Communal Stereotyping in Bollywood Movies
Rahul Malviya May 27, 2005
#31 Posted by rahulmal on May 28, 2005 11:26:02 pm
Delhi Bhai,
DrLokraj has explained the caste point very well in 17, it is an ideal, not the ground reality. KPS Gill broke the back of militancy in Punjab by invoking Jat pride. He frequently referred to struggle against militancy being Jat Sikh bunaam Jat Sikh. The boys from villages of Punjab were given 2000 per month, gun and freedom to `deal` with militants.
My take on language: Urdu and Hindi have the same root. A couple of centuries back, it was called Hindustani. If not for the script difference, most people of India and Pakistan would add both Hindi and Urdu in their CVs. If I learn the Arabo-Persian script, I can kick ass of many-a-pretenders from the other side of the border, in Urdu I mean :-) Infact, one of my buddies has proved this. He writes Urdu poetry and does a great job at it.
DrLokraj has explained the caste point very well in 17, it is an ideal, not the ground reality. KPS Gill broke the back of militancy in Punjab by invoking Jat pride. He frequently referred to struggle against militancy being Jat Sikh bunaam Jat Sikh. The boys from villages of Punjab were given 2000 per month, gun and freedom to `deal` with militants.
My take on language: Urdu and Hindi have the same root. A couple of centuries back, it was called Hindustani. If not for the script difference, most people of India and Pakistan would add both Hindi and Urdu in their CVs. If I learn the Arabo-Persian script, I can kick ass of many-a-pretenders from the other side of the border, in Urdu I mean :-) Infact, one of my buddies has proved this. He writes Urdu poetry and does a great job at it.
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#30 Posted by drlokraj on May 28, 2005 4:18:41 pm
Re: # 26
dont over-generalize and dont consider yourself to be the sole representative of sikhs and also dont go into a shell .These are just your personal views.
Is Bibi Jagir Kaur a practicing sikh or was she elected president of SGPC just because she was born in sikh family? She got her daughter murdered because the daughter married outside the caste(though the boy was sikh).And this is just tip of the iceberg.
Read Manto`s story ``Mozail``if you can get hold of it.
dont over-generalize and dont consider yourself to be the sole representative of sikhs and also dont go into a shell .These are just your personal views.
Is Bibi Jagir Kaur a practicing sikh or was she elected president of SGPC just because she was born in sikh family? She got her daughter murdered because the daughter married outside the caste(though the boy was sikh).And this is just tip of the iceberg.
Read Manto`s story ``Mozail``if you can get hold of it.
#29 Posted by ana on May 28, 2005 4:17:21 pm
bongdongs:
how about those lines in ``monsoon wedding`` where the bengali duo ask their punjabi friend, ``why are you punjabis so ostentatious.`` and the punjabi`s response: ``why are you bengalis so pretentious?``
and there are some punjabis and bengalis who admit to being each of those respectively. :)
how about those lines in ``monsoon wedding`` where the bengali duo ask their punjabi friend, ``why are you punjabis so ostentatious.`` and the punjabi`s response: ``why are you bengalis so pretentious?``
and there are some punjabis and bengalis who admit to being each of those respectively. :)
#28 Posted by bongdongs on May 28, 2005 3:26:35 pm
#15
``Maybe, Bollywood can redeem itself by making at least one movie showing a Sikh character in positive light, I am not talking religously but socially.``
Man, Delhiwala you are one champion whiner.
Sure Hindi movies are not devoid of its seterotypes, but to allege that hindi movies have gone out of their way to disrespect Sikh`s is way off base. Apart from some of the usual jokes, Sardar`s are usually shown as noble and honest in Bollywood movies (which too is a false seterotype).
How about this, Sikh`s probably consitute the single largest numbers of illegal immigrants from India, thus forcing all other Indian`s to go through great scrutinity on their visas`s. I have never seen the illegal immigrant Sikh setreotype in Indian popular culture.
