That piece of filth called 'Kites' trailer and stereotypes

I just saw the hopeless trailer for the movie Kites.


No I will not link you to it. If you go to see MNiK, you will get to see it. Else, its somewhere on Youtube. 


There is a scene where Barbara Mori's character asks Hrithik's character for the Hindi translation of a particular sentence. In classic Indian-male-wearing-smartie pants style, the smug Hrithik gives the wrong translation to Barbara's character.


I know it seems frivolous and many of you may have done something similar with your female friends. Especially if you think if they dont know the gist of a particular topic. Age old example : when guys give out wrong information to girls in matters of technology ( to those girls, please utilize Google. It has answers to life's many many questions ok ? ). To me the very act of giving out wrong information to test a person, or to take sadistic pleasure in their confusion is disrespectful.


Basically, Indian directors think that foreign women are sluts, stupid or make bad mothers. And invariably, the Indian guy will come back to his 'sanskriti'. After acquiring the green card of course.


Example  : a very regressive movie called Aa Ab Laut Chalen, in which Rajesh Khanna abandons his wife, marries a foreigner,buys bangla gaadi and then realises that she is wortheless. Meanwhile, his wife and son struggle to create an existence for themselves while he is enjoying the luxury life in US. But hello! An Indian woman's heart is soft and soppy.So white sari wearing Maushumi Chatterjee accepts him after two decades of abandonment.
Again, a way of keeping the woman in a state of confusion and disrespecting both the foreigner and the Indian by abandoning one or the other. 


This bit about taking women for a ride and taking advantage of ignorance is a deep seated problem. The general problem with male class is that they test if the girl has the requisite knowledge and then go on to explain something seemingly complex. If you feel that the person in front of you will not get the relevance of the topic, make it simpler. Dont test it and then present the wrong information! 

I can vouch for this because there have been times when I have silenced men on decidedly 'guy' topics. Dear men,it is a sad way to seem humorous and make a very bad first impression. Especially if that impression ends with ' Just Kidding Yaar!' (someday, a big rant on 'yaar' will be published. I can feel it.)

Which is why this scene of treating a foreigner in a stupid manner is not required. Even if it was included for comic relief, I dont see the joke in it. Its a common way, Indian directors treat Westerners in their movies. Some respondents have come up with ' They treated us badly before Independence' arguments!! Indian directors  have a problem with African Americans too. That class is reserved for sleeping with leading ladies( Fashion) or for being very very obese and poor (MNiK and one obese lady who sings a line in Yuvraaj). The end result being that these stereotypes affect us on a subconscious level. 
I dont have stats or research to prove this, but the classic effect of a foreign woman on an Indian male is that of 'use and throw'.All of them are not in a relationship for the long-term and divorces are normal. (Its a completely different story that Indian men are largely divorcable. That, a woman stays on for kids or society is subject for a another post.) It may well explain the reason why there are so many rape cases involving a Westerner!




Another problem is the way we make Western characters behave in our movies. We always have the European girl ( who,btw, is always a double D) being seduced by the Indian guy. The Westerner will never say no to a one night stand. Neither will the guy. His engaging in the act is also forgivable. Heck, even Kylie Minogue was reduced to a prop in a largely godforsaken Bhangra number! 
The female Indian character, however, will wear the skimpiest outfits, but will be well aware of that mystical thing called 'sanskriti' (the definition of which is highly debatable)


To me its unclear if the issue is of age-old male chauvinism or of treatment of Western women. Its a blurry subset of the larger issue I guess, but needs to be tackled right away.


Update : This is an excellent post by a_traveller: Wild Wild West. Love the quote by a lady called Daniela.

Of Dan Brown,Gilbert and Shoddy Writing

The precursor : A lot of people find Dan Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert's writing to be shoddy. I am guilty of committing the same crime. However, if a contradictory and sometimes obscure thought is 'out there', such overwhelming success is welcome.

Salman Rushdie gave this piece of advice to Irshad Manji over the flak she received for her book : 'Your work is out there. It will create magic for some and it will stir a hornet's nest. As a writer you must know that you cant control your work when its published. After that your thoughts and your work take a life of its own.'

I have always believed in letting a thought fly free in the world. Letting a feeling or an opinion be played with the larger masses.

Jessica Crispin wrote this article in defense of Elizabeth Gilbert's books. My favourite lines :

"Like a lot of people who care about books and writing and sentence structure, I was initially horrified at the success at Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Then I realized what it meant: 80 million people read a book about the removal of femininity from the Catholic Church, about how Jesus liked women and prostitutes and screw-ups and freaks, about how the Bible was edited by men in power, about how Jesus' divinity was not universally accepted. They read the book, and now it's in their brains, like a vaccination against patriarchal monotheism, even if they don't do anything with the information. Even if the people who read Elizabeth Gilbert's books now only toss them away and grumble ''How dare she?,'' Gilbert's sincerity about figuring out a new way to be in the world are now out there. It won't rid the world of its Lori Gottliebs, the fearmongers and the scolds, but the books can create little antibodies in the culture, boosting our immune system against them. "

Its a simple case of different thoughts being allowed to mingle in this idiosyncratic world of ours. We may not agree on specifics but the larger picture is reassuring.

Quickies

'The magician was the king of gore. Those body separation tricks were always done with twins. And hours of brainwashing '

'Sigh. Teenage times. A note with a missing alphabet . Friend into fiend. And the cliques were formed'

'She opened the refrigerator and saw the giraffe head. She smiled. She always knew that riddle was false. She had proved it wrong.'

'88 steps to the temple. A crutch and a patient lover. One push. End of responsibility. Beginning of the large life.'

'Depression. Option to end life: rope,poison,terrace. Happiness. Option taken: Murder'

'White. Wedding Night. Note on Side table: Thanks for the dowry. Dont try to find me.'