Archive for the ‘Popular culture’ Category
The young face of Bollywood
Posted by Johanna in India, Popular culture on januari 23rd, 2010
Just watched Ranbir Kapoors stunning performance in the Indian Blockbuster from 2009 : “Wake up Sid”. Wake up Sid is comparable to “3 idiots” which I recently reviwed in the sense that the two films have a common message: it is time for independence of Indian youth, Indian youth has the right to choose their own life paths.
The way I see it, Bollywood films often serves as an entry point to societal critque. These two blockbusters of 2009 are contributing to a change of attitudes among the film consuming Middle class. Wake up Sid features Sid, a young coellge graduate (Ranbir Kapoor) whose father expects him to take over the family business once he graduated. A classical scenario among Indian youths. Sid is a fun loving guy, his father’s credit cards pays for Sid’s amount of fun, he spends his time doing all but studying: he likes clubbing, drinking, he drives a nice car, and a servant serves him breakfast in bed every day. But when Sid lets his father down by not engaging in the family business, he is cut off – and left with nothing of he has former taken for granted. Luckily for Sid, he has struck up an acquaintance with Aisha (Konkona Sen Sharma), a new girl in the city. She is 8 years senior to Sid, and quite his opposite – Aisha’s goal i life is to attain independence. Therefor she moves to Mumbai as a single 27 year old writer – looking for her dream job in the field of journalism. Once Sid left his parents safe haven, he crashes at Aisha’s place.
Konkona and Ranbir plays their characters brilliantly throughout the film, which in itself is colorful, fresh and uplifting. The only thing I can complain about is the boring boring soundtrack, other than that, this is a likable film! I completely love the ending, puppy love is shown with a warm hug, not a sleazy extended kiss-scene. It is also bold and brilliant to show a love story between a world vise female who take charge of her own life and a younger male who clearly admires his lady-love on several levels. Girl power and independence is the the main concepts of Wake up Sid. It is a film about growing up, waking up, leave college ad gain your own grounds and meanwhile friendship develops into love.
Say it with a Bollywood song
Posted by Johanna in India, Popular culture on januari 2nd, 2010
I just watched Indias christmas Blockbuster 2009: “3 Idiots”. When the script was written by Chetan Bhagat, author of “A night at the call centre”, I was curios. As a Bollywood blockbuster from the film is interestingly enough to a large extent criticizing the competitivness of the the Indian education system. Furthermore it features India’s youth’s problems with the older generations expectations for their future careers.
This is something that the girls I met in Delhi when doing fieldwork also talked about, they stated that there is a hierarchy among the courses of education engineering is at the top of this hierarchy. The parents in the film all hope fort their sons to become engineers, they not only hope they have forced their children to take up this education. The sons own free will is marginalised and this is the sad truth for many youths in India.
Suicide rates among Indian students who fail to live up to the grading criteria is a problem that is brought up in the film. Viewing life as a “race” where winner takes all is the attitude that is nurtured at “The Imperial College of Engineering”, the school which the “three idiots” attends.
In 3 “idiots” Aamir Khan has the leading role. One of Aamir s lines in the film is something like “The grading systems is like a caste system where people are divided and kept separate”. I think it is a really interesting script writing and I highly recommend this film. Not only great story, also some nice songs and great acting by Aamir, Kareena Kapoor and also Boman Irani. The conclusion of the film is that the parents finally agree that what is right for their child is to do whatever the child him or her self want in life. The free choice of the individual is stressed throughout the film and I hope Indian parent or any other parents who think it is their full right to make choices for their grown children to think again.
I have previously argued in my blog that Bollywood Film often comes with societal critique and watch film “3 idiots” and you will see brilliantly put critique.
Eat Pray Love
Posted by Johanna in Popular culture on december 16th, 2009
I am reading this lovely book, a New York Times Bestseller by Elizabeth Gilbert. The book is called “Eat Pray Love and its is a self-lived story about a woman’s spiritual journey. The book is divided into three parts, geographically: Elizabeth travels to Italy, India and Indonesia. This is a section when she just arrive to India, that I would like to share with you:
From pp. 119:
“When I was growing up, my family kept chickens. We always had about a dozen of them at any given time and whenever one of them died off – taken away by a hawk or fox or by some obscure chicken illness – my father would replace the lost hen. He’d drive to a nearby poultry farm and return with a new chicken in a sack. The thing is, you must be very careful when introducing a new chicken to the general flock. You can’t just toss it in there with the old chickens, or they will see it as an invader. What you must do instead is to slip the new bird into the chicken coop in the middle of the night while the others are asleep. Place her on a roost beside the flock and tiptoe away. In the morning, when the chickens wake up, they don’t notice the newcomer, thinking only “She must have been here all the time since I didn’t see her arrive”. The clincher of it is, awaking within this flock, the newcomer herself doesn’t even remember that she’s a newcomer, thinking only “I must have been here the whole time….”.
This is excactly how I arrive in India.”
Birthday of a great Indian symbol
Posted by Johanna in India, Popular culture on november 5th, 2009
My all time favourite Bollywood actor, Shahrukh Khan ( शाहरुख़ ख़ान ) turned 44 this week, on Nov 2. I am happy to congratulate him on his work in my blog. For all of you who are unfamiliar with Bollywood, this is the man you need to see act. This is my top 5 Shahrukh Khan performances: Kal Ho Na Ho, Veer Zaara, Don, KKKG and Devdas.
As previously argued, Bollywood occupies a special place in the hearts of many Indians. An Indian friend once told me “Well Western films, Hollywood, their strongest part is the technical part. In Bollywood, the strongest part is the emotional parts of the film”. This man have made about a billion people cry, laugh and sing. An that is why I call him a symbolic representation of Bollywood. Happy Birthday SRK!
Offended in the Stockholm metro
Posted by Johanna in Popular culture on november 4th, 2009
In the Stockholm metro I saw a huge poster this morning, it is an ad for the forthcoming film “2012 Doomsday” which is coming up in cinemas in December. In the ad there is a huge a picture of Cristo Redentor falling to the ground, about to crush thousands of people. I could not find this picture by Googling the title. Is it only me, or is this poster highly offensive? I doubt strongly that this poster is hung up in Rio De Janeiro,and since I could not find it by google, I strongly doubt that is is used worldwide. Portraying this important statue and symbol of religion like this is not very appropriate in my liking. What do you think?
PhD in Vampire cults
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology, Popular culture on november 3rd, 2009
For students of anthropology everywhere, its time for a television series. The series “Moonlight” from 2007 features in its first episodes an eclectic professor of Social Anthropology, who achieved his PhD in Vampire cults. In the series he has started his own “Study group” in the basement of the University where he teach, but this study group is a cover for his very own blood cult. The Professor believes he is a vampire, even though he is not. So take this as an example; tooo much engaging in your PhD dissertation and you can become the study!
