What is more famous about Kerala movies after Mammooty and Mohanlal? .... No prizes for guessing... Mallu porn and specifically Shakeela aunty ! My guess is that about 80% of non mallu youth would not know who Mohanlal or Mammooty looked like, but would have seen at least one Shakeela softporn movie...
What makes mallu porn so unique and popular? The movies have been laughed at, ridiculed and given a pretty "wrong?" image of mallu's sexual preferences. But how come it got so popular, a part of the local culture amongst the Indian youth of our times....
For the uninitiated, mallu softporn boom was from 1999-2003, starting with the launch of a movie called Kinnarathumbikal. Till then , the mallu softporn industry was limited to a couple of sleazy theaters, and did not have any marketing support. There was no script and was just a couple of semi nude girls taking a bath or making out with a couple of old guys.
Kinnarathumbikal did to the mallu softporn industry what Playboy did to the American Girlie magazine industry. They had a different business model. The producer (i dunno who he is) invested in an actual script, they shot the movie using a 70 MM camera, and distributed it across all the major theaters in the state. The storyline was similar to Lolita, Nishabd etc, the only difference being the older person is a lady, played by Shakeela and the young one is a guy.
The movie was unaplogetic about its messaging. For perspective, earlier mallu softporn movies showed sexually explicit movies in the pretense of "sex education" or "wife has a mental problem or husband is in the Gelf" storylines.. The new movie did not make any excuses for what it showed, it was the arrival of the mallu antiheroine a-la Baazigar.
The entire concept and execution was breakthrough. The movie ran for more than 100 days, was a super hit and revived the mallu film industry which was going through the doldrums of "same old thing" movies.
The movie created a revolution of sorts in the mallu film industry. Mallu Softporn became the most famous thing after Lungis and Coconuts.. Shakeela was the most sought after actress, signing up for hundreds of movies in weeks. The industry flourished in the early 2000s and was the manna for thousands of mallu and non mallu men across the world, thanks to the internet and midnight matinee on Surya TV.
Why did Shakeela get so popular? Does it mean that mallu men like "BIG" women? Err.. Im not too sure.. Personally I dont find her anywhere near attractive. However I have to admit she is a very clever businesswoman. She followed the Mithunda model - Do movies by the bulk, charge low premiums, but make high revenues in the process. To be fair, She built a brand for herself not only in Kerala, but also outside. Ask any northie which mallu actress they know of, I can bet my house that they r gonna say Shakeela. Once she realized that the genre started to get limp (no pun intended) she did what all controversial people do. She shifted to "character" acting and she wrote a book. Now howzzat for effective brand management ??
The Mallu Softporn industry's popularity was further compounded due to the really bad quality of mallu mainstream movies in that era. Mohanlal tried to do a Rajni - lift up his lungi, twirl his mustache and say 15 minute monologues which no one could understand.. Mammooty tried to do the same, the popular directors of yester years were struggling with lack of storylines and mallu families started moving out of the cinema halls, with cable TV soaps ganing more and more popularity.
Just like all good ideas die a natural death, so did the mallu softporn industry. The movie Meesha Madhavan, starring Dileep , directed by a newcomer gave a fresh new look to the family movies in the mallu industry and signalled the revival of mainstream cinema in the mallu film world. Shakeela exited at the right time. She had a few successors, but none of them were able to create the "impact" which she was able to , in the short period of time...
All said and done... the Mallu softporn era created quite a lot of controversy and disrepute amongst the general population even now.. however I have to admit that it was a genre similar to the Grindhouse movies which will defenitely find a place in the pages of mallu movie history..
Shakeela Aunty... U are breakthrough yaar...
