Price of stardom

Rajnikanth is perhaps the biggest star in India at the moment. The box office figures speak for themselves. The recent flick Sivaji drew crowds into a mad frenzy all over the globe, causing mini riots from Bangalore to Malaysia. The movie was able to transcend language barriers to a great extent. Two bloggers found this the hard way when their blogs drew over thousand comments apiece [confused, Anuradha Sengupta].

Unfortunately, the biggest stars also make the biggest shakedown targets.

CHENNAI: A Congressman on Monday sought a ban on screening- Sivaji-the Boss , the tamil film starring superstar Rajnikant, for allegedly defaming UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The Congressman, M Satyamoorthy, on Monday filed a PIL in the Madras High Court, seeking the ban on the plea that the film portrayed Gandhi and Singh along with the villain, intending to defame them and the Congress.

The PIL, which is likely to come up for hearing on Tuesday, also sought Rs.50 crore from Rajnikant, film producer A V M Saravanan and Director Shankar as damages to the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee for "defaming" the leaders in the movie. [link]

I think this is the first time an entertainment industry related PIL seeks such a large sum of money. The politics behind this is highly confusing, a line of dialog from the movie (heard on the trailer) says: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. This appears to be straight out of the election manifesto. From whatever I have heard about the movie so far, I doubt if the audience would even notice the pictures of Gandhi and Singh amid such concentrated action. On the other hand, it is doubtful that such a movie will depict anything remotely politically incorrect for the relevant demographic.

I will not speculate if this is a result of an uneasy alliance between DMK and Congress (with the latter solidly being at the receiving end). I will grab a DVD the first chance I get. This is a movie I just can't miss.