What is the white saviour genre?
Its a genre which drives the notion that a white man/woman is
necessary to save other races, to fight injustice done on them, put some sense
in their head, make them ‘’civilized”, improve their life and save them because
they are too naive to do either of them.
Nine times out of ten, the saved are black people. Remaining
are various tribes like native Americans and Indians, Chinese and Japanese.
While some of the films that are put in this genre are
really milestones in cinema,eg Lawrence of Arabia, To Kill a Mockingbird,
Dances with Wolves, most of them are nothing but poor promoters of racial
stereotypes, which state that the group which is the film revolves around or is
set in is a bunch of naive, brainless
dunces killing and discriminating against each other until an idealistic
white man or woman whos a teacher, mentor, lawyer, military hero, aspiring
writer or any sort of a higher human being with world changing power steps in
and :-
- · Makes them mend their ways.
- · Saves them from the dangers brought by his/her own people
- · Becomes one of them and adapts their culture.
In some cases, these films lie blatantly. The most glaring
example is the movie Blind Side, an autobiography of NFL player Michael Oher,
who was adopted by the Tuohey family as a teenager. The film shows that Leanne
Tuohy (played by Sandra Bullock) adopts a homeless (black) Michael and inspires
him to become an American football player by recognizing his talent. In
reality, Michael Oher was already a prodigy when Tuohey family adopted him.
What added insult to injury was that Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for the best actress.
Another example is “The Hurricane”, which is the biopic of
Reuben Carter, a middleweight boxer who spent twenty years in prison for a fake
homicide charge, until he was ‘rescued’ by a young black pen friend and three
young white people from Canada , who helped his case by discovering some key
evidences. In reality, the three Canadians are fictional characters. The film
completely looks over the fact that Reuben Carter was arrested for violent
crimes right from the age of 14, including brutal muggings. There was enough
evidence to convict him twice for the murders , he failed the lie detector test,
refused to retake it, and the judge threw out the conviction because the
prosecution did not present key evidence. They finally dropped it because there
was nothing left after 22 years. Clearly, a case of turning a villain into a
sympathetic figure.
The worst film till now for white saviour concept with
respect to India has to be “Indiana Jones and the Temple of doom” where Indians
food is shown as fried scarab beetles, leeches eaten live, eyeball soup and
frozen monkey brains for desert.
And Kali is shown as a devil goddess and her worshippers are
a death cult, who extract hearts similar to the Aztec and Mayan priests:-
The film was so horrible that the Indian govt banned it from
being shot in India and it had to be shot in Sri Lanka. What a fall for Steven
Spielberg and Amrish Puri.
Another recent example is of course Slumdog Millionaire,
where absolutely no Indian character in the film is shown as even half decent. And the white man is shown as a saint who
rewards Indian urchins with money even after they have taken off the tires of
his Mercedes. Sniff sniff.
The latest entrant into this white saviour comedy is the
musical ‘Basmati Blues’.
Didnt expect this from Brie Larsson, who’s Oscar winning
role in Room (2015) is certainly a must watch. This film was largely made in
2013 when she was not a star, but now has a limited release.
So in it, the Larrson’s character is a scientist named Linda
, who created genetically modified rice with her father (such a new invention
isn’t it. ) Her Boss Gurgon played by Donald Sutherland (whats with good actors
taking stupid roles) tells her to go to India because its “ a country of five hundred million
farmers, one billion rice eaters and one billion customers for us”. (Golly,
what a new thing to discover ,that Indians eat rice and that they all are naive
enough to be dumped with a GM variant of any foodgrain.) Promptly she’s handpicked by him because she’s
the sweet face who will convince the Indian farmers to buy the GM rice.
Now whos going to explain to them that Monsanto is trying to
enter the Indian market with its GM corn and BT cotton but has been fought off
by the farmers who don’t need post graduate degree to see it for the curse that
it is.
She’s told that Bilari is where she has to go because it is
the birthplace of Basmati . Bilari is in Uttar Pradesh, but in this film its
shown in Kerala. And to go to Kerala, she lands in Mumbai. Sorry sweetheart,
but every major city in India has an airport.
Basmati rice is mainly grown in
north India, and is just one of the thousands of breeds of rice grown in the
country.
She travels to the village on a train in sleeper class
(because thats how all train bogies look in India), and meets the hero, who
hangs upside down like a monkey, as he is travelling on the roof of the train
(like all Indians do, isn’t it). We
later learn that our hero Rajit has been forced to return to his village after
dropping out of his agricultural science degree as he cant pay the fees(so
Bollywoodisque). His parents, and all villagers speak English in the much
lampooned Indian accent and are able to understand
her well (and those who do not speak English, speak Hindi, even when the signs
in the background are in Malyalam). To cut a long story short, she falls for
the humble hero, sings some songs with him, wins over the Indians with her
sweet demeanour, but then saves them in the end by making them see that they
are being sold sterile rice seeds and stops the train by chasing it on a
horseback and then promptly detaching the bogies from the engine by a single
whack of a hammer. The movie ends with her marrying our hero, and Bollywood
dancing.
And also in this film are people named Patel, Kapoor (in
Kerala), spicy food, impromptu breaking into songs, and a kathak dance lesson .
Thankfully due to social media, unlike the days of Indiana
Jones and the temple of doom, we have had people trash this film almost
immediately.
Every now and then this totally ridiculous and condescending
genre raises its ugly head and it really surprising that who still invests in
these kind of films. They are nothing but an extension of colonialism and white
man’s burden.
What will it take the west to understand that they need to stop showing all African
nations=poverty+civil war, Brazil=Favelas, Mexico= Drug cartels and India=
slums+taj mahal+bollywood dancing. It is
no longer amusing, but cringeworthy to the core.
PS: The writer wanted
to watch the entire film before reviewing it but soon found it beyond his
mental capacities. Apologies to the readers. But the readers can test their
patience since the entire movie is already available online. Good luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment