Chennai: Vijay movies, in recent times, have become synonymous with controversy. However with Sarkar, the issue has gone to the next level. Makers of the movie edited and muted a few scenes following the statewide protest by the members of the ruling AIADMK, demanding the removal of a few scenes from the movie.
While the controversy was at its peak, Vijay fans abused the government for it ‘incapability’ to take criticism in a constructive way. As an after-effect of the movie and the controversy, fans are still continuing to share videos of their throwing away freebies. In a recent video, a couple of them are seen brandishing sickles and threatening the government.
Vijay fans have been vocal that their star should float his own political party soon and plunge into politics. But is Vijay’s political journey going to be a cake walk like his fans think and how different is his party going to be from the existing ones.
Fans claim that their star has been there whenever there was a crisis in the State and has been actively taking up people’s problems through his movies.
The article does not want to get into details about the actor’s motives behind doing such movies as the focus will be on how different his party will be from the already existing ones.
“I do not mind Vijay entering politics, but I am scared of his fans. Even before the actor has made his political entry, his fans are violent and there are no half-measures from them. You cannot tell a Vijay fan that their star’s movie is not nice. They will start hitting out at you and abuse three to four generations of your family. They keep talking about the government not being tolerant. But how tolerant are they?” asked Sundararajan, a techie.
Arumugam, an autodriver, said, “Vijay fans claim that he can bring about a change in politics. But are his fans ready to be the change and be different from other cadres? I don’t think so. Now let us say for a comparison – The most irritating aspects of political parties are the banners and rude behaviour of the cadres. The scenario is no different on the day of the release of a movie. A large number of banners are put up, paal abishekam is performed to the huge cut-outs,” he said.
Jenison, a student, said Vijay is educated, young and has the fan base to bring about a change.
“It might take him a while to discipline his fans, but it is not impossible. He never said he was going to enter politics. It is his decision to choose the story for his film. Being an actor, most movies are inspired by real-life incidents which make him connect with the people. We certainly need a change in politics, if Vijay is going to be that change, then I do not mind supporting him,” he said.
Vijay Makkal Iyakkam, Sembakkam youth wing president, Akilan, said, “No member of the Vijay Makkal Iyakkam will indulge in such rude behaviour. Just because a few fans retaliated in such a manner, it does not mean that all fans are like that.”
“We should see the bigger picture; instead of targetting Vijay and the movie the government should make sure that the issues are addressed,” another Iyakkam member, Balaji Ranganathan.
He further said fans are angry because this is not the first time trouble is created for a Vijay movie.
“The only question I would like to ask as a fan is why Vijay’s movie alone are being targetted, when there are several other movies which openly criticise the government,” said Akilan, and added that members of the Iyakkam always follow in the footsteps of ‘Vijay Anna’ and try to do only good things.
“Even the banners that we put up during the release of a movie are done only after getting prior permission. We have cut down on the paal abishekam trend and have, in fact, started distributing milk during the release of a movie on the advice of Iyakkam’s Kanchipuram coordinator ECR P Saravanan,” he said.
SOCIAL MEDIA WAR
The war between fans of rival actors has branched out to that of a war between fans and politicians as in the Sarkar case. Though Rajini and Kamal Haasan fans, too, wanted their stars to enter politics, their fans back then did not have the liberty of battling it out on social media.