The Reel Woman: Vijay-Mamitha Baiju’s Jana Nayagan is harmfully performative about child abuse, women’s empowerment
It is rare for Telugu cinema to spark conversations around mental health, child abuse and women’s empowerment. But in 2023, Anil Ravipudi and Bhagavanth Kesari did just that. It did not seem to matter to Nandamuri Balakrishna’s fans that the film was shoddy at best and the conversations performative. So performative that Sreeleela’s character Viji has no agency, because everyone else knows what’s best for her. Does the Tamil remake Jana Nayagan get it right? Do Vijay and Mamitha Baiju’s characters fare any better? *Spoilers ahead* Vijay and Mamitha Baiju co-star in H Vinoth’s action drama, Jana Nayagan. Mamitha Baiju’s Viji barely gets an improved character arc Viji is a young girl who is brought up by Bhagavanth Kesari in the original and Vijay’s Thalapathy Vetri Kondan in the remake. She battles phobias stemmed from watching the death of a loved one at a young age that the film barely manages to scratch the surface of, let alone find a holistic solution for. The only solution boths films offer is to her ‘strong’. Bhagavanth wants …
