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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This movie belongs to the genre of movies like "city of joy", "fire" and
"mr and mrs iyer". Slumdog millionaire is another reinforcement of the
western "manifest destiny" or "white-man's-burden" view of India -- the
constructed image of the "other" that the narcissistic civilization that
is the "west" needs in the process of defining its own self.
Colonized peoples in all cultures and all times in history, (whether
politically colonized or remining colonized at the psychological level
after the political colonization has ended) must be constructed in terms
that the colonizer can comprehend and control: in the case of India and
Hindus -- as irrational, obscurantist, superstitous, primitive,
divisive, territorial, violent, destructive -- and therefore,
poverty-ridden, downtrodden, immoral, corrupt -- and therefore -- in the
ultimate analysis unfit for self-determination or self-rule.
This basic process of imagining the other remains the foundation for
present-day economic-cultural imperialism via "manifest destiny" as it
was during the euro-clonial era via the "white-man's-burden".
Such dialectical image lies at the nexus of a complex game of
representations and imaginery projections. It is a play of mimesis.
Mimesis is the fundamental human capacity and subconscious tendency to
imitate and mirror what is differnt from one's self, or rather, what is
one's self-understading of oneself. Mimesis is to imitate and mirror, in
other words, one's "disowned-self" -- the opposite of one's ego ideal ,
inidividual or collective. This assumes more intense forms when differnt
cultures are confronted with one another, often in unequal, exploitative
circumstances.
The colonizing power, which in this case is also a narcissistic power,
feels the compulsion to construct a variety of imaginery representations
of the "other". Projecting their own deepest fears and the most disowned
aspects of their collective subconscious, the narcissistc west (which
itself is devoid of a sense of self, and which is a guilt-ridden
civilization) has to project an "anti-type" of themselves (as they love
to see it) in the mirror of the "other", which is the "orient" -- and
more specifically -- India.
Therefore -- as was in the days before the age of electronic media, when
Katherine Mayo pioneered this whole process by her "Mother India",
followed by a truckload of works to the same ultimate aim and purpose --
the film medium, with a more instant and wider reach and many times more
visual, verbal and vital effect, must be put to full use -- either by
the west itself, represented by likes of Dominique lapierre, Richard
Attenborough, or -- now -- Danny Boyle, or by the "native informants" of
the west -- the purchased cultural prostitutes in the form of Deepa
Mehta, Aparna Sen, Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya and the like. And the "money" used for the purchasing are
typically "critical acclaims", "awards", "reviews", and
"film-festival-entries".
Seen in this light, it can now be understood why the very predictable
and very expected ingredients will be brought our and used too in very
predictable and pre-practised ratios, whenever one needs to cook up yet
another dish that serves the narcissistic palate of the west, for it to
gratify itself with "narcissist supply" and reinforce its narcissitic
sense of grandiosity. therefore:
(1) The slum -- the foremost basic ingredient, complete with lepers,
beggars, naked urchins, goons, horribly amputated sub-human humans
begging by singing Surdas or Meera bhajans (read: in the name of
Hinduism) etc. -- must be first used in liberal amounts.
Subliminal message and image-reinforcement no.1 -- (a) India = slum,
India = poverty, (b)India = hunger, © India = primitive/barbaric
inhumanity(amputated child beggars) and finally (d)India = Hinduism =
obscurantism/superstition/regression = poverty/hunger (begging with
Hindu bhajans), therefore, Hinduism is the culprit and the source of
depravity, and so it is the "advanced west's" burden to "rescue the
heathens" from it and replace it with its own value system and morality
and religion.
