The “little superstar’s” moves are actually pretty tight (he’s a little person, not a child). Rajnikanth is there, and according to some of the Youtube commentors, there is some discussion of whether he should be smoking cigarettes or not. Oh, and the hip hop/ electro track is by MC Miker G & DJ Sven (“Holiday Rap”). I have no idea what movie it is (Rajnikanth has been in hundreds)… though I suspect someone out there might know.
« You, Too, Can Take Your Brownian Crisis To Prime-Time ·
Main
· A Non-Encounter With Salman Rushdie »
September 22, 2006
42 comments
on September 22, 2006 9:03 PM · Direct link
Amardeep. You just blogged about a break dancing brown midget, ahem, I mean, "little person." You just gained so many cool points in my book.
on September 22, 2006 9:03 PM · Direct link
O H M Y G O D D D D D D D . . .
I loved it. That was just brilliant. My god he was better than MJ himself.
on September 22, 2006 9:07 PM · Direct link
Tamil humor in movies used to consist entirely of fat Men Fridays with thinur besmudged foreheads speaking in falsetto, this is a huge step fwd
on September 22, 2006 9:28 PM · Direct link
Tamil humor in movies used to consist entirely of fat Men Fridays with thinur besmudged foreheads speaking in falsetto, this is a huge step fwd
Huh..??.. are you talking about how tamilians are portrayed in Hindi movies.. Humor in movies has been used from the advent of Tamil cinema (N.S.Krishnan et.al from 1950s) to spread egalitarian ideas and this is no step fwd..
on September 22, 2006 9:52 PM · Direct link
Huh..??.. are you talking about how tamilians are portrayed in Hindi movies.. Humor in movies has been used from the advent of Tamil cinema (N.S.Krishnan et.al from 1950s) to spread egalitarian ideas and this is no step fwd..
No dude, I'm Tamil and I'm just pointing out that most humor in Indian mass market cinema is physical in nature. I do know that there are Tamil movies that are message oriented and utilize more subtle humor. I am a 3 Stooges & Farrely Bros fan and enjoy this kind of thing, but there is a bit of the squirm factor over finding amusement in a person whose life must be very difficult
on September 22, 2006 10:14 PM · Direct link
Amardeep, honestly - you da man!
The little person actually goes by the name of "Jackie Chan" and used to regularly feature in tamil movies in the late 80s/ early 90s. I think this particular movie is "Maveeran" - the tamil version of "Mard", with Rajnikanth taking over Big B's role.
on September 22, 2006 11:14 PM · Direct link
Holy crap!! That was soo hyphy!
You just made everything better by posting that.
on September 22, 2006 11:25 PM · Direct link
...Holy crap. Just when I thought Solla Solla Enda Perumai was the shit, you post this up. Agreed Amardeep, your cool points just keep rising exponentially.
on September 23, 2006 12:00 AM · Direct link
That dude is actually threatening to bite thalaivar's thing off. Note how he bares his teeth and menacingly shakes his head in the vicinity of the lungi. In fact, he starts with various grasping/clutching actions. He's excited with anticipation and rattles his limbs to show that. It's anticlimatic that he just weakly retreats when Rajni puts a symbolic substitute in his mouth towards the end.
on September 23, 2006 12:06 AM · Direct link
you know what makes me laugh harder...
is that someone sent me this link about 6 hours before you put up this post.
on September 23, 2006 12:09 AM · Direct link
Guys, I'm afraid I don't deserve too many cool points for this -- 168,000 people had already seen the clip before someone left a tip on the News Tab alerting us to it! I should also point out that I posted this at 8:30 on a Friday night ;-)
on September 23, 2006 12:30 AM · Direct link
Amardeep, it's midnight, i got back from the library at 9:30 and ate ramen noodles [eeewww!]. stop hinting at your lameness and take a look at me. i win.
on September 23, 2006 12:35 AM · Direct link
A brilliant work, epic in scope with obvious echoes of both Bakhtin and Arbus. Kudos, my good man! Kudos!
on September 23, 2006 1:00 AM · Direct link
I just showed this video to my little sisters and we've resolved to learn his dance steps. So we can be cool too.