Punjabi and Sikh culture is the one most celebrated by Bollywood. lets take the song sequence from ``Kal ho na ho`` which pokes fun at Gujju`s (remember G-U-J-J-U?) and then is followed by a rousing Bhangda-Shangda sequence. In fact that that particular movie propagates several negative seterotypes of Gujarati`s while celebrating Punjabi culture, but I dont see Gujarati`s complain, maybe its Gujju`s and not Sikh`s who are large-hearted, c`est na pas?
For that matter why is that no hero in bollywood movies is a Bannerjee or a Das, instead its always an Singh, Arora, Kapoor, Malhotra ...?
Seems like I should be the one doing the whining ...
``Maybe, Bollywood can redeem itself by making at least one movie showing a Sikh character in positive light, I am not talking religously but socially.``
Man, Delhiwala you are one champion whiner.
Sure Hindi movies are not devoid of its seterotypes, but to allege that hindi movies have gone out of their way to disrespect Sikh`s is way off base. Apart from some of the usual jokes, Sardar`s are usually shown as noble and honest in Bollywood movies (which too is a false seterotype).
How about this, Sikh`s probably consitute the single largest numbers of illegal immigrants from India, thus forcing all other Indian`s to go through great scrutinity on their visas`s. I have never seen the illegal immigrant Sikh setreotype in Indian popular culture.
Punjabi and Sikh culture is the one most celebrated by Bollywood. lets take the song sequence from ``Kal ho na ho`` which pokes fun at Gujju`s (remember G-U-J-J-U?) and then is followed by a rousing Bhangda-Shangda sequence. In fact that that particular movie propagates several negative seterotypes of Gujarati`s while celebrating Punjabi culture, but I dont see Gujarati`s complain, maybe its Gujju`s and not Sikh`s who are large-hearted, c`est na pas?
For that matter why is that no hero in bollywood movies is a Bannerjee or a Das, instead its always an Singh, Arora, Kapoor, Malhotra ...?
Seems like I should be the one doing the whining ...
#27 Posted by delhiwala on May 28, 2005 1:27:59 pm
Ally: Thanks for your clairification, I am glad that you are saying that Punjabi is still surviving.
Urdu being Islamic comment:
I think that I can say for all Indians, when I say that Urdu is pretty much exclusive to Muslims in India. No new Non-Muslim speakers of Urdu are added in India since 1947.
Even though origin was an amalgam of hindi, turki or arabi, it is still considered Muslim language, most probably due to it`s script being Arabic and not Devnagri related.
Urdu being Islamic comment:
I think that I can say for all Indians, when I say that Urdu is pretty much exclusive to Muslims in India. No new Non-Muslim speakers of Urdu are added in India since 1947.
Even though origin was an amalgam of hindi, turki or arabi, it is still considered Muslim language, most probably due to it`s script being Arabic and not Devnagri related.
#26 Posted by delhiwala on May 28, 2005 1:21:08 pm
Re: # 17
Where are you getting your information?
Which Sikh is telling Twelve O`Clk jokes for himself?
Give me a break.
Zail Singh Jokes are different, that I can understand but if repeatedly one person is sidelined due to his appearance, then it is nothing but stereo casting, you know it and everybody knows it. In Western world there are even laws about these days.
You try to say a Jewish, Polish, Woman joke etc at your work place then see what happens.
I have seen school principal and teachers slapping Sikh students at many schools in India and saying derogatorily ``Tere Bara BuJ gaya hai kya``. Such like stories are so prevalent, you don`t have perspective on this situation.
Is this also OK in your eyes?
Rahulmal: Before you anything please consider what I said, ``practising Sikh don`t believe in caste`` Practising is not someone who was just born in a Sikh family.
Where are you getting your information?
Which Sikh is telling Twelve O`Clk jokes for himself?
Give me a break.
Zail Singh Jokes are different, that I can understand but if repeatedly one person is sidelined due to his appearance, then it is nothing but stereo casting, you know it and everybody knows it. In Western world there are even laws about these days.
You try to say a Jewish, Polish, Woman joke etc at your work place then see what happens.
I have seen school principal and teachers slapping Sikh students at many schools in India and saying derogatorily ``Tere Bara BuJ gaya hai kya``. Such like stories are so prevalent, you don`t have perspective on this situation.
Is this also OK in your eyes?
