Why I stopped watching.

[Samar]

The context says it all.

[Shailesh]

Yeah, it's just sad. I'm sure many of those dark-skinned women look better than Trisha in her natural look.

[Prem]

Trisha gets the spotlight just because she's an actress.

Pooja is darker than the background dancers.

[Aarohi]

Tough to make – that whole movie was a nightmare. No one could pull it off from a manager to Kamal. Finally Mani thought he could, but COVID hit. Even after all those hurdles, the final product was just okay – a few good moments but a lot of boring bits. Someone should remake it, like how Peter Jackson's LOTR wasn't the first adaptation but became the best.

[Meera]

Worst casting ever in Tamil cinema.

[Gayatri]

The climax was so bad I completely forgot about the poor casting.

[Payal]

This is why Rajinikanth is the GOAT – he single-handedly solved the representation issue for dark-skinned men.

[Shivendra]

Does that mean Parthiban was the only cast member whose skin tone was accurate?

[Monica]

They delete comments about dark-skin representation, even when a post gets 80 upvotes in 30 mins.

[Vaishali]

I'd rather have zero dark-skinned representation than this. Zero representation beats negative representation.

[Nath]

It's a societal issue.

Tamil cinema, known for its message-driven, social-justice films, should tackle this. Some think they're addressing it with brown makeup – three things wrong with that.

1. They use brown makeup only for village girls – why not for city girls?

2. The makeup is limited to the screen; it isn't true representation. It doesn't inspire young dark-toned girls to feel seen, heard, accepted and respected.

3. It's not aesthetically pleasing to see someone in brown makeup. (Just wait till you see the heroine in Mandaadi.)

Dear Tamil cinema: Practice what you preach.