Cacoethes Scribendi

Changing Social Equations : Witnessed through the prism of movies

I've always felt that motion pictures are much more representative of a society's collective impulses than any other art form. It is possible for a novelist or a painter to construct an alternative universe of his own and create works of art that can exist in isolation in any era independent of the social milieu that surrounds them. The art of cinema is fundamentally different. Being a mass medium, movies must be able to relate to the impulses of the audience if they have to succeed. Most movies are products of the times in which they are made, unlike a lot of great books. Frank Capra's films are products of the thirties Depression Era. Woody Allen's pictures on the other hand are influenced by the counterculture of the sixties and seventies. Either of them couldn't have succeeded in the other person's era.

Literature is quite different in this respect. It is a lot easier to associate the attribute of 'timelessness' with books than it is with movies. Take for instance the fictional world of the incomparable PG Wodehouse. He created a universe inhabited by absentminded earls, erudite butlers and wealthy nincompoops which hardly had any basis in reality. The books of Wodehouse found a niche market which exists even today, though the 'Edwardian' utopia found in his books is not to be found anywhere on earth.

Which is why I feel that studying the history of motion pictures can provide a great deal of insight into how the society has evolved over the decades. Having watched countless Hollywood classics over the past year or so, I was drawn towards how the treatment of coloured people on the big screen has changed so dramatically in the course of movie history.

The earlist movie I've seen is DW Griffith's Birth of a Nation released in 1915, a three hour period saga of how two white families cope with the consequences of the American Civil War. The movie was notorious even then for its blatant depiction of blacks in a negative light and its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan. What's more interesting to me is that Griffith employed white actors with faces painted black to play Negroes in the film! And yes. This movie was a major worldwide blockbuster the year it was released. It couldn't have been made in 2009!

Things got a little better in the 30s and 40s, with black character actors like Rex Ingram and Hattie McDaniel getting meaty roles in A-films. Yet, their characters were invariably maids or butlers. It was still quite unthinkable for a mainstream Hollywood film to accept a black leading man or a leading woman. I find Alexander Korda's delightful 1940 Arabian fantasy - The Thief of Bagdad most significant in this respect. It is one of the earlist films that I know of to feature a coloured boy in the leading role. The actor was a teenage son of a mahout in Mysore who was transported to England to play in several British adventure films, the best of which is The Thief of Bagdad.

However, it was still anathema to both movie-goers and movie makers to have a coloured actor as the romantic male lead. The emergence of Sidney Poitier in the sixties was to change that. Remember, we are in the sixties now. The decade of Martin Luther King & Malcolm X, the Beatles & The Vietnam War. The audiences could finally digest the prospect of Poitier, a Bahaman negro, dating and *gasp* marrying a white girl in the family drama Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. The movie may seem too cutesy and sentimental to modern audiences. But it must have made powerful viewing in 1967, amidst all the cultural upheavals of that decade. The success of Poitier in the sixties seems so timely and inevitable. Poitier couldn't have become a star in the thirties. He may have ended up specializing in butler roles instead. He wouldn't have been such a big deal in the nineties either. His stardom had a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time with the right complexion.

Which brings me to a movie that I happened to see recently. The Taking of Pelham123 starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta, two ageing actors lending some star power to an otherwise forgettable movie. Having been weaned on movies from Hollywood's Golden Age (1930-1960), I was extremely surprised that none of the characters drew attention to the fact that Washington is black in the course of the film. Not even a single oblique reference! It was almost as though the colour of his skin was totally immaterial to everyone around him. This would have been unthinkable in a Poitier movie! No wonder America is ready for a black President.

The critic David Thomson wrote that the "history of American movies is the history of America in the time of the movies". Very true. I couldn't agree more.

Labels: culture, movies

Defending Vegetarianism
I'm a lacto vegetarian. Primarily because I was born into a family with vegetarian eating habits. The fact that I wear leather shoes and sport woolen trousers without a trace of compunction goes to show that my ethical code in these matters is not without hypocritical exceptions.

Greg Mankiw, in his blog, cites the strongest defence of herbivore eating habits that I've come across thus far.

Aliens from another planet, with vastly superior intelligence to humans, land on earth in order to consume humans as food. What argument could you make to convince the aliens not to eat us that would not also apply to our consumption of
beef?

Strong stuff.
Suppose for the sake of argument that our utility to these intelligent aliens as food is greater than our utility to them in our productive capacity. In which case, it would be perfectly rational for the aliens to kill and consume humans! Chilling thought.

Alternatively, the same argument can also be used in defence of VS Naipaul's opening line in the Bend in the River

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

Labels: culture

Puritan America

Citizens of Virginia can expect a 27 month sojourn in prison if they serve beer to callow sixteen year olds. Huh :|

Read more about it here

Labels: culture, politics

On the curious coincidence of Diwali Legends

As per wikipedia, Diwali marks as many as four anniversaries of completely unrelated events in India's mythical past.

