Liberation with consumerism, Individuality in uniformity

In light of Szerelem's latest post on “Fat Issues”, I decided to re-post something I wrote ages ago. Remember the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign? I do believe it won a number of accolades. My thoughts at that time:

Have you noticed the ads all over buses for the “Real Beauty Campaign”? They feature women who wouldn’t fit into conventional notions of beauty, with slogans like “Boy or Babe? What’s wrong with short hair” etc. Hmm, some of them are downright silly, but I was like, yeah it’s a good initiative, we need to change public perceptions and so on. Then I saw this ad when I was watching television in which hundreds of these women wearing identical wigs fling them off and dance about with glee- I suppose this is intended to be all very symbolic and impressively significant. The woman liberates herself from the societal perceptions of outer beauty? She’s finally realized that this obsession with stereotypical beauty is more pain than pleasure? No siree, it’s much more than that. A voiceover proclaims something to the effect of Women free yourself! Change perceptions and discover inner beauty with Dove!!

Yes ma’am, step right up, and liberate yourself. Find individualism and break free from stereotyping from all of you using the same damn homogenous product rolled off factory lines and customized right down to the last bit, just for you. It’s so special and unique. Why, you’ll never know that by appealing to your indignant feminist side, they’re just hoping to sucker you into buying more of the same products which enable you to tap into your feminine side and embrace their idiom of conventional beauty. Be individualistic. Now all of you buy the same damn thing.

Nishabd

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me, if you will, to rant. To express my deep and utter disgust, my ire, at this profoundly inept, lazy and contemptuous effort from one of Indian cinema’s self confessed auteurs. This is not a film- nay, not the bold, innovative, raw effort we were promised. Every time now I hear the words “bold”, “different” or “realistic” uttered to describe a movie, little alarm bells will go off in my head.

Mr. Ram Gopal Varma, what in the name of God were you thinking? Okay, I get that this is not based on Lolita, just inspired by it, and considering how it turned out, that’s probably a good thing. So he’s not her stepfather, he’s not driven by lust, and they’re both madly in love with each other. You rope in Amitabh Bachchan, someone who almost no one can criticize today. You take a really hot young woman as his lead. The place is impossibly beautiful. The subject matter is interesting. Then how do you fuck it up so badly?

Low, moody lighting and lingering shots of Jiah Khan’s legs do not an arty movie make. Seriously, does the sun never shine in Munnar? Do they not have lights in the house? Making the movie painfully slow doesn’t make it have an “atmosphere” either. No, I get that it’s supposed to symbolize the lack of warmth and spontaneity in his life and all that crap, but please, it just depressed the hell out of you. And then you have Amitabh “Baritone” Bachchan preaching to the camera- dictating as though it’s a polio advertisement. Seriously, have you heard of telling through actions and pictures, not talking to the audience? Can you not take your movie's title seriously? That’s a mistake the most awful filmmakers make. It probably will shut up the swooning audiences who accept anything Bachchan does, but seriously, grow up. And then the ludicrous dialogue- “Take Light”? Seriously??? Is that supposed to be the cool lingo of the day? Demonstrate Jiah Khan’s flippant, chilled out attitude to life? Because every time she said it with all the appeal of a doormat, the audience burst out laughing. It was ridiculous. Which brings me to Ms Khan herself.

Really, I can accept you saying that these people fall in love because of a connection, not because of lust. There can be connections between people of all ages- look at Lost in Translation. Fine, I can even swallow Amitabh gravely saying that the reason old men like young girls is not because of their youthful jism but due to the fact that they are approaching the end of their lives and are attracted to youthfulness and spontaneity (yeah, right, that’s such bullshit). But it will only be believable if the lead couple shows some, any chemistry whatsoever. Jiah Khan's is the most intensely irritating, stupidly annoying character to inhibit the screen in years. Right from the moment she stepped out of the jeep carrying a bag inscribed with the letters “L-O-V-E”, I cringed. She spoke complete and utter tripe, and her supposedly endearing, cool sullen persona gave her the intriguing appearance of a cow. We were supposed to believe they had a connection. And thus we were treated to her being annoyingly childlike, lazing around the house wearing practically nothing, pouring water on herself, flashing her long legs to the old man. And just so we don’t think it’s physical attraction (heaven forbid!), she spouts pretentious inanities like “Do you love my spirit?” AB: Yes. JK: I love yours too.

Wow. The movie never tired of this “soul-connection-means-let’s-talk-about-pretentious-horseshit-and-the-audience-will-say-wow” bullshit. I mean, seriously. Either make her less annoying and let them actually have any connection worth a damn, or be man enough to admit that it’s all about lust. Don’t treat us like retards. For heaven’s sake, she writes poetry which ostensibly shows her “soul”- and ends a paragraph by saying “take light”.

Mr. Varma, go back to making movies about gangsters. And please, don’t release the Sholay remake. I can only imagine how painful that will be.