Persistence wins Mannequins

As a visual medium, cinema continues to capture our imagination, bind us into a story and take us on journeys we never thought possible - all in under 3 hours. As a visual medium, cinema also silently influences the masses, sometimes consciously, and other times subconsciously. That influence is both a powerful boon and a dreadful bane. While I don't insist on only making cinema to preach goodness into the people, I do have two sincere requests to those who make our Indian movies.

It is 2016 - please weed these out of your movies already.

If you persist, she will say yes

It's simple. You like a girl? Just keep pestering her. Stalking her. Get to her friends via other friends. Sing songs to her. On the streets. In college. On the phone. Never give up. Prey on her mind. Eventually, she'll be yours.

Every "hero" you can think of, has portrayed in reel life what would amount as "eve teasing" in real life. Think Shah Rukh in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Salman Khan in Wanted. Govinda in almost every movie.

Please put an end to this rigmarole. People die because the idea catches on. 

Mothers or Models

Struggling to list a handful of movies where a strong female character, or even a realistic female character was portrayed? Producers do have massive challenges reaching the masses in a patriarchal society. Woe betide the one who puts a woman in the forefront. Who would pay to watch that? 

Since I promised not to force movies to preach to the masses, I will stick to the Model problem. Male actors don't really need to look young or hot. They just need to be good actors. Why do we have a different bar for females? Like the beautiful landmarks songs are shot in, the hills and forests and oceans in the background, female actors only need to dress smart and look pretty, and carry home a paycheck. 15 minutes since the last song? Time to roll in our pretty thing. Too much drama and seriousness? Time to roll in a hot one.

Can we please stop using women as mannequins? They are real people. As real as the men who are portrayed in those same movies. And have their own stories to share. 

Please put an end to this rigmarole. You certainly don't want your daughter to think she is worthless because she isn't pretty enough.

PS: Hat tip to Siddharth for breaking the mould.

We've been selling a terrible dream in our films for long. That any man can get the woman he wants just by wanting her enough. Must change!

— Siddharth (@Actor_Siddharth) July 17, 2016

 

Ebony and Ivory, Mars and Venus

My stint in Strangeland happens to coincide with one of the historic moments in Strangelandian history, and I get to witness first-hand some of the most remarkable events taking place as this nation tries to finally shed the image of an intolerant society when it comes to choosing the president. In one of my very early posts back in October 2005, I had ridiculed that the White House should really be renamed to the White Man House so that it becomes explicit who is allowed to become President of Strangeland.

Little was I to know that in less than 2 years since, both the words "White" and "Man" were about to be challenged like never before by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. After Hillary's bitter acceptance of defeat, the Republican nominee John McCain, revived the interest she had generated in female voters by choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. It is yet to be ascertained if at 72, McCain has the legs to run really, while Palin, having already announced herself as a "Hockey Mom" and "Pitbull" has made it clear for the record that she is willing and capable.

On The Stand

One thing that caught my eye was how the media is allowed - in fact they deemed it their right - to corner the candidates and put them on a pedestal dealing with all sorts of questions and responses on issues. In Homeland, in stark contrast, the politicians decide when and where they will speak to the mass public and what they will be willing to talk about. The media there is really no more than a pair of omni-present eyes and ears that notes every move and jots down every word they can get their hands on. We never get to know our leader up-close and personal. They are but a face behind the microphone, and it is upto us to sort through the truth from the unavoidable bag of lies.

Putting candidates on the stand brings out this other side which we don't see in rehearsed speeches written by stunningly skilled writers - responsiveness, reaction to questions and real issues without the luxury of peeking down on a piece of paper. I personally think that is very important to allow the voters to decide who they want to choose.

Foot-in-mouth, head-up-backside

Of course, one can only enjoy the obvious results of the reflex action tests that mediapersons put candidates through - the truths that slip out, the gaffes that they can't tie down. When that happens, hapless campaign managers have to come out and firefight to put the words into context and turn them on their head.

