WHEN BAD MEET EVIL: A SOCIO REALISTIC READING OF ANTI DETECTIVE CINEMA (Pages 23-28) by R. Lakshmi Priya in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Hippolyte Taine, a French critic and historian uses the words "race, milieu et moment” in order to understand the collective consciousness of an age. The German philosopher Hegel uses the term “Zeitgeist” to represent the same. Both these philosophers are opposed to the Great Man theory that believes in the society’s mindset collectively working in a particular fashion. The art is always seen as the representation of society. Thus, in contemporary detective fiction, the sleuth represents an attitude that neither cares about morality, nor worries about immorality. Both morality and immorality are considered métarécit in the postmodern world. This genre of detective fiction, with unfinished cases, moral ambiguity, cynical approach and narcissistic tendency is termed anti - detective. Tamil cinema has undergone a change in its attitude in the past two years pertaining to thriller movies. The paper considers this transformation in a light of anti - detective mentality, zeitgeist and social reality in contemporary Tamil detective movies like D - 16, Maayavan and Vikram Vedha that are subjected to introspection in this paper. Key Words: Anti - detective Cinema, Moral ambiguity, Zeitgeist, Amoral representations, debunking of canonical representations.