Blame the murderous rage on movies

COIMBATORE: The city is yet to overcome the shock of two back-to-back gory murders of two girls, a 14-year-old school girl near Avarampalayam on Friday and a 20-year-old college student near Vadavalli on Saturday, by alleged jilted 'lovers'. If circumstantial evidence and police versions are to be believed, the two youth, both 21 years old, in a fit of rage after spurned by the girls, killed them and, in one case, even brutally assaulted the mother of one of the victims.Both men, later, killed themselves, after their rage subsided. There was also a third case near Ramnagar in the city on Saturday when a 28-year-old man assaulted his estranged 24-year-old relative with a knife for not reciprocating his love.
What explains the suicidal anger at being rejected? What have transformed the rejected lovers who in the past would turn introspective or pitiful or even hit the bottle when romance sours into raging murderers?
Psychologists and members of the civil society point at a disturbing social scenario shaped and moulded by numerous factors ranging from domestic conditions, parental relationship, interaction and pure personal behavioural traits. One major factor that shapes the youthful male's perception towards the opposite sex and teenage relationships is the image and the message conveyed through mass media, especially popular cinema.
"Movies affect the psyche of youth in a major manner. They often watch the movie and internalise the actions either consciously or subconsciously. They form their own perceptions based on these flawed interpretations leading to such incidents," said P Chandran, human rights activist and president of Konangal film society, Coimbatore.
A common trajectory followed in most of the mainstream Kollywood films involve a male, mostly a youth, weaving a fantasy world around a pretty girl and chasing her until she falls for him. There is often no scope for rejection to the relentless advances made by the hero. "A major issue of Kollywood is that it is the only movie industry where 90% of the movies are based on teen and pre teen relationships. There are numerous films based on such topics and these are watched by an audience also in the same age group and the effect it will leave on them is pretty evident," said Kavinjar Puviyarasu, a social critic and a poet.
Another disturbing trend from the movies is the fact that most of them choose to portray women in an inferior manner especially in a romantic relationship where the momentum and outcome of the couple's fate is often based on the actions and decisions of the hero. Rejection often leads to either violence on self or violence directed towards other individuals often the partner.
"In a recent mainstream movie Vazhukku Enn 18/9 , one of the main characters, a school student try to woo a girl and when she spurns his advances he decides to throw acid on her face. But the movie also opts to focus on the consequences of the act but it depends what the viewer decides to imbibe from the movie," said S P P Baskaran, a city-based ad filmmaker and a film enthusiast.
Shalinu Somesh, a city based consultant rehabilitation psychologist, blames it all on the violence in media, especially in movies. "These revolve on hero worship where the hero is required to react strongly in a perceived macho manner whenever someone cheats or does something wrong. These actions are always justified on screen and passes on a wrong message to the youth," she said.
The police officials who collected evidence from both crime scenes at Avarampalayam and Vadavalli claimed they have not come across such gory murder. A Venugopal reportedly sat down and slashed 14-year-old A Abinaya's throat repeatedly leaving her dead in a pool of blood with a huge gaping cut on her throat. Azeem Ajmal, who reportedly barged into his classmate Sruthi's house killed her after inflicting more than nine stab wounds and stabbed her mother Latha Menon, who tried to intervene. Venugopal attempted to slice his throat but was rushed to government hospital where he died on Monday. Azeem doused kerosene and set himself ablaze and suffered more than 60% burn injuries and was found dead atop Sruthi's mutilated body, which was lying face down in a pool of blood.