Are you familiar with those situations when you have to explain your point of view to someone, but then you realize they are so far adrift that there's really no point? Take the Mangalore pub case, for instance. There was one representative from the Ram Sene group on television and he was asking HDK-style rhetorical questions "How can we let girls go to pubs?". Another lady on the panel tried to point out that the Rigveda dedicates reams to explain the merits of Somarasa and does not once mention that it is only for the men, but that didn't make a dent on the guy. He continued to believe that asking questions makes up for not explaining your point of view "Will the parents approve of this?"
I felt the frustration again while people discussed "Slumdog Millionaire". There was one guy on TV who felt that this is a movie that shows only the negative side of India. He made his point with a question "Why haven't they shown any white paedophiles in the movie?". I was exasperated to see the anchors patronize him. Nobody had the common sense to ask "If you want to show that there are white paedophiles why don't YOU make a movie about white paedophiles?" Another guy said that Boyle is exploiting poverty and getting rich in the process. I just sighed because I don't know where to begin to counter that.
Slumdog, by the way, is not a bad movie. The opening sequence left a huge impression. A bunch of kids, playing cricket on an airport runway, are chased by policemen through the slums. On that little tour of the slum you get all those familiar feelings of pity and distress and helplessness. And then suddenly you realize that all the negativity is in your head. The kids are having a whale of a time. That cognitive dissonance put me in a daze and I was barely present for the rest of the movie. Still, go
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
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you know the pub thingy...makes me very very speechlessly mad..just really angry. I refuse to comment on it mad. But the slumdog thingy..I liked the flick, I did think it exploited the western view of India with the two themes of poverty and call centres, but I also think it managed to capture some of the energy and hopefulness and rawness that is India and finally one has to remember..it told a story and told it well.
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