The Ajith Ecosystem and the Uncelebrity Theory
Note: This article was initially written in 2016, and I have updated with the proposal of uncelebrity theory and additional information on movies
When I was watching Vivegam, my thoughts were moving in different directions. I was thinking how the current movie reviewers would have reviewed a film like Aayirathil Oruvan (of MGR ) or an Ulagam Suttrum Valiban or a Moondru Mugam or a Sagalakala Vallavan. On the other hand, I am quite confident that it’s futile to review big actor vehicles like Vivegam or Bairavaa because these movies are made for an ecosystem.
You can call it the “Superstar” Ecosystem (if you have a problem with me using that name, you can call it as “Big Star” Ecosystem). This ecosystem consists of producers who are willing to spend the amount of money for a big star film. In Ajith’s ecosystem, it would be most probably a struggling producer. A director who can mashup a movie under a budget and time. Theatre owners and distributors who are willing to pay the amount of money quoted by the producers so that they can charge high prices for the first four days. TV Channels and Audio companies who pay a hefty sum for rights and play the movie on every important festival days.
Online review sites, movie sites and social media trolls scramble to get interviews, first-day reviews (since Vivegam, there are half-time selfie reviews) and create memes to gather eyeballs. Above all, fans and fan associations who genuinely (or for financial reasons) want to see their favourite star on-screen. The fans of rival actors who watch the movies before others to troll the other star and his fans. Hyperelitist reviewers like me who talk about how screenplay, cinematography and editing without knowing anything. Commentators on social media who post random posts to get likes and people who ignore these movies and avoiding a critical part of pop-culture. And some social activists consider that every film is a distraction from real issues.
These ecosystems are not built overnight, and not every actor can create one for them. Each of these ecosystems has different branding and various purposes to solve. This ecosystem started with Thiagaraja Bagavathar. MGR’s ecosystem was based on his off-screen image, and he carefully crafted it to enter politics. Sivaji’s ecosystem was based on his acting prowess. Rajini’s branding was similar to Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man, but he is finding it difficult to translate the image to politics (in 1996 it would have worked). Kamal’s ecosystem moved from masala matinee lover boy to an actor who can act in different roles in every movie. He was under pressure to deliver a ‘different’ movie every single time, and even his comedy movies ought to be different. Vijayakanth moved from an anti-establishment hero to pro-establishment poster boy. The transformation happened in the early 90s, and his political entry was inevitable. Vijay is taking the same path, and his movies are made anticipating his political entry. Many heroes have tried to create this ecosystem but couldn’t generate one like what Vijay and Ajith could create. Ajith’s ecosystem is drastically different from any celebrity that we have seen in Indian or International Cinema.
Ajith’s Ecosystem and the Uncelebrity Theory
The Ajith’s ecosystem is based on a theory that I call “Uncelebrity Theory”. He is a celebrity who has created an ecosystem around himself by not being a celebrity. He doesn’t promote his movies (even the reclusive Aamir Khan opens his doors for movie promotions), no audio release functions; no success meets, he doesn’t attend any award ceremonies, no media interviews and even his one-off press meetings have dried up. His ecosystem starves for his presence, and the only way his fans can celebrate him is through his movies. On the other hand, every other star has to do some or many of the above to keep them afloat.
For instance, even a Rajini movie needs a grand Audio release celebration, livery on Air Asia and the marketing machinery overworked during the 2.0 or Petta promotions. On the other hand, Vivegam had a list of standard programs on TV Channels and interviews of supporting cast with major online channels. Inside a city like Chennai, the promotion was taken care of by Ajith’s fans in several theatres and nothing else. The tickets were sold out for the weekend within a few minutes of the ticket booking window.
Actors have to feed their ecosystem at regular intervals. It could be through TV Shows or media interviews or even meeting their fans. The Hollywood stars do promotions through late-night talk show appearances while the Bollywood/Kollywood stars appear in several talent shows, give interviews and attend roadshows to promote their movies. Even though they don’t have films lined up, they make sure the ecosystem is fed through interviews on print and create controversies around them to survive.
Ajith doesn’t feed his ecosystem through any of these mediums. Media clamours for some news, and that’s why you get to see celebrity spotting pictures of Ajith more than any other actor. His PR is carefully maintained by a professional, and he makes sure the right dosage of news are released at regular intervals about the actor. This celebrity starving has created warp where any celebrity interview doesn’t end without questions about Ajith. Even if the person is remotely related to Ajith or acted in a small role, he is bound to give bytes on Ajith. It becomes the clickbait title for all the online interviews. For instance, Sivabalan aka Appukutty’s interview on his photoshoot with Ajith, has garnered more than 244K views on Indiglitz. Just search for Ajith on Youtube, you would know the number of mentions of the actor.
Ajith has created an incredible aura around himself. In one of the earliest televised interviews of Ajith, he openly says how he is not good with public relations. Although he was close with the journalists, one of his interviews before the release of Anjaneya (2003) was misinterpreted by many. In the interview, he mentioned that he has a desire to become a ‘Super Star’ like Rajinikanth, but it was widely publicised that Ajith claims to be the ‘next superstar’. At that time, all the lead actors, including Ajith, Vijay and Rajinikanth, were in a downward trend.
Due to this fiasco, Ajith started the first phase of his uncelebrity mode. He stopped giving interviews and started with press conferences before the release of the movies. The last known interview(s) of Ajith on TV is a string of interviews he gave just before the release of Billa (2007) out which the best one was with Neeya Naana Gopinath on Vijay TV. The second phase of uncelebrity mode started after that when he began distancing himself from movie promotions, interviews (including print), audio release functions and even success meets. Although Ajith movies have done well with some films like Mankatha (2011), Vedalam (2015) and Viswasam (2019) were record-breaking hits; he stayed away from celebrating those successes. The pinnacle of this when he enacted the third phase just before the release of Mankatha (2011). He dismantled all the official fan clubs. Fan clubs in Tamil cinema have been used for political reasons. MGR and Vijayakanth have successfully mobilised their fan clubs into political parties. While MGR was successful, Vijayakanth lost his plot due to various reasons. Kamal Hassan has developed a political party around his fan clubs while Rajinikanth is building one around his fan clubs. Even Ajith’s counterpart, Vijay, has political aspirations. When Ajith dismantled his fan clubs, there was a widespread consensus that the decision was harakiri and his market would decline as the market of a South Indian film star is based on the number of fans. But Mankatha proved it wrong and became one of the biggest hits of his career.
The more and more he distanced himself from the mainstream media and his fans, the clamour for news about Ajith started. Unlike other celebrities, he recused himself from public social media profiles, appearances and started talking through press releases. The uncelebrityness of Ajith worked wonders for him, especially for popularity, marketing and an image that people loved. In the world of celebrities who clamour for screen space and promotions, Ajith’s uncelebrityness proved to be refreshing for people.
The Uncelebrity Theory
I would define the uncelebrity theory as “creating a celebrity ecosystem by discarding the normative requirements of a celebrity”. It could have one or many of the below characteristics
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Reclusivity: being away from the gaze of media and public. This allows the celebrity to create starvation of information about himself/herself. The deprivation provides the impetus for the press and public to find information about the star. The number of celebrity spotting pictures of Ajith is more than any other celebrity in India.
Neutrality: being neutral to production houses and politics. Ajith always stayed apolitical, and when a state leader of a national party claimed that his fans had joined the party, he was quick to dismiss the claims, and the lack of official fan clubs helped in dismissing those claims. Ajith switches between production houses on either side of the political spectrum or makes movies with neutral producers. In fact, in recent times, he never had issues in releasing his films. For instance, the only movie of Gautam Vasudev Menon to see the light of the day without a hiccup is Ajith’s Yennai Arindhaal.
Liminality: is defined as the unique space that’s artificially created to stay out of the society by creating a sense of boundary. The uncelebrity creates multiple levels of liminal spaces that have different sets of people. This can be seen in Ajith through the interviews of his co-actors and directors.
Constructed aura: there is a constructed aura around the celebrity that can be defined based on his actions, nature of being and professional ethics. The media, fans or co-workers can do this construction. For example, the aura created around Ajith is so carefully maintained. The public appearance on Election Day, his cooking prowess, his professional conduct, chivalry, acting his age in movies and above all, his “self-made star” history makes a beautiful story to tell. Note, Ajith could be naturally good, but the way it’s portrayed by his co-stars combined with liminality and reclusivity makes the construction of aura even more fascinating.
It’s not easy to pull off an uncelebrityness, and there are only a few who have done it. The best example I could think off is Stanley Kubrick. He had the aura of a mad genius who doesn’t care about public appearances and award shows. There are only a few interviews with the director, and he never cared about promoting his movies. Terrence Malick is another director who stays away from the media gaze. But I haven’t seen a popular actor whose entire market is based on the fan following (unlike Hollywood stars) could pull off being an uncelebrity.