The other "ingredients" or "components" can then easily complete the
recipe --
(2) Muslims = the victims and Hindus = unprovoked aggressors;
(3) Muslims = secular and suffering and Hindus = the powerful hostile
majority;;
(4) Authorities (policemen)picking on muslims = Hindu = Hindutva misrule
and minority oppression;
(5) riot victims = always muslims (to be shown as always in panick or
running mode) -- thereby successfully reinforcing Hindi India into a
hostile savage jungle where minority lambs and sheep have to spend their
entire lives constantly running and trying to hide;
(6) Christian nuns = benevolent rescuers, selfless servers and
constantly in the risk of getting raped anytime. "Confirming" that
Hindu-majoirty India can have no decent human rights performance, and
christianity (read: western helping hand) has no welcome or appreciation
from the barbarians;
(7) blue bodied Rama = Hindu icon = inspiration behind the violent,
fanatical, irrational, insensitive, dehumanised Hindu; inspiration
behind "hindu communalism" (the sangh parivar -- Rama connection
established) = a dark,("blue" -- as also in Kali) symbol that can even
turn a pre-teen kid into a raging bloodthirsty hate-filled fanatic;
(8) Bombay Police = the authority, the ruling power, the lawkeeper of
Hindu India = always picking on the muslims = intolerant and supicious
of help from outside = helps the Hindu fanatics with the power of their
uniforms, therefore making the prevalent law-and-order situation, human
rights records and civic/public life and security of miniroties under
Hindu majority rule "very obvious";
(9) The christian church = the white, christian first-world western
*helping-hand* trying to make things better for the Hindu masses, trying
to rescue, humanise and enlighten them, but constantly hounded by the
hostile, savage heathens, who cannot go on with their evil if the church
is allowed to flourish and people are made "aware" and "emancipated";
(10) amnesty international = another form of the white, christian,
first-world western hand, extended to the downtrodden dehumanised Hindu
India, but which is not allowed by the authorities, lawkeepers and the
public (the powerful and unrestrained Hindu majority) to do its work for
the poverty-ridden heathen Hindus in peace, but is constantly harassed
and forced to try to work under very "challenging and hostile
conditions"
With these ingredients -- the essential masalas, the great Indian feast
of cow-caste-curry (to use the phrase coined by Rajiv Malhotra) is
served before the champagne-caviar-and-red-carpet cirsuit at cannes film
festival. The narcissist has his full of his essential narcissitic
supply, in fact, he satiates himself with it -- gloating over the fact
that only his modern, advanced, first-world, christian west holds the
key to the emancipation, humanization and the enlightenment of Hindu
India -- via foreign direct investment, globalisation, evagelization,
amnesty international, deepa mehta, and Miss Teresa saint of gutters.
After the cooking is done, carefully suited to the palate of the
targeted customer, the terms and phrases can be pulled out from the
ever-ready stock-in-trade pile of high-sounding "critical-review" argot
-- "intricate and cleverly structured", "breathless", "as drama and as a
look at a country increasingly entering the world spotlight", "a modern
fairy tale," "a sensory blowout", "one-of-the
most-upbeat-stories-about-living-in-hell-imaginable", "bright, cheery,
hard-to-resist movie", "a
high-octane-hybrid-of-Danny-Boyle's-patented-cinematic-overkill-and-Boll\
ywood's-ultra-energetic-genre-conventions"
"sprawling-madly-romantic-fairy-tale-epic-is-the-kind-of
deep-dish-audience-rouser" .... and so on.
The more a flim on India is pessimistic, dark, pejorative, and
dehumanisingly objectifying, the more thrilling for the narcissist is
his ego-masturbation, for now he is done constructing an image of the
"other" vis-a-vis which he can feel very good about himself and can
gather a sense of grandiosity -- by way of the film being more
"breathless" and "a sensory blowout" and "bright,cheery hard-to-resist"
-- with the occasional self-reminder that it is still after all a movie
on the "other's" "living in *hell*".
It is really as simple as that. There is no mystery at all, and there is
no reason why you or anyone else should miss it and wonder why
"contemporary film making seems to have appreciated little of these
ground realities" and why "instead we find a rehash of the old and
improbable rags to riches story in an ultra-regressive style."
It is also not at all a question of whether any side got the *historical
records and facts* straight, so that we need to ask: "When was the last
time in Indian History when an unprovoked Hindu population took to
violence?" The things is -- this kind of a thing is not refuted or
controverted in the first place -- never is it attempted -- it is only
and simply *evaded*.
But there is the other side to it -- the side that is always upto us to
actualize.
Colonized peoples -- the "other" -- in all cultures, are never just
passively informed by Western representations of it, even when theyb are
made to internalize that representation over a period of time. They too,
remain creative agents, who retain the freedom to rethink, reshape and
redeploy themselves in new ways in response to and even in subversion of
the pecking order. The hindu diaspora in the west exemplify that in many
ways, big and small.
As was in the previous century, Indians today do not have by any means
to remain passive and unreflective (save only being reactionary and
touchy), merely restricting themselves into a two-options-only perimetre
of consciuously or subconsciously accepting/internalizing the
projections and representations imposed on them, or reacting to them in
ways that play into the hands of the "other" and reinforce their
constructions in their minds even more. On the contrary, we too have (in
fact, more than any other colonized society and culture anywhere) the
potential, the ideas, the creativity and the resources to engage in a
variety of appropriative and subversive strategies. Mimesis is always a
two-way street, and peoples colonized or targeted for colonization haver
their own forms of mimesis, their own ways opf returning the favour by
imginatively representing the colonial other -- through mimicry, parody,
and satire they can sieze upon the narcissitic imaginings of the
naricissits themselves, by turning them on their heads and and
manipulating them as a source of "counter-hegemonic" discourse.
And I will say that we have failed to do that, to make use of that
opportunity so far, right from the tiem of the "city of joy" through
"fire" through "slumdog millionaire".
But one fine example of a start in that direction will be -- for
instance -- a Madhur Bhandarkar film. Tasting, sounding and feeling the
way only a Madhur Bhandarkar film can taste, sound and feel -- with
perhaps, a title (in tune with those like "fashion" or "page 3")
like..... "Secular". Or, "Foreign Aid".
And that should be entered for the cannes film festival. And that would
be a very fine and deadly example of holding a mirror up to a
narcissistic civilization.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This movie belongs to the genre of movies like "city of joy", "fire" and
"mr and mrs iyer". Slumdog millionaire is another reinforcement of the
western "manifest destiny" or "white-man's-burden" view of India -- the
constructed image of the "other" that the narcissistic civilization that
is the "west" needs in the process of defining its own self.
Colonized peoples in all cultures and all times in history, (whether
politically colonized or remining colonized at the psychological level
after the political colonization has ended) must be constructed in terms
that the colonizer can comprehend and control: in the case of India and
Hindus -- as irrational, obscurantist, superstitous, primitive,
divisive, territorial, violent, destructive -- and therefore,
poverty-ridden, downtrodden, immoral, corrupt -- and therefore -- in the
ultimate analysis unfit for self-determination or self-rule.
This basic process of imagining the other remains the foundation for
present-day economic-cultural imperialism via "manifest destiny" as it
was during the euro-clonial era via the "white-man's-burden".
Such dialectical image lies at the nexus of a complex game of
representations and imaginery projections. It is a play of mimesis.
Mimesis is the fundamental human capacity and subconscious tendency to
imitate and mirror what is differnt from one's self, or rather, what is
one's self-understading of oneself. Mimesis is to imitate and mirror, in
other words, one's "disowned-self" -- the opposite of one's ego ideal ,
inidividual or collective. This assumes more intense forms when differnt
cultures are confronted with one another, often in unequal, exploitative
circumstances.
The colonizing power, which in this case is also a narcissistic power,
feels the compulsion to construct a variety of imaginery representations
of the "other". Projecting their own deepest fears and the most disowned
aspects of their collective subconscious, the narcissistc west (which
itself is devoid of a sense of self, and which is a guilt-ridden
civilization) has to project an "anti-type" of themselves (as they love
to see it) in the mirror of the "other", which is the "orient" -- and
more specifically -- India.