The goddess Shakti observed 21 days of austerity starting from ashtami of shukla paksha to get half part of the body of Lord Shiva. Deepavali is the completion day of this austerity.

Diwali also celebrates the return of Lord Rama to Ayodhya after the war in Lanka.

It commemorates the killing of Narakasura, an evil demon, by Lord Krishna's wife Sathyabhama.

Diwali is also associated with the annual return of Daitya king Bali to his homeland.

Isn't it indeed incredible and rather disingenuous that there must have been a consensus throughout the country on choosing a particular day to commemorate events remotely spaced in time? Strange. One wonders whether these legends were deliberately assigned the same date with the intent of rendering Diwali theologically significant enough to compete with the semitic festivals like Id and Christmas.

Hinduism is essentially a pagan religion that is practised in a million different ways by people across the subcontinent. The Brahminical Hinduism that I experienced while growing up bears no resemblance to the faiths of say a tribal community in Central India.

The modern 'libertarian' ideal of 'To each his own' has always been an integral aspect of the Hindu way of life. Sadly, after the advent of semetic faiths, there has been a vain attempt by the so-called custodians of our culture to semitize Hinduism. As a part of the semitization drive, festivals like Deepavali that were traditionally the preoccupation of a very small segment of upper-caste population have been foisted upon the masses. To make Diwali seem like a pan-Indian festival, diverse legends from across the country have been disingenuously assigned a common date. Cracker-bursting has been actively encouraged to woo the not-so-religiously inclined. (note - cracker bursting on diwali was unheard of in India a couple of hundred years ago) What we have been observing is a form of propaganda that has changed the very nature of Sanatana Dharma.

Labels: culture, mythology

A NUGGET FROM AMIT VARMA -

Navtej Sarna, the spokesman for India's ministry of external affairs, saying "It's a matter of pride if a son of India and son of Asia becomes United Nations Secretary-General."

Why?

It would be a bit of a cop-out for me to take pride in Shashi
Tharoor becoming whatever. I find it silly and escapist to take
pride in anything but my own achievements, and joy in those of my
near and dear ones. Whether Tharoor or Aziz or Angelina Jolie
become secretary general of the UN should hardly affect my pride,
unless I'm the father of one of them, or something similar.

Spot on!

Labels: culture

A few questions

How unnatural is it for Humans to consume the milk of another species?

Can there be a graver violation of animal rights than the practice of keeping a cow perennially pregnant to maximise milk production?

Is the government right in subsidising milk products, thereby encouraging the consumption of unhealthy fatty food and perpetuating the misery of Cows?

Why isn't the moral brigade opposing the heinous practice of artificial insemination of cows with as much intensity as Cow Slaughter?

Aren't we Indians guilty of the worst form of hypocrisy by shamelessly consuming milk intended for the calves and yet professing our reverence for 'Go mata'?

Labels: culture

Evolving New Standards for Human Behavior

Homicide is a punishable offence in almost all countries, and has been so, for millenia, in most cultures. The Reason why it is proscribed is not very evident.
Is it because murdering a fellow human is an intrinsically immoral act?
If yes, why is it considered immoral?
After all, no one was ever convicted for murdering chicken, cows and sheep. It was and is perfectly moral to kill and consume these creatures. But if the animal happens to be a human being, all hell breaks loose.

The answer to this can be found in the memorable Christian precept -

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

This simple, yet profound, statement stands out as a perfect guide to human behavior.
The Reason why we desist from Murder is because we wouldn't relish the prospect of others murdering us.
The Reason why we don't bat an eyelid before maiming a chicken to death is because we very well know that chickens don't pose a threat to us even if they were granted the right to kill their masters.

Hence, Morals are products of circumstances and expediencies, and it would be foolish to think of them as an invariant set of rules.
Morals are relative and their suitability varies with time and location.
A few examples -

The Primitive man contracted sexually transmitted diseases upon leading a promiscuous life, and drew the inference that it is immoral to be promiscuous. But we know better. The cause behind the STD's is a virus and not the wrath of God. If we still hold on to the primitive notion that promiscuity is immoral, we are being foolish.

The Practice of Respecting Elders is another universal moral that has been challenged lately, and rightly so. In the good old days, when education was limited to the act of learning to read, write and count, most of the learnings were derived from experience, i.e on the job. Hence, it would be quite natural to expect a fifty year old person to exhibit greater wisdom and maturity than an upstart of twenty. This would hold in most cases, as there never was much difference in the education received by the father and son and more pertinently, the nature of their respective jobs, as in - the learnings to be derived from various jobs used to be roughly the same. Hence, one's wisdom was directly proportional to the number of years spent on Mother Earth! Ergo, it made ample sense to defer to the judgment of elders.

