With the passing of filmmaker V Sekhar last year, Tamil cinema lost one of its most distinctive voices. Distinctive not because he reinvented cinematic language or mounted grand spectacles, but because, within the tight boundaries of mainstream Tamil cinema in the 1990s, he consistently challenged patriarchy, male ego, and middle-class anxieties — and did so with humour.
At a time when much of Tamil cinema revolved around hero worship, caste pride, and feudal nostalgia, Sekhar turned his gaze toward cramped lower middle-class homes, salary struggles, dowry pressures, and domestic disagreements. His protagonists were not larger-than-life saviours but ordinary families seeking upward mobility. The battlefield was not the village square but the living room.
A self-proclaimed Marxist born into a feudal family, Sekhar announced his politics early. As an insider to the industry, he did not hesitate to criticise his own fraternity. In his very first outing, he defined the space he would occupy — reformist, socially conscious, and unafraid to question power.
His debut film, Neengalum Herothan (1990), offered a sharp critique of the prevailing culture of obsession with movie stars and how fan worship ruins children’s education and wrecks families. It also breaks the myths around cinema. A rewatch of the film underscores how enduring the director’s critique remains — little has changed in the culture of cinematic obsession, where stars can leverage their screen personas to transition into politics, aspiring to become Chief Minister by exploiting their popularity and the blind faith of their fans.
Across films such as Pondatti Sonna Kettukanum (1991), Porantha Veeda Puguntha Veeda (1993), Varavu Ettana Selavu Pathana (1994), Kaalam Maari Pochu (1996), Viralukketha Veekkam (1999), and Koodi Vazhnthal Kodi Nanmai (2000), Sekhar returned repeatedly to the same social terrain: dowry, son preference, debt, male entitlement, and the fragile pride of the joint family. But he did something rare for mainstream cinema of that period — he gave women moral and economic authority within the household.
His women spoke back. They resisted. They demanded dignity. In Viralukketha Veekkam, wives confront irresponsible husbands who seek to control them. In Kaalam Maari Pochu, the logic of treating daughters as liabilities is questioned. In Pondatti Sonna Kettukanum, patriarchal arrogance is held up to ridicule.
Across his body of work, Sekhar repeatedly makes the case that women have economic and moral authority within the family. While these themes could easily have become preachy, they did not, largely because of tone and structure.
“Sekhar avoided ideological monologues. He embedded his critique within comedy. The humour softened confrontation. Male arrogance, dowry greed, and financial irresponsibility were mocked rather than attacked through rhetoric. The family structure itself was never rejected, only rebalanced. That made the films palatable,” journalist Kavitha Muralidharan says.
Sekhar’s Marxist leanings were visible in films through the iconography of Karl Marx, Lenin, and Dr BR Ambedkar. His films often featured a character who is an upright Union trade leader or a politician wearing a red scarf and becomes the moral compass of the film. However, these films cannot be easily brushed aside as Communist propaganda because they work within the structure of a middle-class family’s daily life.
“There are characters who are unionists sporting red shawls and scenes about unionisation, worker dignity, etc. But still, his films are not slogan-driven. They are domestic social comedies. If there is ideological influence, it is filtered through everyday family life rather than articulated as party politics,” Kavitha says.
Comedy was his sharpest tool. Sekhar played a pivotal role in shaping the careers of Vadivelu, Vivek, and Kovai Sarala. The pairing of Vadivelu and Kovai Sarala became iconic under his direction. Much like Goundamani-Senthil, Vadivelu-Kovai Sarala emerged as another memorable comedy duo in Tamil cinema, thanks to Sekhar.
Even today, comedy clips from his films circulate widely, a testament to their repeat value.
For many Tamil households, Sekhar’s films became staple television viewing — the kind families would not miss during satellite re-runs.
“His films have a lot of repeat value. Besides rewatching them on TV, an average Tamil person continues to watch comedy clips from his movies because of the humorous content,” says film scholar P Deivendra from the University of Hyderabad.
According to Kavitha, Sekhar has created a recognisable cinematic space: the 1990s lower middle-class Tamil joint family under stress.
“His films became regular television staples. That is significant. When viewers did not miss a Sekhar film telecast on satellite channels, it speaks to repeat value, particularly of the comedy segments.”
She says that he normalised questioning male authority within marriage, mocking patriarchal ego, and centring daughters and daughters-in-law in family dramas. “But at the same time, he did not alienate family audiences. That balance gave his films durability. His cultural impact lies less in cinematic innovation and more in the consolidation of a genre: the reformist family comedy-drama that addressed social tensions without breaking mainstream comfort,” she says.
However, Kavitha adds that though Sekhar’s films questioned patriarchy, they still cannot be called radical, as “they seek correction within the family, not structural overhaul outside it.”
Deivendra notes that Sekhar made realistic films within the limited confines of mainstream cinema in the 1990s. “His films brought progressive ideas to Tamil cinema. He addressed the domestic violence that women face and how men exploit women in the family. He showed things that happen in middle-class households,” he says.
In Kaalam Maari Pochu , one of the highlight scenes features Vadivelu locking the doors of his house to beat his wife, played by Kovai Sarala. He warns his mother and his brother-in-law not to open the door before he goes inside. Contrary to the build-up of the scene, however, Vadivelu ends up being beaten by his wife, turning the moment into a hilarious reversal.
“While this disrupted older cinematic norms of male dominance, it still framed empowerment through domination. It did not dismantle the logic of violence; it inverted it,” Kavitha says.
She says that from a contemporary feminist lens, Sekhar’s films appear progressive for their time but limited in scope. “They challenge patriarchy inside the home but do not question the structural foundations of that home,” she observes.
Even his critics would agree that though V Sekhar might not have brought radical change through his films, he chipped away at patriarchy to some extent with his scenes and jokes. And in doing so, he left behind a body of work that continues to resonate in living rooms long after the theatre lights have dimmed.