The World Before Her – Bitch Flicks

Asian Womanhood in Pop Culture: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts for our Asian Womanhood in Pop Culture Theme Week here.

The Social Network and the China Doll/Dragon Lady Syndrome by Stephanie Charamnac

Part Dragon Lady, part China Doll, Christy is 100 percent stereotypical. It’s hard to believe that such a distorted representation, steeped in age-old myths, only dates back to 2010. Even more disheartening is the fact that most film critics did not raise an eyebrow at this deeply flawed portrayal.

Fresh Off the Boat’s Jessica Huang Is Loud, Abrasive, Intense, and Exactly What We Need by Deborah Pless

I don’t want to jump the gun here, since the show has only been on now for a month and a half, but Jessica Huang might just be my new favorite female character. Why? Because she is hilarious, brilliant, incredibly sarcastic, and because she refuses to let anyone get away with anything. Basically, because I see myself in her and I love it. What can I say? I’m naturally egotistical.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: Bollywood Hurts Men, Too by Brigit McCone

By supplying excuses all around, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai upholds the status quo while venting its resulting frustrations; the performances lovingly celebrate female feistiness, while the plot constantly punishes and suppresses it in favor of traditional ideals of self-sacrifice and emotional martyrdom. Cue predictable feminist outrage. You already know everything I would write. So instead, I’d like to focus on another aspect of the film: its utter contempt for male agency. Yes, male.

Kalinda Sharma Is My Favorite Queer Uncanny Star by Rosie Kar

Though based in downtown Chicago, there is a paucity of people of color in the show, and those who do make appearances seem to be present for only short amounts of time, save for one: Kalinda Sharma. She is an independent private investigator for the firm Lockhart and Gardner, and is a supporting character in the series’ narrative. Played by actress Archie Panjabi, the role of Kalinda Sharma is one that is groundbreaking in terms of thinking about queer South Asian bodies onscreen in the American imaginary.

The World Before Her: Between Liberalization and Fundamentalism–India’s Two Faces by Asma Sayed

Pahuja sees the film as going beyond the issues of women’s rights; according to her, the film is about India, and what’s happening there, and the fear about the future as the culture of the country goes through extreme changes. She adds that, through the film, she would like to showcase the kind of “hatred being taught in the camps in the guise of patriotism.”

Ouran High School Host Club: Haruhi, Heteronormativity, and the Gender Binary by Jackson Adler

At its heart, Ouran is about gender and, for better or worse, how it is perceived and performed. Though often praised and adored for its challenges to heteronormativity and gender roles through its range of characters, especially its protagonist, it ends up reinforcing heteronormativity and the gender binary to a large extent.

Mother India: Woman, Pillar of the Nation by AP

Mother India treats Radha’s abnegating nature as a positive. Look how nobly she suffers for her husband and sons, the movie seems to say. In real life, such glorification of women’s suffering enables an exploitative system of economic growth on the backs of underpaid, overworked women. They get nothing except lip service, sometimes not even that.

Saving Face: About Chinese American Women, Not Based on a Book By Amy Tan by Ren Jender

Like Chutney Popcorn, Saving Face is one of the few films focused on queer people of color and their families. Having those two elements together might seem like a modest achievement, but Pariah is one of the only recent films that also includes both. Mainstream movie makers apparently think queer people of color don’t have families, but instead are deposited as eggs in a sandy, warm spot by a pond until they hatch and make their way, independently, into the world.

Not Everybody Is Kung Fu Fighting by Katie Li

Western audiences aren’t interested in the talking points though; they just want to fast-forward to the action. They glorify the violence and exotify Chinese culture, while completely missing out the subtle, important messages of martial arts training: values like discipline, hard work, and how your training and skills aren’t used to harm others, but to better yourself.

English-Vinglish: Straddling Patriarchal and Linguistic Hegemony by Asma Sayed

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.

Why Fresh Off the Boat Is Kind of a Big Deal by Katy Koop

So, in a world where people think you don’t have to cast Asians to play Asian parts, Fresh Off the Boat gives hope that maybe Asian kids or mixed kids like me will actually see a sitcom and see themselves a little. And maybe if it’s a success, more shows and better casting will follow.

The Kims Next Door: Korean Identity on Gilmore Girls by Elizabeth Kiy

While Rory struggled with the myriad of concerns afforded to a main character: her love life, her future, her friendships and family, Lane’s biggest conflict was always her overbearing, uber-religious mother and to a lesser degree, her own Korean heritage. Being Korean is never posed as a positive thing for Lane, it is only a marker of difference.

‘The World Before Her’: Between Liberalization and Fundamentalism–India’s Two Faces

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.

“I hate [Mahatma] Gandhi; frankly speaking, I hate Gandhi,” declares Prachi, a 24-year-old young woman. “I am here to win [the Miss India title], and that’s my only goal,” says Ruhi, a 19-year-old. Indo- Canadian director Nisha Pahuja’s documentary film The World Before Her captures the worlds of these two young women representing many other women in contemporary India. The World Before Her is a thought-provoking, disturbing, and yet, compelling documentary that brings together the seemingly opposite worlds of Hindu nationalist ideologies and beauty pageants. Prachi and Ruhi denote dualistic faces of a country undergoing swift change. The documentary juxtaposes two female-dominated Indian communities: one is centered around the biannual camps organized by Durga Vahini, women’s wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu nationalist organization, and the other is the month-long preparatory training event leading up to the live broadcast of the Miss India beauty pageant.

