Super 'Super 10'

Tamil movies, with their several cliches, hero worship, exaggerated sentiments and gravity-defying stunts, are quite ripe for satire. But the opportunity has rarely been exploited, whether within or outside the field. In Kodambakkam, Satyaraj is the lone actor keeping the 'spoof genre' alive, with movies like Adithadi and Mahaanadigan containing some hilarious sequences that poked fun at other films. But lately, spoofing has come down to simply recreating sequences from other popular movies. The assumption is that seeing Satyaraj or Vivek play characters from other movies is enough to make us laugh. No further thought goes into the segments.

There used to be a TV program (Saraswathi Sabatham or something like that) on Doordarshan a long time ago. It was the first, full-length spoof of Tamil cinema I remember seeing. It had its own, suitably ridiculous storyline and rather than spoofing specific movies, it spoofed the Tamil cinema scene in general. So it had scenes like the hero growing an impossibly long beard(to signify kaadhal tholvi) in the few minutes it took to read a letter from his lover and bad guys willingly inserting their heads into hanging tires and other props during fight sequences. It was a lot of fun and laughs were easy to come by. I remember it ending in a rather hurried fashion though I do not remember why.

While not as clever or original as that program, Sun TV’s Super-10 seems like a legitimate successor. The program spoofs a different movie each week while presenting the week's top 10 songs. While the spoof itself is more of a filler for the program’s real purpose, listing the songs, I’ve been watching the program for the spoof rather than the songs (kinda like reading Playboy for the articles?!). The program understands the concept of spoofing in that it borrows the outline of a story from a popular movie but instead of restaging the same story, it modifies it in outrageous ways. So it is both clever and funny.

For instance, in their take on Sethu last week, ‘Sethu’ kidnaps ‘Abitha’ and takes her to a dilapidated house, but then screams at her for spending all his money on food! A crying ‘Abitha’ buries her head between her knees sorrowfully but when ‘Sethu’ lifts her head, she is actually eating an apple! She then hits ‘Sethu’ on the head with the apple, which is how he ends up in a mental institution!

And in the Padaiyappa spoof, ‘Sivaji’ hugs the pillar at his house and refuses to let go even as ‘Rajni’ pulls him back. But when the camera pulls back, we see that ‘Sivaji’ is actually holding on to a maid’s hands on the other side. And in the famous scene where ‘Rajni’ visits ‘Ramya Krishnan’, ‘Rajni’ throws his towel up to pull down the swing, only to have pieces of cement and paint rain down on him from the ceiling!

Indian, Mella Thirandhadhu Kadhavu and Gauravam were some other movies spoofed on the program in recent weeks. Hilarious stuff! Now, if the guys behind Super-10 script a movie starring Satyaraj, that might be something to look forward to…