Liquor, young Malayali tourists and ‘Manjummel Boys’: Much ado about nothing?

“I watched Manjummel Boys and it has disturbed me. The mentality of the Malayalee youth who visit tourist places is the same as shown in the film and they reach not just tourist spots, but forests too. They are concerned only about drinking and vomiting, screaming and violating rules,” Jeyamohan had written.

Film critics and experts, however, said it is not right to analyse a movie morally.

CS Venkiteswaran, a film critic, said that Manjummel Boys is a feel-good movie that was enjoyed by everyone.

“It’s a feel good movie on the one and at the same time dangerously male chauvinist. However, we don’t have to approach films from a moralistic viewpoint and it is better to avoid such controversies,” he said.

Filmmaker B Unnikrishnan, in a Facebook post, said if the dance, drinking, laughs and hugs of the Manjummel Boys disturbed Jeyamohan, he has only himself to blame.

“Your comments about the film Manjummel Boys do not deserve any mercy. You described the characters in the film as drunken beggars. You are saying that such people need to be hated,” Unnikrishnan noted.

Manjummel Boys, also a tribute to actor Kamal Hassan by its makers and set in the very caves in which his Guna was shot, is a runaway hit in Tamil Nadu too.

“The film is much accepted in Tamil Nadu as it is more relatable to the Tamil audience. As both Malayalam and Tamil languages are used in the film, there is no language barrier. The choice of the Guna caves in Kodaikanal and the inclusion of the music makes the film more likeable for the Tamil audience,” said Venkiteswaran.

Writer VS Anilkumar said Jeyamohan’s comparison of the characters in the film as well as the Malayalee tourists to ‘beggars’ was casteist.

“The words that he has used to address Malayalees, porukki, were used to address people from lower castes and poor economic backgrounds. These are the products of the ‘upper caste mentality’,” Anilkumar noted on his Facebook page.

He also said that educated people in modern society do not use such casteist words or statements these days and alleged that Jeyamohan was part of the ‘Savarna Hindutva’ ideology.