Today, thanks to advancement in various spheres of human activity, education is more specialised and as a result labour is more specialised! The Education you receive almost invariably determines your occupation - something that was never the case before the twentieth century. Moreover, the opportunities to learn vary from one job to another.
Besides all this, the Digital Divide between the youth and the middle-aged accentuates the disparity.
Having the right upbringing and the right exposure, being at the right place at the right time matter far more in determining the course of one's intellectual development than the amount of experience. Therefore, unconditionally deferring to the judgement of Elders is an outworn Moral that must be sent to the dustbin, where it belongs.

Labels: culture

Does being Devout make you feel Happy?

Here's a very interesting link that discusses the results of an Opinion Poll on the levels of Happiness among Americans.

One of the results is particularly startling -

People who worship frequently are happier than those who don't.

One would definitely not expect this to be the case in India, where the poor and the lower middle classes are far more pious than the well-to-do. Given the positive correlation that exists between affluence and happiness, it can be categorically stated that in India, the unbelievers are far happier than the devoutly religious.

What could possibly account for this discrepancy? Could it be because of the nature of the respective religions in these countries? Protestant Christianity, with its moral certitude and simplistic teachings, probably offers greater solace to Americans, than does Hinduism, a religion (if you can call it that) that revels in ambiguity and philosophical speculation, to Indians!

The finding is certainly disturbing from an American perspective, as becoming an agnostic/atheist would imply being less happy!!
Thankfully, Indians don't seem to be facing such a predicament.

Labels: culture

Freedom to Offend

We are all familiar with the 'Right to Freedom of Expression'. This Right has such unanimous support that even the most retrogressive conservatives would not dare to decry it.
Yet, it is not universally acknowledged that this Right is meaningless without the Freedom to Offend.

The dichotomy between these two rights typically comes to the fore, in the culturally hidebound societies of Asia, where the exercise of the Freedom of Expression often entails an offence on religious sensibilities and the prevailing social mores.
This was very evident in the recent Danish Cartoon Controversy and also in the Khushboo episode. In both the cases, the opposition stemmed not from a governmental authority, but from a certain section of society. i.e the fact that the 'Right to Expression' is enshrined in the Constitution did not deter the offended parties from launching a vicious verbal assault.

This provides us with a pertinent insight. i.e that We are often deterred from giving expression to our convictions NOT by the law of the land, but by the 'general drift of society'. Hence, the 'Right to Expression' cannot be secured and is irrelevant even in a country like India, because of the implicit checks imposed on it by the Society.

Unlike a totalitarian State, where one fears the constitutional authority, the 'free thinkers' are stymied by the 'tyrannical majority' in democracies like India. Hence, this notion of 'Democracy' serving as a facilitator in securing 'Individual Freedom' is a hogwash. Securing Freedom in the truest sense is impossible in an illiberal democracy wherein the Primacy of the Majority prevails over the Rights of the Individual.

Labels: culture

Don't know what to make out of this

I read this in one of Naipaul's essays....
In 1957, there was a survey of high-school students of an unsegregated school in Trinidad. The school comprised of adolescents from all races - Black, Indian and White, as one would expect in a multi-racial society like Trinidad. The students were asked about their "expectations and hopes for the future".
Here are a few typical responses from the students.

Black - I would like to be a great man not only in music but also in sociology and economics. In the USA I would like to marry a beautiful actress with plenty of money. I would also like to be famed abroad as one of the world's foremost millionaires.

East-Indian - I will write a book called the Romance of Music and Literature. I will make this book as great as any Shakespeare play; then I'll return to India to endeavour to become a genius in the film industry.

White - I want to live a moderate life, earning a moderate pay, slowly but surely working my way in the law firm, but I don't want to be the Chief-Justice of the Federation or anything like that....Look around. All the other boys must be writing about their ambitions to be famous. They all cannot be, for hope is an elusive thing.

Poignant....

The Black kid is irrational, imprecise and bordering on the insane.

The East Indian is pretty much the same, full of fantasy, and, dare I say, lunacy.

The White Kid is calm, rational and by far, the most pragmatic.

The point to be noted here, is that all these kids grew up in the same society, studied in the same school, and yet the responses seem to suggest that the White Kid inhabited a different planet.
The Essay made me wonder if there is some credence after all to hackneyed colonial stereotypes like the 'phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon' and the 'excitable Asiatic'

Now, Please don't jump to the conclusion that I'm a racist....

Labels: culture

Iron Curtain ??

In the course of a desultory conversation, an elderly neighbour of mine made a startling revelation. In the last 40 years that she had spent in the city of Bangalore, she had been to South Bangalore
(i.e the part of the city that lies to the south of Majestic Talkies) just once.