In this regard, I like to compare Palin to a mix of Govinda (MP from North Mumbai) and Laloo Prasad Yadav (Railway Minister in cabinet). When she calls herself one from the "small town" and "far away from the politics of Washington", I can only remember Govinda's election-winning catch-phrases like "Virar ka chokra". When she talks about her hunting and pets, memories of Laloo describing his morning chores involving milking the "bhains" inevitably shoot back. Who says Homeland politicians are obscure?



When it comes to lies, half-truths, dodging issues, walloping the opposing candidate, dirty scandalous tricks, I don't think Strangeland politics is far behind Homeland at all; only more transparent. Tons of TV shows on news channels and comedy networks pick up on these sly remarks and put them in perspective for all to see. For instance, John McCain is taped saying the "fundamentals of the economy are strong" and that he has no fears for it only 2 weeks before the Wall Street crash, when he then comes out to say "we are in the midst of the worst crisis" he has ever seen.

The debates

Another interesting aspect of the campaign here in Strangeland are the live, televised debates between the candidates. While the nation watches, the two of them fight it out for mass approval in 90 minutes of feverish argumentation. There are few better ways to analyse the candidates than simultaneously being able to weigh them against each other. Another advantage I am sure the voters in Homeland would love to be able to have. All we get are mass rallies, memorized lines and jingoistic slogans. A debate brings out the best and the worst in the candidate, shows you how strong they are, how smart they are, and how gracefully they can deal with heated discussions. I don't need to choose one of these candidates, so I simply enjoy the debates like only a Homelandian can.

In exactly one month's time, the ballot will be held and the verdict will be out. Hopefully, it will be the historic ballot that everyone looks forward to. As for Homeland, I really don't think it matters who wins. History shows that no matter who the President is in Strangeland, the foreign policy remains mostly along the same tangential - aggressive, self-serving and self-gratifying.

Select famous phrases from the candidates

"Do you know what the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull is? It's Lipstick!" - Sarah Palin.

"Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me." - Joe Biden.

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong." - Barack Obama.

"It's easy for me to go to Washington and, frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have." - John McCain.

"They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." - Sarah Palin.

"As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?" - Sarah Palin, before she was chosen to be the running mate.

"The role of the vice president is to break ties in the Senate and inquire daily into the health of the president." - John McCain.

Expression or Repression?

The other day I was reading about another (yet another, really) public outcry in the Islamic nations against a cartoon depicting Prophet Mohammad. Another cartoonist, who either doesn't understand the religious sentiments that are tied to this act of depicting the Prophet pictorially, or doesn't think that anything is beyond his freedom of expression, has "blasphemed". He was so ignorant, that he went to the extent of using a dog's body to describe the Prophet. Free press? A few people laughing? To be frank, I miss the point really. Especially, when there will be a few readers laughing, but a lot more boiling over.

Free Press in the West

The Western world really give utmost importance to the word "Freedom". I don't know how many of them really understand what it means, but they demand it anyway. Honestly, I believe that you don't know what freedom is, until someone has taken it away from you, be-shackled you. What proportion of the Western world can claim to have been there, I am not certain. The press especially though, lives and breathes on this one word. Why not? It gives them the right to conjure up radical images that people want to see, to stir up controversies that no one cares for but everyone wants to read about. It's all about the money, honey. Even something as inspiring and thought provoking as the press, can get its hands down and dirty just to sell a few more copies.

I am not saying the actions of the press are always bad. Their desperate search for a sizzler, so often does make them open a cupboard and have skeletons fall out - skull, bones and dental remains in tow. Politicians are exposed, cruelties come to light, and so often, justice is delivered. But, that of course, cannot always be true. So, just conjuring up something that sells, seems to be the mantra.

