Stereotype terror indeed!
By: Sushumna Kannan Date: 2010-01-11 Place: Bangalore
It's funny how The West looked at The East once upon a time, but things have changed, or have they? Sushumna Kannan questions the stereotypes of India in western media
Star Movies, as part of what it called "Diwali Extravaganza" showed the four Indiana Jones movies this Diwali. To put it simply, I was taken aback. One of the four of the Indiana Jones movies Indians Jones and the Temple of Doom is set in India. The film was made in 1984 and effectively shaped much of Americans' beliefs about India throughout the 80s. Young Americans believed that India was indeed a place where monkey brains made dinner and eye-balls were to be found in soup. Tourists hesitated from visiting India. Diaspora Indians all over the world have been traumatized by the representations of India in this movie and are tired of answering anxious questions posed by their closest friends and colleagues. Yes, this is indeed the scene. And yet, Star Movies showed this movie as part of celebrating Diwali!
The Indians Jones movies portray the adventures of a Professor of Archeology (played by Harrison Ford) who confronts different cultures and generally plays intelligent-action-hero by solving their problems. As if this is not enough display of the western superiority complex (white-man-saving-the-rest-of-the-world), these movies are downright prejudicial. In these movies, the Arabs, the Indians and just about everybody else comes across as outdated, stagnant, technologically challenged and simply stupid. They fight with swords while our hero solves 'the problem' with his quick gun. These are simply classic indicators of the Orientalism that the west and its academic disciplines such as anthropology have specialized in since the 19th century, even while claiming to produce Knowledge.
And to think that none other Steven Spielberg created these movies shocked me one tad more. Yes, Steven Spielberg of Jurassic Park fame. But wait, actually I think I understand a bit more -- the need for the big, the dramatic, the horrific, all that imagination, the obsession with special effects!
If you thought that Indians selling their labour across the globe was significant culturally, you were wrong. At least Star Movies doesn't show signs of any real understanding. Did they really think that we would 'celebrate' and thrill in Maharajahs serving monkey brains on a Diwali?
Doesn't Bollywood have its stereotypes, you might ask? Yes, it does. The Bollywood biases for the rich and beautiful are an everyday challenge to our well-being and sanity. Its stereotypes about Christian women (who always wear frocks and speak Hinglish) or the occasional white man who appears as a smuggler (ready to take away our gods as substitute for art), the one-eyed villain, the docile wife -- are all there for us to deal with.
But I insist that pulling out a 'thugee culture', probably from prejudiced colonial reports to create a movie with enormous impact is somehow a greater blunder. It is the act of reaffirming the worst colonial stereotypes about us -- that we are horribly immoral, corrupt, lazy, superstitious, unscientific and barbaric (add spiritual to the list). It is the act of not understanding why or how these stereotypes got created. It is simply being insensitive and cannot be defended in the same way we defend works of art. When Obama lit a Diwali lamp; in Star Movies was its perfect counter. I look at the white women (I am told they are from Eastern European nations) who dance in Kareena Kapoor's background, with a sense of wonder, and think if this is some way of us writing back to the empire.
Published in MiD-DAY on 11.1.2010
It's funny how The West looked at The East once upon a time, but things have changed, or have they? Sushumna Kannan questions the stereotypes of India in western media
Star Movies, as part of what it called "Diwali Extravaganza" showed the four Indiana Jones movies this Diwali. To put it simply, I was taken aback. One of the four of the Indiana Jones movies Indians Jones and the Temple of Doom is set in India. The film was made in 1984 and effectively shaped much of Americans' beliefs about India throughout the 80s. Young Americans believed that India was indeed a place where monkey brains made dinner and eye-balls were to be found in soup. Tourists hesitated from visiting India. Diaspora Indians all over the world have been traumatized by the representations of India in this movie and are tired of answering anxious questions posed by their closest friends and colleagues. Yes, this is indeed the scene. And yet, Star Movies showed this movie as part of celebrating Diwali!
The Indians Jones movies portray the adventures of a Professor of Archeology (played by Harrison Ford) who confronts different cultures and generally plays intelligent-action-hero by solving their problems. As if this is not enough display of the western superiority complex (white-man-saving-the-rest-of-the-world), these movies are downright prejudicial. In these movies, the Arabs, the Indians and just about everybody else comes across as outdated, stagnant, technologically challenged and simply stupid. They fight with swords while our hero solves 'the problem' with his quick gun. These are simply classic indicators of the Orientalism that the west and its academic disciplines such as anthropology have specialized in since the 19th century, even while claiming to produce Knowledge.
And to think that none other Steven Spielberg created these movies shocked me one tad more. Yes, Steven Spielberg of Jurassic Park fame. But wait, actually I think I understand a bit more -- the need for the big, the dramatic, the horrific, all that imagination, the obsession with special effects!
If you thought that Indians selling their labour across the globe was significant culturally, you were wrong. At least Star Movies doesn't show signs of any real understanding. Did they really think that we would 'celebrate' and thrill in Maharajahs serving monkey brains on a Diwali?
Doesn't Bollywood have its stereotypes, you might ask? Yes, it does. The Bollywood biases for the rich and beautiful are an everyday challenge to our well-being and sanity. Its stereotypes about Christian women (who always wear frocks and speak Hinglish) or the occasional white man who appears as a smuggler (ready to take away our gods as substitute for art), the one-eyed villain, the docile wife -- are all there for us to deal with.
But I insist that pulling out a 'thugee culture', probably from prejudiced colonial reports to create a movie with enormous impact is somehow a greater blunder. It is the act of reaffirming the worst colonial stereotypes about us -- that we are horribly immoral, corrupt, lazy, superstitious, unscientific and barbaric (add spiritual to the list). It is the act of not understanding why or how these stereotypes got created. It is simply being insensitive and cannot be defended in the same way we defend works of art. When Obama lit a Diwali lamp; in Star Movies was its perfect counter. I look at the white women (I am told they are from Eastern European nations) who dance in Kareena Kapoor's background, with a sense of wonder, and think if this is some way of us writing back to the empire.
Published in MiD-DAY on 11.1.2010
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