How do these ecosystems work?
These ecosystems are the ones that drive the blockbusters in Tamil Cinema. The financial guarantee of a Rajini, Vijay or Ajith movie is because of this ecosystem. The problem here is that most reviewers and social media commentators are missing the ground reality concerning these films (until Vedhalam and Bairavaa, I also came under the same bracket). These movies are made for the fans, and some of these movies are financial blockbusters. They have low shelf-life and lacks art value. In simple words, there will be no discussion about these movies ten years later, but they are profitable than 99% of the films in Tamil cinema. For instance, Vivegam made a pre-release business of more 120 crores. But Vivegam couldn’t sustain the run and was considered to be not so profitable for the distributors. To compensate, Ajith and Shiva made Viswasam, a rural action drama that won the hearts of the masses. Despite competing with Rajinikanth’s Petta, the movie was considered to be one of the all-time blockbusters of Tamil cinema that made the trade happy. This was one of the reasons why producers go back to Ajith because he tends to compensate his producers/distributors for losses by making movies for them.
There were such movies during Kamal and Rajini era that were hits but never had any recall value except for the songs (for instance, Per Sollum Pillai, Thanga Magan). You get reminded of these because they are played on KTV and Raj TV. They will not even feature on the hit list of these actors, but they were financial hits of those times.
The reason why other players in the ecosystem comment, troll and review these movies is that they want eyeballs and nothing else. For instance, there were half-time reviews for Vivegam, and every online outlet scrambled to release the review before others. The financial implications, the trending video craze and eyeballs are far more important than improving the Tamil cinema. The Blue Sattai Maran’s review of Vivegam is past 3.3 million views, and he would have made enough money out of Google Ads by trolling a movie for 4 minutes. Compare it with his review for Taramani, and it didn’t even cross 250,000 views (Bhairava had more 730,000 views). The ecosystem feeds everyone from the producer to the average guy who makes comments on social media. These movies will be watched once — either in the theatres or on TV (Tamil Rockers — yes, but they still would want to look at the hero on a proper screen).
There will be more ecosystems created in the future when current ecosystems dwindle, but they are essential for Tamil cinema to flourish. The food chain has to be fed so that they can make and release smaller movies. The central element of these ecosystems are fans, and these fans ensure that the ecosystem doesn’t fail. They are protective of the stars and the rival stars. It was evident when Kamaal R Khan tried to troll Ajith, and the first refute came from Vijay fans. They troll each other, but they wouldn’t allow another to troll either of their stars.
Although Ajith has disowned his fan clubs and social media trolls, it’s consistent with his uncelebrity brand identity. The same brand identity is the reason why he gains more fans every year. The discussions about Ajith’s and Vijay’s movies fuel these ecosystems, and without these deliberations, trolls and social media comments, the ecosystems will fall.
What’s the bottom line?
- These movies can’t be stopped. Ajith and Vijay will make more such movies to feed their ecosystem as it’s essential for them to feed the food chain. They might experiment in-between, but if those movies are not feeding the ecosystem as expected (Yennai Arindhaal, for instance), they will stop experimenting. Nerkonda Paarvai, a remake of the Hindi hit Pink about consent, and sexual abuse of women is an experiment concerning Ajith’s ecosystem. It would be interesting to see how Ajith fans who sometimes troll and verbally abuse women online for commenting against their star, take the movie.
- There is no point in reviewing the finer details of these movies because it doesn’t matter to the stakeholders. It does matter to the ecosystem as it feeds on bad reviews, more eyeballs and large sums of money. The reviewers are publicising the movie, and the returns are mutual.
- If you are commenting on these movies on social media, you are part of the ecosystem and playing the game in the way they want you to play. You do get eyeballs for your posts and make elitist statements to show that you are not part of the ecosystem. But the harsh truth is, you are.
- Step down from your pedestal and see the reality. Given a chance, you would have commented about many movies of the 1980s and 90s the same way as you are commenting for Vivegam, Viswasam, Bairavaa or Mersal. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter.
- It was interesting to see how most critics panned Viswasam while the audience lapped it up and made the movie a hit.
Disclaimer:
I wrote the post because I can get more views on my blog. I am nothing but another blip in this ecosystem vying for more eyeballs.
