Why are directors afraid of social media criticism? If history is correct Malayalam cinema begin in the year 1930 with a soundless and black and white film Vikathakumaran. Then in 1938 we got our first talkie and then came the colour film Kandam Bacha Coat in the year 1961. The reason why I dig the past of our Malayalam cinema is just to make the reader believe that it is just a generation gap that we have with respect to our cinema tradition. We witnessed so many stalwarts between these small periods of time who introduced changes in Malayalam cinema. While people became used to the magic of cinema, they started to criticise it. They mainly spoke about it in tea shops. Simply put, a person who watched the films discussed it with the public and time named him critic. Later, the medium became very competitive and so did the critics too. The tea shop criticism was a kind of genuine criticism which was directly from the mouth of the viewer rather than a view from a person who wrote in newspapers and books.

This situation has grown in a big manner in the present century. So the tea shop conversation is now very much audible to the filmmakers (whether they want to hear it or not and much to their irritation), with the help of social Medias. These film critics or the so called viewers more or less never take into consideration the person who makes the film. They only consider the work. This is the very reason why till now no fans association have been able to catapult a movie into a successful one in Malayalam film industry. For example Peruchazhi` was a movie which was given too much hype through the social media but that couldn`t help the movie to become a successful one. In an article, director Sathyan Anthikad had mentioned that, a person who is not able to make a movie has no right to critique a movie... For me this statement is a pure nonsense because it is like asking each and every person to make a movie in order to watch a movie.

Our methods have changed, our technology has changed and our way of criticising a movie has also changed. Each and every filmmaker and the viewers should understand that fact. In a way this can help a filmmaker find his draw backs very easily. We are all very keen to give a reply to Ramgopal Varma or to what Maniratnam says; but if we give that keenness for doing our films better, then social media would have come a full circle. Then there wouldn`t be an open clarification by Sathyan Anthikad or anyone telling the reason for their failure. Malayalam cinema today is in a pathetic situation. While the Tamil industry and Telugu industry have started to do good meaningful master movies, here our young filmmakers are pulling the trolley down with 25% of humour 25% of thriller and 50% percentage glamour. It is also sad that some senior directors are seeing these kind of films as brilliant ones and treating it elite. The time to think and do better cinema in this industry is much needed in the present situation, where a Drishyam` is seen occurring only once a decade.