The youth of Kerala may prefer oldies to make way for the younger lot in politics, but in films they still dote on two middle-aged superstars — Mohanlal and Mammootty.
Mohanlal - 29%
Mammootty - 23%
Prithviraj - 20%
Dileep - 5%
Jayaram - 4%
Asif Ali - 2%
Kunchacko, Vineeth Srinivasan etc - 1%
These two stars, who have been ruling the roost from the mid-1980s are the heartthrobs of the new generation too, according to the Deccan Chronicle C-fore survey conducted among youth aged from 18 to 25.
And among the two ‘Big Ms,’ Mohanlal has an edge over Mammootty with 29 per cent of the youth terming him the most popular actor. Mammootty comes next with 23 per cent plumping for him.
Among Mohanlal fans, the majority are males (38 percent) and females constitute only a moderate chunk (19 per cent) in comparison.
At the same time, adorers of Mammootty are almost equally matched in gender with males comprising 24 per cent and females 22 percent. This jells with a popular survey held two years ago in which women voted Mammootty as the sexiest star of Kerala.
Among the young crowd, only Prithviraj is able to more or less match the two ageing superstars with 20 per cent of the respondents cheering for him. Of this, only 10 per cent are men and 30 per cent are women, understandably so.
The middle-level actors get ‘moderate’ approval with 5 per cent endorsing Dileep and four per cent choosing Jayaram.
The outspoken Thilakan, who took out a fight with the superstars last year, also gets the approval of five per cent.
Interestingly, the new crop of actors — Kunjacko Boban, Jayasurya, Kailash, Ajmal Ameer and Vineeth Sreenivasan — get lukewarm response from the youth. Only one per cent of respondents felt enthusiastic about them. Asif Ali is slightly better at two per cent but that is no consolation.
“The Kerala youth identify with younger stars of Bollywood and not those of Malayalam films,” said the well-known film critic, Mr C.S. Venkiteswaran.
“They don’t think the younger stars of Kerala are hep enough.”
Mr Venkiteswaran also felt that the popularity of Mammootty and Mohanlal among the youth had more to do with their absolute dominance of television which created the ambience for film viewing. “The young actors are not getting the space they deserve because of this,” he said.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/showbiz/others/middle-aged-%E2%80%98big-ms%E2%80%99-still-rule-over-young-hearts-928
