Thaanga mudyiadha 5-rooba-kodutha-10-roobaikki pongum actors

Politically, I'd argue that Nadhiya should be leading the list though she would also be the most conspicuous entry in it. At a superficial level, she was supposed to represent the modern urban independent woman, but almost all her roles were patently in the child-woman mode; mischievous and cutesy break-the-little-rules type, but ultimately all too pliant. All the middle-class patronage she received (right from the sort of immense appreciation she always received for her "decent" costumes) was, as I see it, a profound reflection of the Victorian-style morality of the middle-class.

Well that's a discussion for the other thread - and I insist prabhuram open that thread because he'll find a way to get shalini in the.mix and incite a few self-immolations here :-)
Yes, very sharply observed, equa. That was really the point about nadia - while appearance says liberal, feminist type, inner core is deeply conservative and looking for pat on the back from society. Revathi despite maintaining dignity was sensual as required and when required. Nadia,as I will argue, literally forced the director and hero to keep their hands off her is the impression I get.

Plum,
Is it a kostin of just a listing based on a factual absence of touching scenes in one's CV or is it based on our perception?

If its the former, whats the point? Clarify, your honor

It's the former plus a demonstrated quickness in cutting off advances from the hero - watch bhanumathi with MGR to understand this, or revathi in singalathu chinna kuyilae.
Latter thing about perception is just addenda - for instance, nadia had two attempts at seduction scenes, one with suresh in iniya uravu poothadhu, but she was not fooling anyone, you have to see the respect in suresh's face to understand the equation.

Well, everything is perception anyway - the better articulated perception cloaks itself as fact

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Originally Posted by Plum

Revathi despite maintaining dignity was sensual as required and when required.

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It is problematic to say "despite" (pardon the nitpicking!), but I agree on the larger point. I don't think it's fair at all to include someone like Revathi in this basket. I'm not arguing against the point that a good share of her roles conformed to the established "norms" regarding "what a decent woman should wear or do" or what have you, but I think it's more important to acknowledge that she ultimately did make a few moves in the right direction, did roles that were central/important to the film and so on, which in itself was (and certainly is) very unusual for Tamil cinema. I think we should respect that. One can't begin to make a similar case for someone like Nadhiya.

Actually I must also add that I find the label "touch-me-not heroines" quite caricatural. We're talking about an industry which stops offering lead roles to an actress because she got married. An industry which insists on labelling actresses either "this way" or "that way." (It is essentially this kind of binary classification that narrows down the "possibilities" in their careers.) It is bleeding obvious that the kind of difficulties an actress would have to face to establish and assert her identity will be much more compared to an actor. So I'm more than a bit wary of slotting an actress as a "touch me not" type, because it could very well be the case that her expectations as an actress were very reasonable.

Eq, in all fairness, caricature is an objective of these threads - we welcome the classy interludes such as your previous post but we maintain that the caricaturing is intentional and any uncovering of such deep insights as yours is the bitter pill coated in the sugar of those caricatures.

And since we must all stick to our strengths, I focus on the sugar coating and leave the pill manufacturing to people such as equa!

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Originally Posted by Plum

Eq, in all fairness, caricature is an objective of these threads

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adhennavO sari dhAn!

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Originally Posted by Plum

And since we must all stick to our strengths, I focus on the sugar coating and leave the pill manufacturing to people such as equa!

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idhellAm remba Ovar.

Nice posts Equa !

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Originally Posted by crajkumar_be

Nadia
Revathy (except Inji Iduppazhagi)

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Nadia - what sets her apart is somehow waving this dikinity as her primary asset.

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Originally Posted by crajkumar_be

Suhasini (sister-a kooda ethukka yosikkanum)

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Where is Joe ? :P

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Gopika (sister if she insists)

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Oh my... she is in another class. On a couple of occasions she tried being intimate and then realize that they are a bit low on the sultriness department.

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Savalachumi

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:rotfl:

Gopika tried to be intimate in kaNAkaNdEn and it did work :P This is saying a lot because siriganth, who can't be anywhere close to being romantic was the beneficiary.