#Filmherstory: Six Royals Objectively Cooler Than Another Bloody Henry 8th

In honor of Henry’s wives and the #filmherstory campaign, here are six Royal women overdue the Hollywood treatment. To help with your visualizing, I’ll even toss in a pitch, director, and star.

Oh, not ANOTHER one
Oh, not ANOTHER one

 

Damian Lewis smirks at me from a magazine rack under the caption “Damian Lewis Makes Henry VIII Sexy!” Déjà vu. Clearly, I’m missing the exciting difference between Wolf Hall‘s sinister-but-sexy Henry VIII and Eric Bana’s sinister-but-sexy Henry VIII in The Other Boleyn Girl, which rewrote Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ sinister-but-sexy Henry VIII in Fifty Shades of Tudors (OK, OK, Natalie Dormer did rock), which updated Richard Burton’s sinister-but-sexy Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days, which critics agree was sexier than Charles Laughton’s Oscar-winning sinister-but-lovable Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII. It would be easy to make this a feminist issue, considering that chronic womanizer Henry VIII executed two wives for infidelity, despite having won the right to divorce them. However, 18 actresses have immortalized Queen Elizabeth I on screen, earning Oscar nominations for portraying the woman who presided over campaigns of religious persecution and expansive colonization as heroic, or sinister-but-lovable at worst.

Nowadays, we theoretically agree that colonialism was a bad idea. Our conquering heroes have become conquering antiheroes. Yet antiheroes actually command empathy as effectively as heroes. A study by Chippewa researcher JoEllen Shively found that 60 percent of her Sioux focus group, viewing Western The Searchers, identified with John Wayne’s viciously racist (and misogynist) Ethan Edwards. While conflicted, “half breed” sidekick Martin Pawley is cited as evidence that the film is “morally complex,” according to Shively, “the Indians, like the Anglos, identified with the characters that the narrative structure tells them to identify with.” Tokens represent no-one, only their author’s urge to appear liberal, while vicariously identifying with conquerors. Meanwhile, today’s White Saviors admirably rescue natives from evil colonizers, thereby ironically reinforcing the colonialist assumption that white heroes should control the destinies of the colonized.

Women of the Third and Fourth World are doubly marginalized; they are the damsels-in-distress for the natives-in-distress for the White Savior: #filmheranticolonialstory. Here in Ireland, our anticolonial icons remain unfilmed, apart from Irish director Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins, but entry to the EU Colonizer’s Club has entitled our Mr. Rhys Meyers to play colonial icon Henry VIII (progress!). So, while I would love to see Fiona Shaw as Pirate Queen Grace O’Malley, storming fortresses and sailing to London to confront Elizabeth I (thereby nailing the elusive Royal Bechdel), it matters more to invite audiences to identify with female leaders of the Third and Fourth Worlds. In honor of Henry’s wives and the #filmherstory campaign, here are six Royal women overdue the Hollywood treatment. To help with your visualizing, I’ll even toss in a pitch, director, and star.


 Ava DuVernay’s Nzinga

QueenNzinga

The plot: Queen Nzinga Mbande fought and maneuvered in 17th century Angola. Serving as diplomatic envoy for her brother, Ndongo’s King, Nzinga personally negotiated a peace treaty with Portugal, sitting on a willing follower when denied an equal seat by their governor. Taking the throne in 1626, Nzinga forged alliances with African neighbors and Portugal’s Dutch rivals, scoring a victory against the Portuguese at the 1647 Battle of Kombi, and personally leading troops in battle until the age of 60. Building her base, Matamba, as a strategic trading port, the abolitionist Queen resisted the Atlantic slave trade and foreign rule throughout her lifetime, dying peacefully in 1663.

The pitch: Elizabeth: The Golden Age in Africa.

The star: Lupita Nyong’o is an internationally celebrated African star, noted for her regal style on the red carpet as well as her Oscar-winning acting. Playing an actual queen is the logical next step.

The director: Ava DuVernay’s Selma shows she can find interesting humanity in inspirational icons. In her hands, Nzinga could be a pragmatic political player, juggling conflicting alliances, more than a romantic ideal, and shed light on African colonial history from a fresh angle.


 Ang Lee’s Cixi

Yeoh

The plot: Chinese historian Jung Chang‘s biography of Empress Dowager Cixi highlights her role in industrializing the country, opposing foreign rule, banning torture and foot-binding, educating women, establishing a free press and initiating China’s transition to parliamentary democracy. This semi-literate concubine forged a stable alliance with the Emperor’s wife (another Royal Bechdel), loved and lost a palace eunuch, whose execution was ordered by her own brother-in-law, faced down continual threats to her power and was driven by European encroachments to back the devastating Boxer rebellion. Not forgetting a Japanese invasion, a rebellious Emperor’s gay love affairs and Cixi’s final decision to prevent her reactionary adopted son from undoing her reforms by poisoning him. Drama!

The pitch: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets The Last Emperor.

The star: Michelle Yeoh should be in everything. From her delicate portrait of repressed longing in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to her commanding turn in The Lady, Yeoh is the natural choice.

The director: With a heroine forced by convention to rule from behind a silk screen, this demands a director like Taiwan’s Ang Lee, who can make gripping drama out of restraint.


 Deepa Mehta’s Lakshmibai

Lakshmibai

The plot: Though Rani (Queen) Lakshmibai was the heroine of India’s first technicolor epic, 1956’s Jhansi Ki Rani, she deserves Hollywood stardom and a grittier reboot. After her Maharajah husband died, Lakshmibai’s claim to rule, as regent for her adopted son, was denied by the British East India Company to justify their annexation of her state, Jhansi. Learning martial arts in childhood, Lakshmibai became a major leader of the 1857 Indian Rebellion, training women to fight in her ranks. Her role in a mutiny that massacred British forces at Jhansi’s fort remains unclear. Fighting off invasions by two neighboring rajas, her city finally fell to British heavy artillery. Lakshmibai fled in male disguise with her infant son, joined the rebel army of Tatya Tope and died fighting in the battle of Gwalior.

The pitch: Ashoka the Great meets Braveheart. For girls.

The star: Shriya Saran, who played Parvati in Mehta’s Midnight Children, showed the determination to prepare for her role by working for two months in Mumbai’s slums, and has an athletic body trained in Kathak and Rajasthani dance, with the striking beauty that even her British enemies admired in Lakshmibai.

The director: Deepa Mehta has tackled epic narratives of India’s Partition in Earth, taboo sexuality in Fire, the cruel treatment of widows in Water, and the diaspora experience in Heaven on Earth, but never explored British colonial rule. Like Sam Mendes directing Skyfall, putting Mehta in charge of an action epic could bring psychological depth to its high-octane clashes. Lakshmibai is so iconic in India that she is almost saintly, but Mehta has the guts to give her human flaws and delve into the brutal dilemmas of warfare.


 Shonda Rhimes’ Ranavalona

Bassett

The plot: “I will rule here, to the good fortune of my people and the glory of my name!” Ranavalona I has been labelled the “Mad Queen of Madagascar” for overseeing religious persecutions, inquisitions under torture and sweeping purges of political enemies, just like sinister-but-supposedly-sexily-sane Henry VIII. Rising from a commoner’s background, marrying the king and seizing absolute power on his death in a masterful coup, Ranavalona murdered the father of her child for his infidelity (*cough* Henry VIII), and harnessed French lover Jean Laborde to oversee Madagascar’s industrial revolution. Her later years were marked by excess, with numerous Malagasy dying to construct a road for her buffalo hunt, but Ranavalona foiled all plots to overthrow her (including ex-lover Laborde’s) and kept Madagascar free from colonial rule. There was method in her madness.

The pitch: The Tudors meets Shaka Zulu. For girls.

The star: Angela Bassett’s Emmy-nominated voodoo queen, Marie Laveau in American Horror Story: Coven, shows she can be commanding, scary and sympathetic in turn. Ranavalona is the role she was born for.

The showrunner: Ranavalona’s journey to the dark side deserves a Tudors-style series to fully develop. In Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder, Shonda Rhimes has proved that she relishes antiheroines and moral ambiguity. Ranavalona would take Rhimes into the lush historical epic, too long monopolized by white royalty.


 Steve McQueen’s Nanye-hi

Thrush

The plot: After snatching the rifle of her dead husband and rallying Cherokee warriors against their Creek rivals to win the 1755 Battle of Taliwa, Nanye-hi was elected Ghighau (Beloved Woman), heading the Women’s Council and sitting on the Council of Chiefs (OK, the Cherokee were too advanced to technically have royalty, cut me a break). Nanye-hi, also called “Nancy Ward” after marrying settler Bryant Ward, was a political moderate juggling extreme pressures, alerting settlers to Cherokee plans for a massacre, saving a white woman from burning at the stake and personally negotiating the peace treaty of 1781, but strongly opposing the sale of Cherokee lands and petitioning against plans for removal, which would culminate in the Trail of Tears after her death. Nanye-hi would showcase Indigenous traditions of “petticoat government” that inspired the first suffragettes, within a tense drama of compromise and resistance.

The pitch: Princess Kaiulani meets Borgen.

The star: If you’ve seen her powerful performance in Blackstone (lucky American readers can catch up on hulu), you know Michelle Thrush should be in everything that does not already star Michelle Yeoh (actually, I just had a great idea for a buddy cop movie). She’s a natural choice to capture the strain of Nanye-hi’s political conflicts.

The director: I haven’t yet seen Georgina Lightning’s Older Than America, so I can’t suggest any Native American women to direct. However, Steve McQueen’s treatment of the Irish Troubles in Hunger, and American slavery in 12 Years A Slave, prove the British director is unafraid to tackle controversial history with an outsider’s fresh eye. Lupita Nyong’o’s Oscar, for her first major film role, also shows his talent at coaxing raw performances from his actresses. Disney’s Pocahontas this would not be.


 Timur Bekmambetov’s Khutulun

Khutulun

The plot: Mongols were pretty imperial, what with the largest land empire in history. But Central Asia’s absorption into the Russian/Soviet sphere has made it invisible, with Sacha Baron Cohen selecting Kazakhstan for Borat because “it was a country that no one had heard anything about” despite being the ninth largest in the world and launching the first man into space. Played by the physically slight Korean actress Claudia Kim, as a supporting character in Netflix’s Marco Polo, champion wrestler Khutulun deserves solo stardom. Excelling in battles against the armies of her cousin Kublai Khan, this Mongolian princess demanded that suitors beat her in wrestling, or forfeit 100 horses. She acquired 10,000 horses before making a politically strategic match of her own choosing. Nominated for khanship after her father’s death, Khutulun reportedly backed her brother Orus’ bid in exchange for being appointed Commander-in-Chief of his army.

The pitch: Mongol for girls.

The star: Mongol actress Khulan Chuluun was mostly stuck in the love interest role, but showed flashes of stubborn spirit. With a director like Bekmambetov, known for making action heroes of character actors like James McAvoy, could she train up and become an icon?

The director: Kazak director Bekmambetov’s talent for tongue-in-cheek, inventive action would be perfect for the unbelievable legends that have grown up around Khutulun. Witness his wild portrait of his namesake, Central Asian conqueror Tamerlane (Timur) in the opening of Day Watch. He’s also a great director of women, from Galina Tyunina’s scene-stealing Olga to Angelina Jolie’s tough-but-fair Fox in Wanted. Movie, please.


So, who would be your historical (anti)heroines? For the Soska Sisters to realize their dream to film Bathory? Michelle Rodriguez in Robert Rodriguez’s Malinche, as a punk survivor of sex trafficking who wants to watch the world burn? Gong Li as Zhang Yimou’s Wu Zetian? Kerry Washington in Fanta Régina Nacro’s Mama Yaa Asentewaa? Saoirse Ronan as a young Countess Markievicz for Juanita Wilson? Iman as Hatshepsut? Join the conversation – #filmherstory.

 


Brigit McCone writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and memorizing lists of forgotten female leaders (Brigit McCone is an extremely dull conversationalist).

 

 

‘English-Vinglish’: Straddling Patriarchal and Linguistic Hegemony

Moving away from the Bollywood style masala and dancing-around-the-trees numbers, this film focuses on the real-life issue of the position of women in the domestic and social spheres in India.

12oct_EnglishVinglish-MovieReview


This guest post by Asma Sayed previously appeared at AwaaZ Magazine and appears here as part of our theme week on Asian Womanhood in Pop Culture. Cross-posted with permission.


English-Vinglish is a new addition to the increasing number of Indian crossover films—socially progressive films that can still be commercially successful on a global scale. Moving away from the Bollywood style masala and dancing-around-the-trees numbers, this film focuses on the real-life issue of the position of women in the domestic and social spheres in India. Traditionally, many Indian feminist filmmakers such as Deepa Mehta, Meera Nair, Gurinder Chadha and Aparna Sen have made films about subject matter generally not discussed in the mainstream cinema: domestic violence, prostitution and trafficking, sexuality, and women’s rights in general. While these filmmakers continue to direct films with new and varied focuses, it is also exciting to witness the new generation of female directors in India that includes Anusha Rizvi (Peepli Live), Kiran Rao (Dhobi Ghat) and now, Gauri Shinde (English-Vinglish), who are doing excellent work and bringing unconventional cinema and subject matter to audiences. In a country where women’s role in society is very complex—on one hand, there have been female presidents and prime ministers, and on the other, the society remains highly patriarchal and there are the growing concernsrelated to the imbalance in birth sex ratiosresulting from female foeticide—presenting women’s life experiences can be a daunting task.

In her debut film English-Vinglish, Gauri Shinde, the writer and director, takes charge of the issue of women’s role in a society still suffering from the colonial mindset where people’s worth is judged on the base of their proficiency in English. Shashi (Sridevi), the protagonist of the film, is a wife and a mother, and also a good cook. She puts her culinary skills to work by starting a small home-based business selling “laddoos,” an Indian sweet. But Shashi’s knowledge of English is limited, and her tween daughter, the older of the two children in the family, and her husband Satish (Adil Hussain) continuously make fun of her linguistic incompetency. The daughter is embarrassed about her mother’s minimal knowledge of English and does not want Shashi to go to school with her as Shashi will not able to converse in English with other mothers or with the principal of the convent school. Satish is complicit in deriding Shashi’s weaknesses. Shashi feels justifiably belittled and insecure. Nonetheless, despite the lack of appreciation that her family shows toward her, Shashi never sways in performing her motherly and wifely duties. As part of a patriarchal system that she doesn’t explicitly question, she accepts that Satish expects her to have his breakfast ready in the morning, and that shebe ready to warm his bed by night. As such, Shashi spends her time doing all the household chores and running her small business, and never finds a moment for herself.