on September 23, 2006 1:14 AM · Direct link
you provided much needed comic relief for me tonight! thanks.
on September 23, 2006 1:32 AM · Direct link
Wow. Using the little person angle as the base of humour or not, his moves are mesmerizing! As for smoking, when they're talking as Rajnikanth lights up, The Little Superstar asks for a puff, and Rajni tells him that kids shouldn't smoke, at which point The Little Superstar reminds him that he's actually a little older than Rajni. Hehe.
on September 23, 2006 2:12 AM · Direct link
He actually says that he's TEN years older than Rajnikanth. He also threatens to tear him up if Rajni doesn't give him the bidi. Sorry, Taz. Didn't realize little sisters were going to be reading this. I hope to see this at the next meetup :-)
on September 23, 2006 2:37 AM · Direct link
I just showed this video to my little sisters and we've resolved to learn his dance steps. So we can be cool too.
Uuuhhh, I kinda knew these steps to begin with. Rajnikant and Prabhu Deva are my idols.
Marble floors, Prabhu Deva, Rajnikant, and MC Hammer on tape results in some weird, weird, experiences.
on September 23, 2006 2:38 AM · Direct link
That just made my day! Thanks Amardeep.
on September 23, 2006 2:50 AM · Direct link
I like the dance, but I just don't see what's funny. Tamil cinema has a long history of using people's appearance for "humor". Much easier to put up a fat man, black man/thin man/short man/bald man than to have your humor be entirely based on writing good jokes. Usually the aspects of appearance used are things that people have no control over.
on September 23, 2006 5:25 AM · Direct link
I like the dance, but I just don't see what's funny. Tamil cinema has a long history of using people's appearance for "humor". Much easier to put up a fat man, black man/thin man/short man/bald man than to have your humor be entirely based on writing good jokes. Usually the aspects of appearance used are things that people have no control over.
You know...it doesn't hurt to take the PC stick out of your ass every now and then.
on September 23, 2006 6:06 AM · Direct link
Aiyooo what about the fact that Rajni still plays the protagonist even though he is old enough to be the grandpa of his leading ladies. I noticed in the scene that he is looking old enough to be the Appa of the woman who is playing is Amma.
Same goes for the highly over-rated AB and Shahrukh "stuttering" Khan. They current crop of women they are running around the trees with were in diapers when these guys started in movies. Looks like the shelf-life of men and women in desi movies is radically different.
on September 23, 2006 6:46 AM · Direct link
Aiyooo what about the fact that Rajni still plays the protagonist even though he is old enough to be the grandpa of his leading ladies. I noticed in the scene that he is looking old enough to be the Appa of the woman who is playing is Amma. Same goes for the highly over-rated AB and Shahrukh "stuttering" Khan. They current crop of women they are running around the trees with were in diapers when these guys started in movies. Looks like the shelf-life of men and women in desi movies is radically different.
Amen!
on September 23, 2006 11:02 AM · Direct link
Dugg! (no 1 in digg/videos!)
on September 23, 2006 11:24 AM · Direct link
@ Kurma .. oops, I thought I heard ten minutes!
on September 23, 2006 11:31 AM · Direct link
The little person actually goes by the name of "Jackie Chan" and used to regularly feature in tamil movies in the late 80s/ early 90s. I think this particular movie is "Maveeran" - the tamil version of "Mard", with Rajnikanth taking over Big B's role.
Is Jackie Chan his real name? I wonder how they'all come up with they-ah names in Tamil movies. There is "Shivaji" Ganesan and then there is this dude name Napoleon. Not sure if I am spelling it correctly. I think he might spell it as "Napolean" a la Veeran and Selvan.
on September 23, 2006 12:42 PM · Direct link
the movie is "Adisaya Piravi" - http://imdb.com/title/tt0318275/
on September 23, 2006 12:47 PM · Direct link
You know...it doesn't hurt to take the PC stick out of your ass every now and then.No, it doesn't. But the pleasurable pressure on the prostate is lost if I take it out, so I think I'll leave it in there for a while. When it's desis being lampooned by others, it's aiyyo this, OMG that. When it's us kicking down the chain, it's "Oh, don't be too PC", "take a chill pill".
on September 23, 2006 1:01 PM · Direct link
Is Jackie Chan his real name?No.