Press In India

When I was at school, we would learn in history about the freedom struggle, and how India attained independence from the British. In those days, the press was an astonishingly great force in the way it spread the message of the leaders of the movement for the nation's citizens to stand up as one against the oppression. Readers would come to know about how the incumbent British would try to squash every uprising, the atrocities doled out, the ideas and thoughts of the great leaders who were leading the movement against the East India Company, and they would be provoked into action themselves. It was the single-most largest non-violent movement for freedom the world has ever seen, and the press had a large role in putting that together.

After independence, the press was still respected to a great extent, as it mirrored the progress of a developing young nation that India was. Bringing forth the rapid changes that the nation was undergoing, to the eyes of the avid reader. But, I, having been reading the newspaper since I was a kid, have seen a huge transformation in the mass media. The papers I started out with were really huge spread-outs with a fresh scent that can only come from a fresh newspaper. The really important news could always be found on the front page, and I would quickly scroll through the politics to get to the last 2 pages - my favourite sports pages. I would turn on the television at 8pm to get this lady with a single rose in her tresses and absurdly loud make-up read out the news to the whole nation, and wrap it up in 20 minutes. That was the dose for the whole day, and on the only channel we had back then!

Whoosh forward to the present day. We have more than 20 national news broadcasters on tv, that dish out news 24 hours a day. The newspaper has bloated into a thicker ream, but smaller in size, and more like a tabloid. It has as many pages dedicated to real nonsense grapevine crap, as to the rest of the news I am used to reading since I was little, and still manage a fistful for classifieds and advertisements. News on the front pages reads - "Superstar walks out of jail on bail", "It's official: Rushdie, Padma to divorce", "Sachin: Caught bad luck, bowled Taufel" and "Munnabhai goes to Gandhi's jail". The sports section is now 4 pages long at least, but 3 of those are dedicated to cricket (non-olympic sport, really just a pastime). Occasionally, we see one Sania Mirza glitz one of the articles. And there is a football section which has news which reads like - "Henry divorces wife and Arsenal", "Ashley gifts Bentley to girlfriend".

News that you can use?

I can now blitz through a newspaper in 10 minutes, because nothing catches my eye. Oh, except for the skimpily clad page 3 damsels of course. I missed them as a kid! Even the televised media isn't too far behind. But, who can blame them? They gotto run all day, everyday, and still get viewers hooked. What do they resort to? I like to liken what they do with what a computer geek does when he/she cant crack a software, or break into a website, or solve a problem in a straighforward way. He/she will "hack" in by any means possible - legal or illegal.

The news reporters seem to do that too now. The latest fad is the "Tehelka" way - hidden cameras and setups to corner unsuspecting victims to divulge vital incarcerating information. Political criminals have been uncovered. The casting couch in the film industry became a matter of public discussion. Saffron-garbed sadhus masquerading as social heroes were unmasked and their exploitation of children and women was exposed. So far, so good.

Now, it seems even this has taken a wild and desperate turn with so many news channels competing for the viewer's roving hand on the remote control. A teacher in Delhi was victimised and somehow revealed as a pimp who brokered kids into prostitution. She was beaten up by parents and sent off to prison for 10 days, before it came to light that there was absolutely no evidence, and that this may just be a sham by the "reporter" - a profound setup.

Bring back my newspaper

I just hope the Indian media doesn't go completely the way of the media in the West. Too often, the British media, for instance, is accused of being "star-struck" and following celebrities around. The news coverage in the US is so biased, that it can never be digested by anyone who ventures in from outside the country. Paparazzis abound in the West. Yet, the freedom of expression does ensure everyone has a voice, and that it can be heard out loud to everyone who wants to hear.

But, shouldn't there be limits to everything? Isn't there something which is off-limits? The Prophet Mohammad for instance. Or Hillary Clinton's low blouse during a speech. I just want my clean old newspaper back. Don't let it be this "one fix for all" thing that delivers news, gossip, and crap all in one single place. Oh and titillaton too for those who need that from their morning newspaper.

I go home to Chennai and find The Hindu on the couch in the morning, and it takes me back to the old days. That's how a newspaper ought to be. Everything has its place. Freedom is only good, when enjoyed by everyone.