Sunday, March 14, 2010

India -- Cowboy Hats Are the Rage


Photo: IndiaGlitz

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I love stories about the Indian "Cowboy" films and embrace of Wild West trappings by "Kollywood" (southern India's Tamil-language  film industry) and the vast subcontinent as a whole: they demonstrate the universality of the American foundation saga and the global embrace of the mythology and its trappings.... Here's another. According to a web site called IndiaGlitz, cowboy hats are currently all the rage  -- "that essential Prop" even in movies that do not have a cowboy or western theme.
Its retro mode in Kollywood and guess what is the most happening ‘property’ our stars are using, eh sorry, wearing!
Call it the trend or a fashion statement - our heroes are wearing the Cowboy hats., more often than not All you Tamil Film loyalists, rewind to times of Jai Shankar, possibly one of the first cowboys of Kollywood, He wore it for his most coveted cowboy role and then continuing his legacy was Rajinikanth in ‘Thaai Meedhu Sathyam'.
Well those were the days when stories were given the importance and costumes were naturally imbibed in the story. And now, Cowboy hats everywhere. The hero wears the cowboy hat and dances with the heroine in hilly areas, or you see him wear the hat as a ‘prop’ (short for property) and smoke a puff, typically wild... wild... west! [...] 
Cowboy hats are a style symbol. Hats have always been an accessory to mankind, but as a property in movies, especially songs, cowboy hats fill the blank. Spot the actors, be it the hero, the heroine or even the villain in the movies with the cowboy hats on, in upcoming releases. The tradition has been continuing for ages now and just like sky, the hats are here to stay. At least in Tamil Cinema.

 I have posted in the past about some of the films and actors mentioned in this story -- such as the recent movie Quickgun MurugunI know very little of this subculture -- but the pictures and description of the film plots are wild (west)!


 Photo: IndiaGlitz

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