Therefore -- as was in the days before the age of electronic media, when
Katherine Mayo pioneered this whole process by her "Mother India",
followed by a truckload of works to the same ultimate aim and purpose --
the film medium, with a more instant and wider reach and many times more
visual, verbal and vital effect, must be put to full use -- either by
the west itself, represented by likes of Dominique lapierre, Richard
Attenborough, or -- now -- Danny Boyle, or by the "native informants" of
the west -- the purchased cultural prostitutes in the form of Deepa
Mehta, Aparna Sen, Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya and the like. And the "money" used for the purchasing are
typically "critical acclaims", "awards", "reviews", and
"film-festival-entries".
Seen in this light, it can now be understood why the very predictable
and very expected ingredients will be brought our and used too in very
predictable and pre-practised ratios, whenever one needs to cook up yet
another dish that serves the narcissistic palate of the west, for it to
gratify itself with "narcissist supply" and reinforce its narcissitic
sense of grandiosity. therefore:
(1) The slum -- the foremost basic ingredient, complete with lepers,
beggars, naked urchins, goons, horribly amputated sub-human humans
begging by singing Surdas or Meera bhajans (read: in the name of
Hinduism) etc. -- must be first used in liberal amounts.
Subliminal message and image-reinforcement no.1 -- (a) India = slum,
India = poverty, (b)India = hunger, © India = primitive/barbaric
inhumanity(amputated child beggars) and finally (d)India = Hinduism =
obscurantism/superstition/regression = poverty/hunger (begging with
Hindu bhajans), therefore, Hinduism is the culprit and the source of
depravity, and so it is the "advanced west's" burden to "rescue the
heathens" from it and replace it with its own value system and morality
and religion.
The other "ingredients" or "components" can then easily complete the
recipe --
(2) Muslims = the victims and Hindus = unprovoked aggressors;
(3) Muslims = secular and suffering and Hindus = the powerful hostile
majority;;
(4) Authorities (policemen)picking on muslims = Hindu = Hindutva misrule
and minority oppression;
(5) riot victims = always muslims (to be shown as always in panick or
running mode) -- thereby successfully reinforcing Hindi India into a
hostile savage jungle where minority lambs and sheep have to spend their
entire lives constantly running and trying to hide;
(6) Christian nuns = benevolent rescuers, selfless servers and
constantly in the risk of getting raped anytime. "Confirming" that
Hindu-majoirty India can have no decent human rights performance, and
christianity (read: western helping hand) has no welcome or appreciation
from the barbarians;
(7) blue bodied Rama = Hindu icon = inspiration behind the violent,
fanatical, irrational, insensitive, dehumanised Hindu; inspiration
behind "hindu communalism" (the sangh parivar -- Rama connection
established) = a dark,("blue" -- as also in Kali) symbol that can even
turn a pre-teen kid into a raging bloodthirsty hate-filled fanatic;
(8) Bombay Police = the authority, the ruling power, the lawkeeper of
Hindu India = always picking on the muslims = intolerant and supicious
of help from outside = helps the Hindu fanatics with the power of their
uniforms, therefore making the prevalent law-and-order situation, human
rights records and civic/public life and security of miniroties under
Hindu majority rule "very obvious";
(9) The christian church = the white, christian first-world western
*helping-hand* trying to make things better for the Hindu masses, trying
to rescue, humanise and enlighten them, but constantly hounded by the
hostile, savage heathens, who cannot go on with their evil if the church
is allowed to flourish and people are made "aware" and "emancipated";
(10) amnesty international = another form of the white, christian,
first-world western hand, extended to the downtrodden dehumanised Hindu
India, but which is not allowed by the authorities, lawkeepers and the
public (the powerful and unrestrained Hindu majority) to do its work for
the poverty-ridden heathen Hindus in peace, but is constantly harassed
and forced to try to work under very "challenging and hostile
conditions"
With these ingredients -- the essential masalas, the great Indian feast
of cow-caste-curry (to use the phrase coined by Rajiv Malhotra) is
served before the champagne-caviar-and-red-carpet cirsuit at cannes film
festival. The narcissist has his full of his essential narcissitic
supply, in fact, he satiates himself with it -- gloating over the fact
that only his modern, advanced, first-world, christian west holds the
key to the emancipation, humanization and the enlightenment of Hindu
India -- via foreign direct investment, globalisation, evagelization,
amnesty international, deepa mehta, and Miss Teresa saint of gutters.