There is "Shivaji" Ganesan and then there is this dude name Napoleon."Shivaji" got his name because he played the role of Chhatrapati Shivaji in Similarly, there is "Nizhalgal" Ravi. From some other factors, there are "Gemini" Ganesan, "Malaysia" Vasudevan, "Delhi" Ganesh. "Rocket" Ramanathan, "Crazy" Mohan, "Loose" Mohan.
Very common in Classical music too. "Maharajapuram" Santhanam, "Delhi" Balaji etc. My guess is, just like people use last names in the West to distinguish between the many Steves and Janes, people use these nicknames in the Tamil cinema.
on September 23, 2006 1:29 PM · Direct link
I am still undecided if I should laugh or cry after watching this video.
on September 23, 2006 2:25 PM · Direct link
When it's desis being lampooned by others, it's aiyyo this, OMG that. When it's us kicking down the chain, it's "Oh, don't be too PC", "take a chill pill".
lol Yeah, good point. However, I'm sure that even you, when you first saw this, had an instinctive response of "Holy shit! A dancing midget!" before the PC'ness kicked in.
on September 23, 2006 7:20 PM · Direct link
I'm sure that even you, when you first saw this, had an instinctive response of "Holy shit! A dancing midget!" before the PC'ness kicked in.
Yeah, the "PC'ness" was not my first response. But neither was "Holy shit! A dancing midget!". I thought "typical Rajni movie stuff. Hey, that guy's not bad at all". I did enjoy a lot of this kind of stuff in Tamil movies and used to laugh while I was a kid. So, it's not a surprising thing to me. But I also used to throw stones at stray dogs and catch insects and crush them for no reason.
Why is having some compassion or empathy same as being "PC"? It seems that the only thing that's politically correct nowadays is to be "politically incorrect". I'm not blaming anyone for laughing at this as a first reaction. But how about taking a moment afterwards to think about how the "midgets" are sufferers or extreme discrimination. Almost all jobs they can get are the ones where others can laugh at them such as in movies, circuses and the like. A restaurant called Señor Pepe's in Chennai has a 3 ft guy in a sombrero at the door. They've been doing it for 10 years and folks love it (I'm not exactly sure why) and many laugh.
on September 23, 2006 8:11 PM · Direct link
Senor Pepe's. Oh man, I remember the midget at that restaurant. I went there about once or twice. Is that same man still around?
on September 24, 2006 4:28 AM · Direct link
Man, little brown would TOTALLY win in a dance-off with Verne Troyer.
By the way, would anyone else other than me pay good money to see that? God, why can't there be pay-per-view by request line?
on September 24, 2006 8:28 PM · Direct link
Am I high or did I just see what I think I just saw?
on September 25, 2006 11:13 AM · Direct link
Rajnikant and Prabhu Deva are my idols.
PrabhuDeva es an dios. This bidi-smokin badass looks like he probably trained with PD.
on September 25, 2006 1:10 PM · Direct link
Prabhudeva was totally the man. The hit combo was PD's dance and Rahman's music.
I spent most of my teenage years biting Prabhu Deva's dance moves.
I gave up very VERY quickly. Why don't we see such dancers (of any height) in Bollywood? That'd be cool.
on September 26, 2006 8:05 PM · Direct link
another clip from the little guy's movie:
Little superstar kicks ass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Iw2uT43D-s
on September 28, 2006 1:51 AM · Direct link
Why should you blog this? That clip rules, period. The kid rocks by any standard. Sometimes you gotta forget about your own color or whatever, man....
on September 28, 2006 1:53 AM · Direct link
Why shouldnt you, i mean...
on September 30, 2006 3:38 PM · Direct link
HEY - our little superstar made it to VH1's Best Week Ever!
We've made it!!!
on October 16, 2006 4:13 PM · Direct link
Add a comment