We live in the Ulsoor locality, a Tamil-dominated area in North-East Bangalore, one of the oldest suburbs in the city. In these parts, it is not uncommon to find quite a few long-time residents who've never gone past the Railway Station!! They've spent all their lives staying within a few kilometers of the Cantonment area.

The same observation can be made with respect to South Bangaloreans
as well. Many residents in the solidly middle-class Kannada-speaking
suburbs of the south have no idea of what Bangalore looks like, to the
north of Vidhana-Soudha. For many of them, Fraser Town is every bit as alien and unfamiliar as Brooklyn.

It's almost as though an Iron-Curtain of some kind lies somewhere
in between the GPO and Chickpet that prevents the unfettered
intercourse between Bangaloreans living on either side of it.

The Iron Curtain is in many ways symbolic of a distinct cultural
difference between the North and the South. The South is predominantly Kannada-speaking, with a pretty high median per-capita income.
The gap between the rich and the poor is not very evident in the
South.

The North, in contrast, is dominated by the minority communities,
largely bacause of its relative proximity to the neighbouring states of
TN and AP. Most of the brick and mortar industries are based in the
north which accounts for the striking disparity between the haves and
the have-nots, the privileged and the under-privileged.

The South is considered by many to be the cultural nerve-center of
Old-Bangalore. Demographically, it is far more homogenous compared
to the North, with a very significant upper-caste presence. Politically,
the South is clearly right-of-centre, almost unfailingly electing a BJP
candidate to the Parliament. The North, on the other hand has always
been a bastion of the Congress Party, thanks in no small measure to
the sizeable working-class.

South bangalore, is a more settled and idyllic region. Some areas have
remained unchanged, demographically at least, for decades. The North
is forever in a state of flux, viewed scornfully by the Southerners,
for providing a haven to arriviste outsiders, who are unfairly blamed
for the sky-rocketing real-estate prices.

It is easy to take this divide for granted. But for me, this is
one of the prime reasons for the state of unrest in Bangalore today.
A somnolent town, which was once a 'Pensioner's Paradise' has been
caught unawares, so to speak. The inexorable tide of progress and
fortuitous circumstances have ensured the growth of the city to
proportions that were unimaginable a few decades ago, but yet this
very tide of progress has marginalised the locals, who find themselves
unequal to the changes that have been wrought on them.

It is the story of an Old city struggling to come to terms with the
New World.

Labels: culture

Letters to the Editor

The section of the Newspaper that I revile the most, perhaps even more than the supplements bearing obscene pictures of revolting models, is the 'Letters to the Editor' box.
Most of the Letters are terse two-liners which state the obvious
without a modicum of original thought. One wonders why the poster
took the trouble to draft it. Perhaps to boost his/her fragile ego
by seeing his name in print.

Here are some samples from the Hindu Newspaper -


Sir, — Dr. Singh's attitude towards the Opposition leaves much to be desired. He refused to accept even a memorandum from the Opposition leaders. An experienced and confident leader could have easily avoided such a controversy.

Ashutosh Purushottam,

Gaya, Bihar

Mr.Vajpayee has shown the right way to all politicians who hanker after power. His career was studded with several noteworthy achievements.

K. Vasu
Chennai

It is a pity that the retired Delhi IIT professor MC Puri who came to Bangalore for a seminar has fallen victim to an unknown assasin's bullet. It is also sad that adequate security cover was not provided at IISc.

Anirudh Sudarsan
Chennai

They suck. It's a shame that such Letters get to see the light of day in one of India's premier newspapers. Indicative of the abominable quality of public discourse in this country.

Labels: culture

Pagan Beliefs vs Semetic faiths

Pasting a discussion i had on the Pagalguy forum some time ago.

Me: Here's an interesting distinction between pagan and semetic religions.
Semetic(abrahamic religions): God is an unknown entity to be feared.
Pagan religions(including Hinduism) : God is a familiar lovable benefactor whose refuge can be sought in troubled times.

Provocative distinction,eh?

X: I think you have got it the other way round. In the Theistic religions the very purpose of man is to love God and worship him while in quite a few pagan religions the Gods are more to be appeased.

Me: How can you truly love god if he is impersonal as is the case with Islam?
What marks out pagan religions is that they are not revelatory in nature.
There is no absolute truth or a dual state of heaven or hell.
Take for instance Hinduism where you either attain salvation by leading a flawless/virtuous life or you are born again to redeem yourself. Here God is more of a gentle overseer of your conduct who doesn't punish the errant by banishing them to Hell, instead gives you another chance to redeem yourself.
The concept of 'Judgement day' is conspicuous by its absence in pagan religions.

PS: But as you said, there is a strong tendency to appease gods in pagan religions. But the appeasement is not exacted by god. It is just a human failing. Whereas in a semetic faith, guidelines for good conduct are a part of the revelation itself. ex: pray 5 times a day,don't look at an idol or else ......

Pour in with your views.

Labels: culture