Rahulmal: Before you anything please consider what I said, ``practising Sikh don`t believe in caste`` Practising is not someone who was just born in a Sikh family.
#25 Posted by Ally on May 28, 2005 11:51:31 am
delhiwala,
It would be lovely if you went to Lahore yourself and experienced it. I don`t know what kind of experience you will have, this depends on the type of people you will meet. I can only speak from my expreience, which has been that in my family in Lahore, everyone speaks Punjabi, they only speak Urdu at school or at work, where they have to, but the street language and language of everyday life is Punjabi, if you go to the bazaars etc, you will hear Punjabi, even at many official places people talk to each other in Punjabi.
Nowadays, Punjabi is getting a bit of a renaissance, however, the elite ppl still speak Urdu (although they all know Punjabi, they speak Urdu due to the snob effect!), and the govt. has never given official patronage or encouragement to Punjabi language, whereas in Sindh, Sindhi ppl have demanded their rights and their language is given more importance as compared to Punjabi in Punjab.
My fathers family in Faisalabad and other towns only speak Punjabi, though they can understand Urdu most of the cannot speak it. My cousins who went to school can speak Urdu and to some degree a little English, however the language we speak in everyday all the time is Punjabi, Urdu and English are only for dealing with officialdom.
Even without any official support, and sometimes govt bullying (all the Punjabi magazines that were shut down and told to stop publishing in the 60`s and 70`s) Punjabi is still very much alive in Pakistani Punjab, and is still the mother tongue of most of Pakistan`s population.
Regards `Islamic` Urdu, many of the best Urdu authors are actually Hindu, Munshi Prem Chand etc. Urdu is actually an Indian language, it is not an indeginous Pakistani language, it has become now, due to the large amount of people in Karachi who are from UP and whose mother tongue Urdu is. These people are now Pakistani, and therefore so is their language, why the govt. adopted Urdu as the official language i do not know the history. There is a large amount of Arabic/Persian/Turkish words in Urdu which is why it has been associated with Muslims and Islam, though a language can`t really belong to a religion, it belongs to a people irrespective of religion. Our Punjabi too has become very Arabic/Persian/Turkified, which is why there are many words that people from accros the border use that we do not understand and vice versa, though there is apparently a commitee working in Chandigarh and Lahore who are trying to bring the two Punjabi`s more closer in terms of vocabulary.
It would be lovely if you went to Lahore yourself and experienced it. I don`t know what kind of experience you will have, this depends on the type of people you will meet. I can only speak from my expreience, which has been that in my family in Lahore, everyone speaks Punjabi, they only speak Urdu at school or at work, where they have to, but the street language and language of everyday life is Punjabi, if you go to the bazaars etc, you will hear Punjabi, even at many official places people talk to each other in Punjabi.
Nowadays, Punjabi is getting a bit of a renaissance, however, the elite ppl still speak Urdu (although they all know Punjabi, they speak Urdu due to the snob effect!), and the govt. has never given official patronage or encouragement to Punjabi language, whereas in Sindh, Sindhi ppl have demanded their rights and their language is given more importance as compared to Punjabi in Punjab.
My fathers family in Faisalabad and other towns only speak Punjabi, though they can understand Urdu most of the cannot speak it. My cousins who went to school can speak Urdu and to some degree a little English, however the language we speak in everyday all the time is Punjabi, Urdu and English are only for dealing with officialdom.
Even without any official support, and sometimes govt bullying (all the Punjabi magazines that were shut down and told to stop publishing in the 60`s and 70`s) Punjabi is still very much alive in Pakistani Punjab, and is still the mother tongue of most of Pakistan`s population.
Regards `Islamic` Urdu, many of the best Urdu authors are actually Hindu, Munshi Prem Chand etc. Urdu is actually an Indian language, it is not an indeginous Pakistani language, it has become now, due to the large amount of people in Karachi who are from UP and whose mother tongue Urdu is. These people are now Pakistani, and therefore so is their language, why the govt. adopted Urdu as the official language i do not know the history. There is a large amount of Arabic/Persian/Turkish words in Urdu which is why it has been associated with Muslims and Islam, though a language can`t really belong to a religion, it belongs to a people irrespective of religion. Our Punjabi too has become very Arabic/Persian/Turkified, which is why there are many words that people from accros the border use that we do not understand and vice versa, though there is apparently a commitee working in Chandigarh and Lahore who are trying to bring the two Punjabi`s more closer in terms of vocabulary.
#24 Posted by avenger123 on May 28, 2005 11:39:42 am
labyrinth....it really does not matter how India/Indians are depicted in puki movies because none of us watch them anyway....you are just little people trying to act `macho` by showing off your 1-inchers...
#23 Posted by delhiwala on May 28, 2005 10:09:45 am
Re: # 22
I am surprised that you are saying this. Even at Chowk many Punjbais have claimed that Urdu is the main language and only older Lahoris speak Punjabi.
Your leaders have delibrately replaced Islamic Urdu over Punjabi.
At least this is what I have heard from travellers and people on the Chowk.
I am surprised that you are saying this. Even at Chowk many Punjbais have claimed that Urdu is the main language and only older Lahoris speak Punjabi.
Your leaders have delibrately replaced Islamic Urdu over Punjabi.
At least this is what I have heard from travellers and people on the Chowk.
#22 Posted by Ally on May 28, 2005 9:30:23 am
Indian movies reflect the little knowledge that Indians have about Pakistan and Pakistani ppl. The movie veer zaara, though well intentioned tried to depict Punjabi Muslims in Pakistan as if they were UP vallah`s. No one in Lahore who is Lahori actually is like those ppl in the film, and they don`t speak Urdu at home either!
#11
As far as i`m aware the majority of Pakistani films are produced in Punjabi and the majority of dramas are produced in Urdu.
If you ever get a chance see a Pakistani Punjabi movie, they are hilariously badly done, and they are full of sexual innuendo, the women wear very tight clothes and show off a lot of their cleavage.
I remember going to see either Humayun Gujjar or Badmash Gujjar, and in one of the songs, she sings `mera mahi kol avey, mey munjey vich Dang phera` (sorry i dont know how to translate that) or similar words, at that point the audience burst out laughing.
Pakistani films will make you laugh. Though the older films were actually not bad, esp the Black and White ones.
#11
As far as i`m aware the majority of Pakistani films are produced in Punjabi and the majority of dramas are produced in Urdu.
If you ever get a chance see a Pakistani Punjabi movie, they are hilariously badly done, and they are full of sexual innuendo, the women wear very tight clothes and show off a lot of their cleavage.
I remember going to see either Humayun Gujjar or Badmash Gujjar, and in one of the songs, she sings `mera mahi kol avey, mey munjey vich Dang phera` (sorry i dont know how to translate that) or similar words, at that point the audience burst out laughing.
Pakistani films will make you laugh. Though the older films were actually not bad, esp the Black and White ones.
#21 Posted by echoboom on May 28, 2005 8:50:38 am
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#20 Posted by vivek on May 28, 2005 4:58:08 am
labyrinth1,
Stereotypes are part and parcel of hindi cinema. Take a look at the sikh jokes or south indians speaking with an accent which I have never heard any south indian speak with, or the portrayel of bengalis. The point is hindi movie makers dont do any research. The movie is made with crude generalisations and its unlikely to change. I dont think that people think all south indians speak with the accent they show in movies, so its unlikely that Indians are going to judge Pakistanis based on what they see in a hindi movie.
Stereotypes are part and parcel of hindi cinema. Take a look at the sikh jokes or south indians speaking with an accent which I have never heard any south indian speak with, or the portrayel of bengalis. The point is hindi movie makers dont do any research. The movie is made with crude generalisations and its unlikely to change. I dont think that people think all south indians speak with the accent they show in movies, so its unlikely that Indians are going to judge Pakistanis based on what they see in a hindi movie.
#19 Posted by dost_mittar on May 28, 2005 4:53:41 am
Morning Raga:
I saw this film Morning Raga last night which, happily, does not stereotype South Indians. It is about a young fellow musician who wants to start a music group and tries to get a classic Carnatic singer to be part of his modern band. A nicely made film, with a fine performance by Shabana Azmi as a Carnatic singer, it`s hard to believe she is only lip-singing. The fusion song with a Carnatic singer and western musical instruments is one of the best fusion pieces I have heard. An hour and a half well spent.