English+Vnglish+Movie+Stills+HQ+(11)

Incidentally, performing another of her traditional roles, Shashi has to travel to America alone to help her sister plan her daughter’s wedding. Once in America, she reads a billboard advertising English classes that promise fluency in four weeks. Shashi starts attending classes. What follows is reminiscent of the 1970s BBC sitcom Mind Your Language and the follow-up Indian Hindi sitcom titled Zabaan Sambhalke. Shashi’s classmates are from various ethnicities and nationalities; all of them are struggling with their language skills and ultimately become good friends as they learn English. One of her classmates, a Frenchman, Laurent (Mehdi Nebbou), falls in love with Shashi. As the film progresses, Shashi’s husband and children come to Manhattan to attend the wedding. Shashi, who has been making all the arrangements for the wedding, makes laddoos for the party. When Satish makes the statement that —“My wife was born to make laddoos”—Shashi is supported by her niece who reminds Shashi that she is capable of much more than laddoo-making and is far more competent than her husband perceives her to be. At the wedding party, Shashi gives a speech—yes, in English. She reminds the couple getting married, as well as her husband and daughter, of the value of family and the need to support one another without being “judgmental” – a word Shashi has picked up from one of the many English films she has watched to learn the language. After her speech, both Satish and their daughter apologize to Shashi for their ill-manners. However, this repentanceemanates only after Shashi has learned English and in so doing learned her own self-worth. Shashi comes to appreciate herself, her work and her identity, and becomes a more confident woman.

English Vnglish Movie Stills HQ (23)

The film is certainly entertaining and well-made. The plot is tight-knit and gripping. The film attempts to showcase the everyday reality of women’s position in male-controlled Indian society. But, ultimately, the message that Shashi imparts in her speech is very conventional.When I watched the movie the first time, I was reminded of an advertisement that I saw in Gujarati newspapers when I was growing up in India. The bold writing at the top of the advert read “modern but good mother.” The advert insisted that a mother who is modern enough to know the world around her would ensure that she used the product it advertised. I never got over the conjunction “but” in that caption. The word posed modernity and motherhood as antithetical – any modern woman had to make a special attempt to simultaneously be a “good” mother. The institution of motherhood is much glamorized in contemporary societies in that a woman is deemed incomplete if she is unwilling or unable to conceive. Motherhood is still considered a central tenet of female identity. And yet, in a changing neoliberal and patriarchal society people fail to see the value of women’s domestic chores including those related to motherhood, and as such mother-work is neither socially respected nor valued economically. This reality is reinforced at the end of the film for Shashi’s role does not change – she is still the same housewife and a doting mother – although one who can now speak English. Shashi’s speech about family values brings her right back to square one; thus, Shashi’s role is static. Therefore, the film does not suggest any radical transformation of women’s social roles. It merely demands from them a higher level of education that, while potentially personally fulfilling, is not intended to challenge their traditional roles and could be argued to be simply placing more pressure on women. Moreover, the audience does not get a glimpse into Shashi’s feelings for Laurent; when her niece questions her about Laurent, all that Shashi says is that she does not need love, but respect. Shashi thanks Laurent for making her feel special, but as a dedicated Indian wife, she is not allowed to have any feelings of her own, and she goes right back to the husband who didn’t appreciate her much – one is to be hopeful that he will be a changed person when they land in India off the airplane from America, but then, can the patriarchal ideologies that have been internalized over the years be forgotten that quickly? After all, following more than six decades of decolonization, India has not unlearned the hegemony of English.

English Vnglish Movie Stills HQ (15)

The role of language has been debated continuously in the post-colonial world. While English came to countries such as India and Africa as a result of colonization, it has endured and, in India, now has a much stronger hold than during the colonial period. English has become a tool of what R. Radhakrishnan has called “cultural modernization.” However, English has been a contested language in post-colonial world at large. For instance, while Ngugi Wa Thing’o wrote that “language is a collective memory bank of people’s experience in history” and refused to write in English, Chinua Achebe declared that the language that the colonizers left behind belonged to him. While he decided to use it, he saw it as remade via appropriation: for the English he used had “to be new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings.” Whether it is Standard English, or appropriated, favoring the language at the cost of indigenous languages is a political move and a culture-altering exercise.

English Vnglish Movie Stills HQ (20)

One cannot deny that English has become a lingua franca in India, and that sadly, there is linguistic hierarchy in the nation with English as the ticket to upward mobility. Thus, the fact that in the film, Shashi proves her worth by learning English showcases India’s highly colonialist linguistic history.  However, India’s women’s liberation movement can certainly do without adhering to such hegemonic ideologies. At one point in the film Shashi is ecstatic when she learns the word “entrepreneur” – she is told that she was an entrepreneur as she sold sweets. Suddenly, this English word gives new elevated meaning and value to her work, making her feel important and confident. She walks the streets of New York saying the word repeatedly. In showing Shashi’s success through her acquisition of English, Shinde fails to address other issues of a post-colonial nation. Many advertisements and mainstream films in India play on the insecurities of women; for instance, the fairness creams are a huge market in this country where women are always reminded by society and through these ads that dark-skinned women are somehow inferior. Similarly, in this case, those who lack the knowledge of English have to prove their worth by learning the language of the colonizers. In not moving away from a colonialist mind frame, Indians are fulfilling Lord Macaulay’s desire, expressed in his 1835 “Minute on Education,” “to form a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions . . . .” It is an irony that in a country which has its own richness of multiple languages, the hegemony of English has outlasted British colonial times.

