This movie is apparently causing quite an uproar.
India has made headlines as an emerging superpower, a land of high-tech multimillionaires and a vast new market for American goods. But there is another India too, and it is not just the one of villages and ox carts that has always been best known in the West.
This is the disturbing India of the Hindu widow, a woman traditionally shunned as bad luck and forced to live in destitution on the edge of society. Her husband’s death is considered her fault, and she has to shave her head, shun hot food and sweets and never remarry. In the pre-independence India of the 1930′s, the tradition applied even to child brides of 5 or 6 who had been betrothed for the future by their families but had never laid eyes on their husbands.
It’s great to see an Indian movie being made about a more serious topic. Bollywood puts out some good stuff, but it tends to be strictly entertaining, and most Indian films conform pretty tightly to traditional gender roles, with a passive female character and a happy marriage at the end. They’re fun, and they’re visually beautiful, but I’m glad that a female director is working to diversify the industry and address a wider range of topics.
Part of the problem, though, is that while films like this rightly castigate wrong-headed social practices, they can send the message to those not familiar with Indian culture that this is the way that it is for everyone in that country. So let’s be clear: India is a great big place, and the traditions there vary vastly from region to region. There remain lots of gender-related issues to be solved; in the more economically prosperous regions, and particularly in urban centers, life is far more egalitarian, where as the rural areas tend to be more traditional, although this is certainly not the hard-line rule, and practies vary between families and villages and regions and cultures (as is the case, it seems, just about everywhere in the world). And the fact is that India has some of the most progressive, effective women’s groups in the world — just like us, they’re working hard for gender equality, and they’ve seen some amazing successes in a relatively short period of time.
So this movie is important, I definitely want to see it, and I’m thrilled that it’s being made. But hopefully it won’t be twisted by Westerners into a lament of those poor backwards Indian peope.
Thanks to Sumeet for the link.
Ok, I loved Fire, and I like Deepa Mehta’s work, but the thing is…while the Hindu nationalists are largely sexist and misogynistic, they kind of have a point when they take issue with Mehta portraying situations in India (which is usually part of their argument, though it’s not mentioned in this article), because Mehta is not a native to India. She’s Indian-Canadian, and so there’s all kinds of diasporic issues raised over who can (accurately) portray what about Indian culture. I may be wrong, but I’ve never found anything where Mehta acknowledges the privilege that being an Indian-Canadian filmmaker gives her or the distance from Indian culture (in India itself) that her diasporic upbringing and living situation (in Canada) provides. While I absolutely respect her work and think she does important work with her films, her portrayal of these situations is not entirely unproblematic. Maybe a little self-reflexivity would do her good?
That said…I’m wicked excited to see this film.
Just to clarify the terms of the discussion a little bit, Water isn’t a Bollywood film, or even an Indian film. Although the Times article didn’t make this clear, Mehta is a Canadian member of the Indian diaspora. And while I think you’re right, Jill, that many people in India have worked hard to improve gender equality, Mehta’s Elements trilogy is more concerned with gender issues as a measure of sectarianism and the effects that fundamentalist versions of religion have on women. Bollywood films often engage as well in a reimagining of sectarian conflict by borrowing the Romeo and Juliet trope, but Mehta’s films acknowledge the lack of realism inherent in that desire. Although I can certainly see how the film might be read in this way (much as the Christian Right adopted “those poor women, suffering under the Taliban” as part of the justification for Afghanistan), I think Mehta is usually careful not to indict “India” in general but instead to present an powerful indictment of the role of religion in creating conflict–and in disempowering women–in India past and present. And I think it’s less the West’s appropriation of the film that we have to worry about than the reaction of Hindu fundamentalists in India–as the Times article notes, Mehta’s last film, Fire, which deals with the growing romance between two sisters-in-law, was so troublesome to the fundies (any different there than here?) that it caused actual riots. Unlike Fire, Water has the benefit of being displaced in time–set in 1938–so I doubt it will be quite as controversial, but given the resistance the Indian government made to its very filming, I think we should see the film as a powerul challenge to fundamentalism.
By way of comparison too… Don’t forget that Indira Gandhi (a woman) became prime minister of India in 1966…. And the US in 2006, is still asking whether America is ready for a woman president!
Ooh I’ve been meaning to see this for a while. Dunno if it’s new there, but it’s been out on DVD here (Canada) for a long time.