I saw this film Morning Raga last night which, happily, does not stereotype South Indians. It is about a young fellow musician who wants to start a music group and tries to get a classic Carnatic singer to be part of his modern band. A nicely made film, with a fine performance by Shabana Azmi as a Carnatic singer, it`s hard to believe she is only lip-singing. The fusion song with a Carnatic singer and western musical instruments is one of the best fusion pieces I have heard. An hour and a half well spent.
#18 Posted by labyrinth1 on May 28, 2005 2:51:42 am
Vivek bhai and others ,
I am not against patriotic movies and let me assure in Pakistan if we make movies and dramas about wars with India , Pakistani Directors projects enemies ( Indians ) soldiers as proffesional army men and theres this respect for them ... where as Indian directors does the opposite which I assue is lack of knowledge ...bollywood projects all Pakistanis and Muslims in India as ultra religious with beards wearing shalwar kameez , bollywood projects Indian knowledge about Pakistan which is so not true .....
I am not against patriotic movies and let me assure in Pakistan if we make movies and dramas about wars with India , Pakistani Directors projects enemies ( Indians ) soldiers as proffesional army men and theres this respect for them ... where as Indian directors does the opposite which I assue is lack of knowledge ...bollywood projects all Pakistanis and Muslims in India as ultra religious with beards wearing shalwar kameez , bollywood projects Indian knowledge about Pakistan which is so not true .....
#17 Posted by drlokraj on May 28, 2005 1:51:03 am
Delhiwala,
I dont think by showing sikh humorous characters,bollywood moviemakes intend to make fun of the religeon.Maximum jokes on themselves are told by sikhs only and being able to laugh on oneself is agreat attribute and this is great punjabi character-something to do with the culture...a big heart is needed for this.
``Practising sikhs dont have any caste system``...that would have been the ideal situation,but it got confined to books only and is the biggest tragedy of this great religeon.
Dara Singh made a movie in 70s, on Giani Bhajan Singh`s great novel(Gagan Damama Bajeyo) on the glorious period of sikhism of the 18th century when they were fighting gorilla wars against mughals but Santa Singh(Budha Dal Nihang Chief) did not let it be shown as he objected to non sikhs portraying sikh characters.Dara Singh himself being sikh went through hell to get the picture released.Non sikh movie makers dont dare because of such problems,though there have been movies like Jeevan Mrityu,Roti Kapda aur Makaan,Border,Shaheed-e-Mohabbat Boota Singh etc. showing positive sikh characters.Another point is that non-punjabis dont make much distinction between sikhs and punjabis.
I dont think by showing sikh humorous characters,bollywood moviemakes intend to make fun of the religeon.Maximum jokes on themselves are told by sikhs only and being able to laugh on oneself is agreat attribute and this is great punjabi character-something to do with the culture...a big heart is needed for this.
``Practising sikhs dont have any caste system``...that would have been the ideal situation,but it got confined to books only and is the biggest tragedy of this great religeon.
Dara Singh made a movie in 70s, on Giani Bhajan Singh`s great novel(Gagan Damama Bajeyo) on the glorious period of sikhism of the 18th century when they were fighting gorilla wars against mughals but Santa Singh(Budha Dal Nihang Chief) did not let it be shown as he objected to non sikhs portraying sikh characters.Dara Singh himself being sikh went through hell to get the picture released.Non sikh movie makers dont dare because of such problems,though there have been movies like Jeevan Mrityu,Roti Kapda aur Makaan,Border,Shaheed-e-Mohabbat Boota Singh etc. showing positive sikh characters.Another point is that non-punjabis dont make much distinction between sikhs and punjabis.
#16 Posted by rahulmal on May 28, 2005 1:07:31 am
Delhiwala,
``practising Sikhs don`t have any caste system`` :-)
I`ll answer your post later...gtg now
``practising Sikhs don`t have any caste system`` :-)
I`ll answer your post later...gtg now
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