After the cooking is done, carefully suited to the palate of the
targeted customer, the terms and phrases can be pulled out from the
ever-ready stock-in-trade pile of high-sounding "critical-review" argot
-- "intricate and cleverly structured", "breathless", "as drama and as a
look at a country increasingly entering the world spotlight", "a modern
fairy tale," "a sensory blowout", "one-of-the
most-upbeat-stories-about-living-in-hell-imaginable", "bright, cheery,
hard-to-resist movie", "a
high-octane-hybrid-of-Danny-Boyle's-patented-cinematic-overkill-and-Boll\
ywood's-ultra-energetic-genre-conventions"
"sprawling-madly-romantic-fairy-tale-epic-is-the-kind-of
deep-dish-audience-rouser" .... and so on.
The more a flim on India is pessimistic, dark, pejorative, and
dehumanisingly objectifying, the more thrilling for the narcissist is
his ego-masturbation, for now he is done constructing an image of the
"other" vis-a-vis which he can feel very good about himself and can
gather a sense of grandiosity -- by way of the film being more
"breathless" and "a sensory blowout" and "bright,cheery hard-to-resist"
-- with the occasional self-reminder that it is still after all a movie
on the "other's" "living in *hell*".
It is really as simple as that. There is no mystery at all, and there is
no reason why you or anyone else should miss it and wonder why
"contemporary film making seems to have appreciated little of these
ground realities" and why "instead we find a rehash of the old and
improbable rags to riches story in an ultra-regressive style."
It is also not at all a question of whether any side got the *historical
records and facts* straight, so that we need to ask: "When was the last
time in Indian History when an unprovoked Hindu population took to
violence?" The things is -- this kind of a thing is not refuted or
controverted in the first place -- never is it attempted -- it is only
and simply *evaded*.
But there is the other side to it -- the side that is always upto us to
actualize.
Colonized peoples -- the "other" -- in all cultures, are never just
passively informed by Western representations of it, even when theyb are
made to internalize that representation over a period of time. They too,
remain creative agents, who retain the freedom to rethink, reshape and
redeploy themselves in new ways in response to and even in subversion of
the pecking order. The hindu diaspora in the west exemplify that in many
ways, big and small.
As was in the previous century, Indians today do not have by any means
to remain passive and unreflective (save only being reactionary and
touchy), merely restricting themselves into a two-options-only perimetre
of consciuously or subconsciously accepting/internalizing the
projections and representations imposed on them, or reacting to them in
ways that play into the hands of the "other" and reinforce their
constructions in their minds even more. On the contrary, we too have (in
fact, more than any other colonized society and culture anywhere) the
potential, the ideas, the creativity and the resources to engage in a
variety of appropriative and subversive strategies. Mimesis is always a
two-way street, and peoples colonized or targeted for colonization haver
their own forms of mimesis, their own ways opf returning the favour by
imginatively representing the colonial other -- through mimicry, parody,
and satire they can sieze upon the narcissitic imaginings of the
naricissits themselves, by turning them on their heads and and
manipulating them as a source of "counter-hegemonic" discourse.
And I will say that we have failed to do that, to make use of that
opportunity so far, right from the tiem of the "city of joy" through
"fire" through "slumdog millionaire".
But one fine example of a start in that direction will be -- for
instance -- a Madhur Bhandarkar film. Tasting, sounding and feeling the
way only a Madhur Bhandarkar film can taste, sound and feel -- with
perhaps, a title (in tune with those like "fashion" or "page 3")
like..... "Secular". Or, "Foreign Aid".
And that should be entered for the cannes film festival. And that would
be a very fine and deadly example of holding a mirror up to a
narcissistic civilization.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->