English Vnglish Movie Stills HQ (2)

Ultimately the film is about an Indian woman’s moral and family values – Shashi shows no interest in Laurent, the Frenchman who loves her, nor does she even once abandon her saree and mangal sutra –signifiers of a married Hindu woman – when in America. At the end, Shashi is just an English-speaking, sacrificial Indian woman – not a woman who has awakened to her rights or to her own needs. Shashi’s confidence returns after she found acceptance by a Frenchman, and after her husband and daughter have found her worth enhanced due to her English speaking skills. This is a classic example of patriarchal and linguistic supremacy. Shashi depends on the approval of men to feel good about herself. She also proves her worth by learning English. One does wonder if a single woman speaking Marathi or Gujarati or Tamil or Telugu has anything to feel good about.

An entertaining crossover film, English-Vinglish fails to deliver the feminist message that it may have intended to bring forth. While in various interviews the director has demonstrated her awareness of British colonization and Indian people’s misplaced awe of white people, it is a shame that rather than showcasing the ridiculousness of racialized and colonial insecurities, the film ultimately fails to transmit a message of awareness. Instead this work falls prey to the same stereotypes the director appears to critique.

 


Dr. Asma Sayed teaches English, Communication Studies, and Women’s Studies in Canadian universities. She has published three books as well as several refereed articles and book chapters, on such topics as diaspora literature, Canadian comparative literature, Indian cinema, and women’s representation in cinema. She writes a film column for AwaaZ: Voices, a periodical in Kenya.

 

LGBTQI Week: ‘Fire’: Part One of Deepa Mehta’s ‘Elements Trilogy’

This review by Editor and Co-Founder Amber Leab previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on November 21, 2011.

Fire (1996)
Fire is the first film in Deepa Mehta’s Elements Trilogy (Earth and Water follow). Made in 1996, it focuses on a middle-class family in present-day (funny how I still think of the 1990s as “present day,” despite the global changes of the past fifteen years) India.

The film centers around two married couples–Ashok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and his wife Radha (Shabana Azmi), and Ashok’s brother Jatin (Javed Jaffrey) and his wife Sita (Nandita Das)–who run a carryout restaurant and video store, and who share a home with the brothers’ mother, Biji (Kushal Rekhi), and their employee, Mundu (Ranjit Chowdhry). Jatin and Sita are newlyweds, but we quickly learn that Jatin loves another woman (Julie, a Chinese-Indian woman who has perfected an American accent and dreams of returning to Hong Kong), and married a “traditional Indian woman” out of pressure from his brother and mother.
The film offers the womens’ perspectives on the conflicts between desire and duty, and between tradition and the realities of a modern India.

As with almost any film centering on family drama and dynamics, we see the tensions simmering beneath the surface as the film focuses on the two women and their lack of fulfillment from their marriages. Mehta, in the DVD’s Director’s Notes for Fire, states,
I wanted to make a film about contemporary, middle-class India, with all its vulnerabilities, foibles and the incredible extremely dramatic battle that is waged daily between the forces of tradition and the desire for an independent, individual voice.

More than 350 million Indians belong to the burgeoning middle-class and lead lives not unlike the Kapur family in Fire. They might not experience exactly the same angst or choices as these particular characters, but the confusions they share are very similar–the ambiguity surrounding sexuality and its manifestation and the incredible weight of figures (especially female ones) from ancient scriptures which define Indian women as pious, dutiful, self-sacrificing, while Indian popular cinema, a.k.a. “Bollywood”, portrays women as sex objects (Mundu’s fantasy).

To capture all this on celluloid was, to a large part, the reason I wanted to do Fire. Even though Fire is very particular in its time and space and setting, I wanted its emotional content to be universal.
Sita learns very early in her marriage that her husband is in love with Julie–he doesn’t hide the relationship from her–and she seeks solace and comfort from Radha. Radha hasn’t been intimate with her husband in 13 years; when Ashok learned she was unable to conceive, he sublimated his desires (and began channeling a good bit of their income) into religious study with his swami. The friendship between Sita and Radha soon evolves into a sexual relationship, and when the women are found out by their family, they must decide whether to obey tradition or follow their hearts.

Radha and Sita
The film explores what traditional marriage has done to alienate these women–particularly Radha–from their own desires. The desire for intimacy and sex, sure, but also the desire to live their lives for themselves, rather than for their husbands. My reading of the film is certainly from a Western perspective, however, and you could argue that the film is about discovering desire (rather than reconnecting to it after a period of alienation), since the traditional, conservative Hindu/Indian culture didn’t allow much–if any–space for individual desire for women. Sita embodies changes in the society, as she comes from a traditional family, but is more critical of the traditional rituals and more in touch with her body and her desires. (When we first meet her, for example, she playfully tries on her new husband’s pants and dances around their bedroom, unashamed of her body.) Sita is also the one who initiates a physical relationship with Radha.

Depicting a lesbian relationship on film fifteen years ago proved hugely controversial, and Fire was immediately banned in Pakistan, and soon after pulled from Indian cinemas for religious insensitivity. Although the film twice passed the Indian censor board–they requested no editing, and no scenes removed–violent protests caused movie houses to stop showing the film. In “Burning Love,” Gary Morris writes,
The reaction of some male members of the audience was so violent that the police had to be called. “I’m going to shoot you, madam!” was one response. According to Mehta, the men who objected couldn’t articulate the word “lesbian” — “this is not in our Indian culture!” was as much as they could bring themselves to say. 

It isn’t only the tangible pleasures of a lesbian relationship that created such heated reactions, though that’s certainly the most obvious reason. This beautifully shot, well-acted film is a powerful, sometimes hypnotic critique of the rigid norms of a patriarchal, post-colonial society that keeps both sexes down.

The controversy surrounding the film may have superseded the film itself–which is beautifully shot, heartbreaking, and even darkly comedic at times. Fire contains so many elements that I love in film: strong female characters, an exploration of complex issues that is never oversimplified and that never leads to individuals being labeled good or evil (although they certainly behave in good and/or evil ways), and immersion into a culture that isn’t entirely familiar to me. Speaking to a Western audience, Mehta has stated that one of her goals in filmmaking is to “demystify India,” its culture and its traditions. Fire complicates our understanding of a traditional patriarchal culture, and throws into sharp relief the ways these traditions impact women in particular.

Again, here’s Mehta on Fire:

We women, especially Indian women, constantly have to go through a metaphorical test of purity in order to be validated as human beings, not unlike Sita’s trial by fire.

I’ve seen most of the women in my family go through this, in one form or another. Do we, as women, have choices? And, if we make choices, what is the price we pay for them?

***

There is a ton of information online about Fire. Here are some selected articles for further reading:

———-

Amber Leab is a writer living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a Master’s degree in English & Comparative Literature from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature & Creative Writing from Miami University. Outside of Bitch Flicks, her work has appeared in The Georgetown Review, on the blogs Shakesville, Opinioness of the World, and I Will Not Diet, and at True Theatre.


Sunday Recap

It was a short week due to the holiday, but here’s a recap of last week’s posts. Don’t miss the Animated Children’s Films series, which begins tomorrow (Monday)!
The controversy surrounding the film may have superseded the film itself–which is beautifully shot, heartbreaking, and even darkly comedic at times. Fire contains so many elements that I love in film: strong female characters, an exploration of complex issues that is never oversimplified and that never leads to individuals being labeled good or evil (although they certainly behave in good and/or evil ways), and immersion into a culture that isn’t entirely familiar to me. Speaking to a Western audience, Mehta has stated that one of her goals in filmmaking is to “demystify India,” its culture and its traditions. Fire complicates our understanding of a traditional patriarchal culture, and throws into sharp relief the ways these traditions impact women in particular.
Maybe I’m not old-fashioned; maybe I’m stupid for continuing to tune in to programming that doesn’t give a damn whether I watch or not. Or, even worse, maybe they’re just assuming they have “female viewers” (because we’re a silly monolith) because, you know, OMG Pretty Dresses.

There’s something else, though, that I can’t not notice about the NYT article: In the entire 1,187-word article, only about 200 words (3 paragraphs) were devoted to one of the highest honors and most controversial moments of the night: Oprah Winfrey winning the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. She’s the first Black woman to win the award (Quincy Jones won in 1995, the only Black man to win it), yet her win has been called “boneheaded” and “a shameless bid for a ratings boost,” largely because her contributions to the film industry are seen by insiders as lacking.

At the very least, it’s important to discuss Twilight because it’s the First Franchise Film Series Ever to directly target teen girls, and we should probably look at what that means for the future of films made for young women, especially since the Twilight Saga has been overwhelmingly successful at the box office. Luckily, I found an amazing interview with Dr. Natalie Wilson, who points out some major problems with the Twilight Saga, and who blogs for one of my favorite sites, Professor, What If …?
In this post-feminist world, where there is definitely no concern about the emotional health of teenage girls and bullying is not a problem and misogyny is FOR SURE a thing of the past, where no one uses “girl” or “schoolgirl” as an insult, where no one accuses anyone of throwing like a girl or crying like a schoolgirl, and companies would never do something like conflate a teenage girl with mayhem, where teenage girls are all totally secure in their worth as full and equal beings and their humanity is never diminished by objectification or exploitation or marginalization or myriad narratives that daily communicate you are less than, in this amazing new world where feminism has been rendered moot, this is obviously a perfect show that is super funny.
The beauty of Ron’s character is that he’s manly enough to go for powerful women, as has been clearly established in previous episodes. And his interest in the women’s studies professor (who was talking about the oppressive nature of society) is completely believable given his libertarian beliefs. It doesn’t hurt that the actor who plays Swanson is unabashedly manly himself (read the interview with Nick Offerman) and that he’s married to Megan Mullaly, who is hella funny. I love that the character, the writing, and the directing came together so organically to create such greatness.

‘Fire’: Part One of Deepa Mehta’s ‘Elements Trilogy’

Fire (1996)
Fire is the first film in Deepa Mehta’s Elements Trilogy (Earth and Water follow). Made in 1996, it focuses on a middle-class family in present-day (funny how I still think of the 1990s as “present day,” despite the global changes of the past fifteen years) India.
The film centers around two married couples–Ashok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and his wife Radha (Shabana Azmi), and Ashok’s brother Jatin (Javed Jaffrey) and his wife Sita (Nandita Das)–who run a carryout restaurant and video store, and who share a home with the brothers’ mother, Biji (Kushal Rekhi), and their employee, Mundu (Ranjit Chowdhry). Jatin and Sita are newlyweds, but we quickly learn that Jatin loves another woman (Julie, a Chinese-Indian woman who has perfected an American accent and dreams of returning to Hong Kong), and married a “traditional Indian woman” out of pressure from his brother and mother.
The film offers the womens’ perspectives on the conflicts between desire and duty, and between tradition and the realities of a modern India.
As with almost any film centering on family drama and dynamics, we see the tensions simmering beneath the surface as the film focuses on the two women and their lack of fulfillment from their marriages. Mehta, in the DVD’s Director’s Notes for Fire, states,
I wanted to make a film about contemporary, middle-class India, with all its vulnerabilities, foibles and the incredible extremely dramatic battle that is waged daily between the forces of tradition and the desire for an independent, individual voice.
More than 350 million Indians belong to the burgeoning middle-class and lead lives not unlike the Kapur family in Fire. They might not experience exactly the same angst or choices as these particular characters, but the confusions they share are very similar–the ambiguity surrounding sexuality and its manifestation and the incredible weight of figures (especially female ones) from ancient scriptures which define Indian women as pious, dutiful, self-sacrificing, while Indian popular cinema, a.k.a. “Bollywood”, portrays women as sex objects (Mundu’s fantasy).
To capture all this on celluloid was, to a large part, the reason I wanted to do Fire. Even though Fire is very particular in its time and space and setting, I wanted its emotional content to be universal.
Sita learns very early in her marriage that her husband is in love with Julie–he doesn’t hide the relationship from her–and she seeks solace and comfort from Radha. Radha hasn’t been intimate with her husband in 13 years; when Ashok learned she was unable to conceive, he sublimated his desires (and began channeling a good bit of their income) into religious study with his swami. The friendship between Sita and Radha soon evolves into a sexual relationship, and when the women are found out by their family, they must decide whether to obey tradition or follow their hearts.
Radha and Sita
The film explores what traditional marriage has done to alienate these women–particularly Radha–from their own desires. The desire for intimacy and sex, sure, but also the desire to live their lives for themselves, rather than for their husbands. My reading of the film is certainly from a Western perspective, however, and you could argue that the film is about discovering desire (rather than reconnecting to it after a period of alienation), since the traditional, conservative Hindu/Indian culture didn’t allow much–if any–space for individual desire for women. Sita embodies changes in the society, as she comes from a traditional family, but is more critical of the traditional rituals and more in touch with her body and her desires. (When we first meet her, for example, she playfully tries on her new husband’s pants and dances around their bedroom, unashamed of her body.) Sita is also the one who initiates a physical relationship with Radha.
Depicting a lesbian relationship on film fifteen years ago proved hugely controversial, and Fire was immediately banned in Pakistan, and soon after pulled from Indian cinemas for religious insensitivity. Although the film twice passed the Indian censor board–they requested no editing, and no scenes removed–violent protests caused movie houses to stop showing the film. In “Burning Love,” Gary Morris writes,
The reaction of some male members of the audience was so violent that the police had to be called. “I’m going to shoot you, madam!” was one response. According to Mehta, the men who objected couldn’t articulate the word “lesbian” — “this is not in our Indian culture!” was as much as they could bring themselves to say. 

It isn’t only the tangible pleasures of a lesbian relationship that created such heated reactions, though that’s certainly the most obvious reason. This beautifully shot, well-acted film is a powerful, sometimes hypnotic critique of the rigid norms of a patriarchal, post-colonial society that keeps both sexes down.

The controversy surrounding the film may have superseded the film itself–which is beautifully shot, heartbreaking, and even darkly comedic at times. Fire contains so many elements that I love in film: strong female characters, an exploration of complex issues that is never oversimplified and that never leads to individuals being labeled good or evil (although they certainly behave in good and/or evil ways), and immersion into a culture that isn’t entirely familiar to me. Speaking to a Western audience, Mehta has stated that one of her goals in filmmaking is to “demystify India,” its culture and its traditions. Fire complicates our understanding of a traditional patriarchal culture, and throws into sharp relief the ways these traditions impact women in particular.

Again, here’s Mehta on Fire:

We women, especially Indian women, constantly have to go through a metaphorical test of purity in order to be validated as human beings, not unlike Sita’s trial by fire.

I’ve seen most of the women in my family go through this, in one form or another. Do we, as women, have choices? And, if we make choices, what is the price we pay for them?

***

There is a ton of information online about Fire. Here are some selected articles for further reading:

Director Spotlight: Deepa Mehta

Deepa Mehta

Indian-born and Canadian-based writer and director Deepa Mehta has gained international acclaim and numerous awards and nominations for her films. She is probably most famous for her Elements Trilogy, which includes the films Water, Earth, and Fire. Her latest project is an adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, which she is directing and adapting with the author.
I’m currently working my way through the trilogy, with plans to write a piece about the films in the not-too-distant future. Her work tends to deal with the experience of Indian women, both in their home country and as immigrants. If you’re not familiar with Mehta’s work, I strongly recommend checking her out. Here is a selection of her feature-length films.

Heaven on Earth (2008)
Heaven on Earth is Mehta’s most recent film. It won awards from the Chicago International Film Festival and the Dubai International Film Festival, along with several other nominations, including two from the Director’s Guild of Canada. I haven’t yet seen it, but here is the description from the film’s official website:
When Chand (played by Bollywood superstar Preity Zinta) arrives in Brampton, Ontario to meet her new husband, she leaves behind a loving family and supportive community. Now, in a new country, she finds herself living in a modest suburban home with seven other people and two part-time tenants. Inside the home, she is at the mercy of her husband’s temper, and her mother-in-law’s controlling behaviour.

After a magic root fails to transform her husband into a kind and loving man, Chand takes refuge in a familiar Indian folk tale featuring a King Cobra.

Watch the trailer:

Water (2005)
Although the final film in her Elements Trilogy, Water was the first one I saw. In addition to being a beautiful film, I learned something about Indian culture in the time of the rise of Mahatma Ghandi, and a practice that segregates widows from society that continues even today. There was a good bit of controversy in the making of the film, which took Mehta some seven years to complete–due, in part, to moving the filming to a different country and recasting its leads (be sure to check out the Director’s Statement for more on the story). Water was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, won numerous other awards, and garnered even more nominations. Here’s the description from IMDb:
In 1938, Gandhi’s party is making inroads in women’s rights. Chuyia, a child already married but living with her parents, becomes a widow. By tradition, she is unceremoniously left at a bare and impoverished widows’ ashram, beside the Ganges during monsoon season. The ashram’s leader pimps out Kalyani, a young and beautiful widow, for household funds. Narayan, a follower of Gandhi, falls in love with her. Can she break with tradition and religious teaching to marry him? The ashram’s moral center is Shakuntala, deeply religious but conflicted about her fate. Can she protect Kalyani or Chuyia? Amid all this water, is rebirth possible or does tradition drown all?

Watch the trailer:

Bollywood/Hollywood (2002)
Somewhat lighter fare, Bollywood/Hollywood is a comedy of marriage, tradition, and identity. Here is the description, again from IMDb, as I couldn’t find an official film site for this one. (If anyone knows of the site, please leave it in the comments and I’ll update the post!)
After Rahul’s white pop-star fiancée dies in a bizarre levitation accident his mother insists he find another girl as soon as possible, preferably a Hindi one. As she backs this up by postponing his sister’s wedding until he does so, he feels forced to act, the more so as he knows his sister is pregnant. But it’s a pretty tall order for an Indian living in Ontario, so when he meets striking escort Sunita who can ‘be whatever you want me to be’ he hatches a scheme to pass her off as his new betrothed. Things get complicated when his family start to take to her and he realises his own feelings are becoming rather stronger than that.

Watch the trailer:

Earth (1998)

Earth is the second film in Mehta’s Elements Trilogy. The film seems to have won only a single award, and is based on Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel, Cracking India. Released in India as 1947: Earth, the film chronicles the division of India and Pakistan. From a plot summary on IMDb:

This story revolves around a few families of diverse religious backgrounds, namely, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Parsi, located in Lahore, British India. While the Parsi family, a known minority in present day India, are prosperous, the rest of the families are shown as struggling to make a livelihood. Things change for the worse during 1947, the time the British decide to grant independence to India, and that’s when law and order break down, and chaos, anarchy, and destruction take over, resulting in millions of deaths, and millions more rendered homeless and destitute. In this particular instance, Shanta is a Hindu maid with the Sethna (Parsi) family, who is in love with Hassan, a Muslim, while Dil Navaz loves Shanta, and wants her to be his wife, she prefers Hassan over him. This decision will have disastrous effects on everyone concerned, including the ones involved in smuggling Hindus across the border into India.

Watch the trailer:

Fire (1996)
Fire, the first film in the Elements Trilogy, is the one set in most recent times. It won numerous awards, including Audience Choice at various film festivals. The film was banned in Pakistan, and later in India for “religious insensitivity” and the depiction of a lesbian relationship. 
Here is a brief description from Amazon (but for a more in-depth take read Burning Love from the Bright Lights Film Journal):
Fire is the first film to confront lesbianism in a culture adamantly denying such a love could ever exist. Shabana Azmi shines as Radha Kapur in this taboo-breaking portrayal of contemporary India and the hidden desires that threaten to defy traditional expectations. In a barren, arranged marriage to an amateur swami who seeks enlightenment through celibacy. Radha’s life takes an irresistible turn when her beautiful young sister-in-law seeks to free herself from the confines of her own loveless marriage and into the supple embrace of Radha.

Watch the trailer:

Mehta’s films not mentioned here include Sam & Me, Camilla, The Republic of Love, and more.

You can read previous Director Spotlights on Allison Anders, Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, Tanya Hamilton, Nicole Holofcener, and Agnes Varda, and a Quote of the Day on Dorothy Arzner.