Fans of these so-called Malayalam superstars are as bad as religious fundamentalists -- intolerant, abusive, thuggish and incapable of possessing even a semblance of progressivism. Take the two recent instances. When Dileep was arrested in the case of abducting and assaulting a female colleague, these fan groups launched a campaign against the victim and in favour of the 'popular hero'. Even those who took strong stances supporting the victim were targeted online.
The second incident is the cyberattacks actor Parvathy is facing over raising some valid comments on anti-woman scenes in Kasaba, a repulsive, hard-to-finish Mammootty movie. Mammootty fans started an abusive, shaming campaign against Parvathy on social media, including making death and rape threats. Now they call for boycotting Parvathy's coming movie, My Story, a video song of which is being mass-disliked on YouTube (some of them had even called for boycotting Mayanadhi, a crime-romance drama released around Christmas. The reason is that the movie is directed by Aashiq Abu, whose wife, Rima, is a friend of Parvathy). All for a woman saying some words criticising a superstar movie.
Interestingly, though unsurprisingly, the biggies in the Malayalam movie, both male and female actors, have turned a blind eye to the incident. The producer of Kasaba apparently offered a job to one of the cyber abusers. Even Mammootty took a couple of weeks to respond to the verbal assaults these cyber thugs make in his name. He said he hasn't entrusted anyone to speak on behalf of him, falling short of condemning his fans' actions. Seeing this bullying and hate campaign, even I feel ashamed of being a Mammootty fan in my school-college days. And it's terrible that the so-called megastar, whose fancy dress movies hardly make any impact these days, be it in the box office or in the minds of cinema lovers, is still unmoved by all this.
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