THANK YOU!!!! Jill can you please call up NYU Social Work school (and others) and tell them the same thing about their “cultural diversity” textbook chapters, which basically say, “yes, Indian culture is completely oppressive and misogynistic, and no don’t fool yourself, those born in America still do it too.”
Also to said attendees of said school whose first question out of their “multicultural, openminded” mouths upon hearing of my impending marriage was, “Watch out that he doesn’t get domineering,” “Do you have a dowry,” or “Is he going to let you work?” rather than “Congratulations…”
this despite the fact that my husband was born in PHILADELPHIA in AMERICA, not rural Rajasthan, isn’t religious, and defies a whole slew of other stereotypes about Indian men.
Grrr.
I blame bollywood/hollywood-type movies for this stuff, which almost always emphasize traditional gender roles, forced marriages to someone the girl doesn’t like, etc.
My understanding is that the Bollywood films are escapism for the poor masses, much like the big-production-number 1930s Hollywood movie musicals were. It’s not that serious Indian films aren’t being made, but they’re not being made by Bollywood, because that’s not Bollywood’s function.
I’ve read a fair number of articles on Mehta, and none of them have mentioned that she was raised in Canada. She graduated from college in India, and I thought she moved to Canada after marrying a Canadian guy whom she met in India. Can you cite your contention that she’s “not a native” of India and that she had a “diasporic upbringing”? I’m genuinely curious.
Every Indian person I know thought that Fire was goofy and overwrought. But many, many Indian feminists, artists, and gay rights activists denounced the Hindu extremists who attacked the movie. It’s one thing to argue that Mehta makes bad or offensive movies. That’s a perfectly reasonable contention. It’s another thing entirely to argue that it’s ok to use violence or threats of violence to censor Mehta and prevent her from making offensive movies.
I’m actually not sure the historical displacement helps. I think in some ways it reinforces the idea that Mehta is attacking tradition, and not just the contemporary abuses of tradition.
Right. People sometimes mis-use “Bollywood” to mean “Indian film,” but they’re not synonymous. Bollywood is the part of the Indian film industry that is based in Bombey and that makes highly-commercial, Hindi-language movies for mass consumption. There are lots of Indian movies being made outside of the Bollywood system, many in cities other than Bombey, and some in languages other than Hindi.
Here’s an interesting blog entry (and comments thread) about Water and the NY Times article about it.
I’ve never seen a Mehta film, although she’s on my Netflix queue. One of my favorite films is also by a female Indian director: Monsoon Wedding, directed by Mira Nair. And it does an amazing job of depicting the intersection of modernity and tradition in India, and women’s issues as well.
The Indians I work with love the movie as well. I was much amused to see the way they mix languages (English and Hindi and probably other languages as well) in Monsoon Wedding, because I observe this all the time. In fact, sometimes when we’re eating lunch as a group they will pop in and out of Hindi without realizing they’ve done so (and that I can’t understand them).
According to this article in Salon, Mehta emigrated to Canada from India in the 70′s.
The interview is well worth reading.
Indians call Bombay Mumbai so perhaps we should be doing the same????
It’s actually been my experience that Indians use both “Mumbai” and “Bombay.” The Indian stock exchange is still officially called the Bombay stock exchange. The prestigious Indian Institute of Technology still calls its campus IIT Bombay. And the Mumbai airport’s “about Mumbai” page says:
So I think Bombay is still ok.
When we start referring to the city where Jill is going this summer as Athinai, the capital of Hellas, maybe.
Monkey is right. Deepa Mehta’s production crew is Canadian. So, her films are technically are not Bollywood products.
[quote]My understanding is that the Bollywood films are escapism for the poor masses, much like the big-production-number 1930s Hollywood movie musicals were. It’s not that serious Indian films aren’t being made, but they’re not being made by Bollywood, because that’s not Bollywood’s function.[/quote]
That is true for the majority of Bollywood films (or for that matter, any regional language films). There is always an attempt to put masala into issue-based films and that kinda irks me a lot.
Deepa Mehta’s films have always been very good theme-wise but average nonetheless (atleast I feel so). I like her movies for her feminist content and her Hollywood/Bollywood is a hilarious and fabulous overtly feminist comedy. Water, on the other hand, is reall, really good. I think she has come of age. Go, watch it. It is highly recommended.
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks!