MGR-Rajini phenomena

Superstars are many in the film field of every language. And they all have some unique qualities and personalities.

They may be mass pullers and money spinners in their time, especially when they have continuous successful films in their name.

MGR and Rajini are only two names, who differ from other superstars. The reason for it is not only based on the factors related to the film field.

Many actors came to the field for the last hundred years of the history of films in each language. Usually a few actors among them only will become stars in the respective languages. 

The actors must have luck to get attractive characters and the chance to make them successful. But their talent only will help them to make the chances successful through years of their life.

A few among the stars only became superstars so far. This is not because of their luck and mere talent in acting. It needs a different talent to impress the audience for years even out of the screen.

Uniqueness in their acting and selection of characters make them differ from other stars.

By these special qualities they are building an image for themselves. And they are reaching a status, which was built by the continuous success films and their characters. There are many example for this in all languages. 

Sivaji used his extreme and in built talent of acting his personal punctuality and dedication on work to reach the heights.

Mohanlal used natural acting and comedy skill to reach the position as his uniqueness.

Kamalhassan made experiments in the acting style and using make up for different characters. And he tried to create many new characters for himself.

Amithab Bachan is very much appreciated for his unique voice and physic. He is the first superstar, who was criticized for his physical appearance by many critics and he overcome all those by his hard work.

Chiranjeevi used his elite action style and dancing skill to attract mass audience.

Sureshgopi became superstar because of his dialogue delivery and the character of Malayalam audience to search an alternate always.

These are only examples and we can see many superstars throughout the world, in all film fields. They may be became superstars for some reasons like this.

M.G.Ramachandran, shortly called by all fans as MGR, is the first superstar, who think more over the film field and acting skills. He is the only superstar, who understood the power of cinema and the mentality of audience in a language.  

He was a master of directing every area of film field like music, dialogues, lyric, action etc to attract the audience in common and especially his fans.

He created a unique image for himself by hard work and smart work done for more than a decade. And he continued his hard work for the next decades to keep his position unopposed, up to he left the field to become the chief minister of Tamilnadu. When he was acting in the films, he used all film techniques and especially social messages in songs and dialogues to attract all family audience and action sequences to impress the youth and children.

This style of film making is very unique in the world. No one in the world used the social messages and lyrics for this purpose successfully as he used in all films he acted. Still his films were non political and mere family drama; he used the social songs as his identity in those subjects also. Nobody could follow this style successfully anywhere in the world. So it became the face of his films and his personal image.

He made an image for himself as the savior of the poor and powerful. Even his fair skin didn’t allow him to show himself as poor man, he used to make characters for him as coming to the poor from a rich or royal family. That worked very well.

Rajini follow the same route following MGR. All audience feel him as one among the them. He used creators and technicians for that or they used him for their convenience, and the net result was only one. Rajini became the next superstar like MGR. Of course he didn’t use the personal image, like a teetotaler as MGR maintained. Instaed of it, he used a different ‘style’ in acting, and he propagated it as his uniqueness. All other creators, technicians, producers and media used this image for their marketing. It attracted children more than the elders. And the elders also started to like following the children.

Even after 30 years of his demise, MGR is remembered for his personal image and social songs. The children of that time are middle aged or slightly over the age of fifty now. Still they respect and love MGR. That is reflecting in public election also. That is the true colour of Tamilnadu civilization.

Rajini have many children fans now, even when he is in the sixties. It shows that the children of current time will be fan of Rajini even after 40 years from now also. That means he will be a superstar like MGR.

This status will not continue for any other stars. Because the phenomena of MGR and Rajini is not only had happened because of their uniqueness, but also by many social, economical, political and cultural reasons.

Worshipping a man, whom they like a leader is the specialty of Indians, especially the Tamil people. (Telugu and Kannada people are following it within a limit.) They love their idols and follow them by all means.

The people think and respect cinema as their life. They believe film heroes as real heroes an expect them will deliver good result if they elected to political powers too. Even the educated people are also believing it or misusing the belief of the common people for their personal progress.

The people like to be a fan of a star and enjoy themselves by praising and worshipping the heroes. Some like the hero for some reasons. Some didn’t like that, want to oppose it and becoming the fans of another stars. The stars and the media are using the mentality of the public for their development. So the stars are becoming stars for ever, until their films flopped continuously.

MGR, Rajini also started in this style of usual superstars. They had opposition from Sivaji fans and Kamal fans for some time. But it changed in the due course. All the film goers started to accept the uniqueness of MGR and Rajini and they became stars without any opposition for their super star status. And they two became unique phenomena in cinema.

In the beginning MGR got negative reviews as he is not a good actor as Sivaji. But by his skill in the action sequence and the social songs, he overcame all those objections. And he won the award for the best actor in India too!

Rajini once got negative comments for his behavior in the public and he called as a ‘mental’ by the people who hate his acting. They compare the acting of Kamal to justify it. But the continuous hits and style of acting made Rajini as unavoidable factor in Tamil field. And all who hate Rajini had continue to tease him only by standing in the queues for the ticket to watch Rajini films. That is the success of Rajini to reach the height, as no actor in India reached.

Everyone who hate the acting of MGR or Rajini will love the social view and style of both respectively.