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Roseamma Celluloid Analysis

1077 Words5 Pages

Melvin Mathew Thomas
Dr. Jorie Lagerwey
Media Theory and Culture (FS40040)
16 October 2014
The doubly oppressed gaze.
Fourscore and six years ago, a Dalit girl forced the first Malayalam filmmaker into oblivion. J. C. Daniel was stoned and flagged out of his own premiere as an aghast audience was subject to the visual denigration of having to see a Dalit (lower-caste) woman on screen, and playing a Nair (upper-caste) woman at that! Roseamma fled without seeing herself on celluloid, she fled as her house was set ablaze and she fled from a progeny that would never recognise her existence. Celluloid (Kamal, 2013) might be about the forgotten father of Malayalam cinema, but it is also about the Dalit girl who rewrote history causing a film to come …show more content…

Dalit is the lowest caste in the Indian caste hierarchy and the community of untouchables even now find the binding pressure of their caste while seeking education, employment and mere tolerance. So one can but imagine the plight of the Dalit woman who dissents the norm of patriarchy and caste, fighting within and beyond her community.
Celluloid makes a fascinating study, as the multiplicities of gaze can be construed at various levels. According to Bell Hooks, the gaze is a powerful tool to modify reality. It is a form of confrontation/disagreement/resistance/challenge of authority (115)[2]. In Celluloid, three such levels of oppositional gaze can be …show more content…

Roseamma, though invited to watch the premier of the film, is seen sobbing outside the theatre as she is forced by the aristocratic men to stay away from their presence. The first heroine in Malayalam cinema vanishes from history books, because of the existing unholy hierarchal matrimony between caste and gender.
The audience, at the screening of the 1928 movie within this movie, as well as those watching Celluloid, soon forget the character of Roseamma, snatching away the basic acknowledgement of her mere existence, that she desired. Decades later, in Celluloid, even though an effort is made to recognise J.C. Daniel as the Father of Malayalam Cinema, Roseamma remains buried with her caste and her gender.
Award winning song by lyricist Vayalar Ramavarma is played for a brief period during the movie. The poetic lyrics sung by renowned singer K. J. Yesudas in 1972 read as following:
Manushyan mathangale srishtichu…manassu panku vachu.
Translated to

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