is used as a characteristic of her rustic beauty through the eyes of a man. However, if the makers want to adapt the story with authenticity, they cannot wish away her physical features as detailed by the author. On the other hand, if there is no dramatic shift in the screen adaptation, the fact that the makers could not think about anyone else other than Parvathy to play Rachiyamma would expose the elitism and discrimination based on the colour that exists in our film industry.

Parvathy as a talented female superstar has reached a privileged position where she can modify or veto a character that is offered to her based on how she understands it by placing it in the right social and political context. She makes it clear that she had asked the director ‘a number of questions’ about the adaptation before signing the film. Her admission that she had missed the critical element of Islamophobia in the characters that she had played in Ennu Ninte Moideen and Take Off, for which she received box office success and nationwide critical acclaim, is indeed a welcome move too. Having made loud political statements against the films that showed male chauvinism and Islamophobia and the actors who were part of them, there is a huge responsibility on her to walk the talk. To that end, she should be more careful in picking the characters.

Having admitted that she had gone wrong in at least two previous occasions in judging the political ramifications of her characters, there cannot be an excuse for doing it again. It is also good for her to note that the politics of some of the characters might lie outside of what is written in the script. Rachiyamma is one such character, which forces her to answer the question: why did she not make a strong political statement against those who discriminate talent based on colour by leaving the role to someone who closely matches the writer’s description? It need not be looked at as a question of representation, but isn’t it a rare opportunity to establish a different type of beauty on screen? A person like Parvathy need not be told about the near absence of dark beauties among the heroines of Indian cinema reeks of discrimination based on colour. After all, characters like Rachiyamma are the only remaining ray of hope for the dark-skinned actresses to prove their mettle in a lead role. Let us hope that Parvathy navigates these ‘tricky spaces’ and shares her perspective about Rachiyamma and the grave discrimination against dark-skinned actresses sooner than later.

(Dress Circle is a weekly column on films. The author is a communication professional and film enthusiast. Read his past works here.)