When Stars Arrives To the Polls: Politics, Cinema and Television in Tamil Nadu

In Tamil Nadu, one of the most populated states in the South of India, the relationship between cinema, television and politics can explain the success of some of its political leaders. Leaders who started their public activity as directors, actors or script writers, activities which they were successfully able to combine with their roles as public servants. The ethnical and religious diversity of this region, along with the unswayable support of their groups of fans, gave birth to the creation of nationalist political parties which do not hesitate to defend their cultural idiosyncrasy as a sign of social identity. The political game in Tamil Nadu highlights the importance that media, and especially cinema, has had since the forties and fifties of the twentieth century in shaping the political scene. This article, with a historical perspective, has as an objective to determine the turning points of this complex relationship between audiovisual and politics, correlation characteristic of Tamil Nadu but also of India as a whole.