The film was completed in 2012 and has been on the international film festival circuit in the interim, and won many awards, but its theatrical release in India in June 2014 coincides in ironic ways with the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2014. Modi’s political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is known to be closely affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist group that operates on the principles of Hindutva. VHP, founded in 1964, is closely aligned with the RSS and functions under the umbrella of Sangh Parivar, a group of organizations dedicated to Hindu nationalist movement. In short, these are different groups that share similar ideologies and have strong ties to the current ruling party in India. Prime Minister Modi is famously known to have been an active member of the RSS since the age of 8.

Male training camps, called shakhas, organized by the youth wing of VHP/RSS, called Bajrang Dal, have existed for decades and have branches in India and abroad, and their activities have been largely known. By contrast, very little information has circulated about the female wing—Durga Vahini (Carrier of Durga)—which is a comparatively newer innovation with roots going back to 1991. Pahuja’s direction exposes this largely unknown female world that prepares women for traditional Hindu social roles as wives and mothers, but also for militia-style combat in defense of the Hindu nation, if necessary. Pahuja is the first filmmaker to have gained access to these exclusive camps organized by the Durga Vahini group. Her film is a courageous attempt to present the realities of extremist ideologies taught in the camps, and of linking them to the various events that have troubled India in the last decade and a half: the film shows footage of the Malegaon bombings, the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, and VHP/RSS members consistently acting as morality police by violently ransacking bars to ensure girls and women do not drink, dance, and mingle with the opposite sex.

Girls attending the Durga Vahini camps are between the ages of 12 and 25. They follow a regimented training schedule that includes martial arts, physical fitness training, and lectures that remind them of their Hindu identity. They are instructed about the virtue of fighting against Muslims, Christians, and Westernization, all presented as the antithesis of Hindu nationalist ideals. The film captures a lecture where girls and young women are being taught that “Muslims and Christians are attacking our [Hindu] culture,” and that the people in caps and beards look like demons similar to those described in the ancient Hindu scriptures. They are told that it is not Gandhi’s non-violence that brought independence to India, but the sacrifice of thousands of Hindu martyrs.

Prachi, one of the strongest Durga Vahini female members, who with several years of experience in the camp, also acts as a leader to the next generation of campers, speaks out against beauty pageants, the second subject of the film, which, to her, represent Western decadence. Having herself attended more than 40 camps, Prachi has been inculcated into accepting the values that the camp organizers promote. Girls in the camp chant simultaneously “dudh mango kheer denge; Kashmir mango chir denge” – “if you ask for milk, we will give you rice pudding; if you ask for Kashmir, we will slit your throat,” referring to India’s long conflict with Pakistan over the Kashmir valley region. When a camper is asked if she has any Muslim friends, she replies, “I am very proud to say that I have no Muslim friends.” Prachi too declares that she is willing to build a bomb and blast it “if conditions call for it.”

On the other hand, Prachi’s father is eager to marry her off against her wish. He has no qualms admitting that he hits her, if necessary, to ensure that she obeys. He proudly mentions that when Prachi was a child he burned her leg with a hot iron rod. Prachi does not object; she believes it is his right as a parent. In a country where 750,000 girl fetuses are aborted every year and the statistics for female infanticide remain undocumented, Prachi is happy that her father let her live. She points out that “many traditional families kill a girl child. He let me live; that’s the best part,” she says.

Then again, in Mumbai, Pahuja cinematographically captures the daily activities of 20 young Miss India hopefuls. Their focus is dramatically different: filled with regimen–Botox injections, skin whitening treatments, catwalks, and diction training. This female world is one focused on glamour, on pleasing the male-dominated jury, and on preparing for the big break that will come with the title of Miss India. Many of the pageant’s participants aim for Bollywood screen-careers. In fact, many former winners have gone on to become famous Bollywood stars: Aishwarya Rai, Shusmita Sen, Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta, among others. However, the young women who perceive the Miss India pageant as a path to freedom, fame and equality, largely fail to note the irony of the situation as they are made to walk in front of juries in bikinis, or with their upper bodies covered under white sacks so that the jury members may assess the “beauty” of their legs: sexual objectification and conformity to traditional beauty paradigms is not the equivalent of personal freedom. The few who are aware, at all, of the problematic of their current situation, brush it off, considering it a small price to pay to achieve the stardom that awaits them. And, of course, that stardom will come at a cost, as well.

Pahuja’s camera follows Ruhi, one of the contestants from a lower-middle class family in a small town. Ruhi’s parents support her dream, and are keen to see her win the title. In many ways, Ruhi represents the dreams of a young generation of women in India. Pahuja also interviews Pooja Chopra, a former Miss India. Raised by a single mother, Chopra participated in the pageant in an attempt to prove herself to her father, who had wanted her mother to either kill her (after she was born) or give her up for adoption, as he did not want a girl child. Thus, the documentary beautifully mirrors the lives of different women in many ways, all of whom in one way or another, are attempting to prove their worth and their right to live, whether it is in taking up arms in defense of Hindu nationalism or succumbing to traditional ideals of worth equated with female beauty.

While these young girls and women are all attempting to empower themselves, their attempts are reflective of the inherently flawed options available to them. There is an innate sadness in these women’s attempts at either becoming part of a right wing fundamentalist group or using their bodies to showcase their worth. Neither of these efforts contribute to improving women’s condition and advancing women’s rights in patriarchal India, now troubled by a variety of issues including increasing gender tensions in a global world where women are, to greater and lesser degrees, aware that change is possible, if not quite within reach. However, the recent rise in gang rapes is a testament to the fact that India has a very long way to go before majority of women in India will be anywhere closer to gaining equal rights.

With Modi coming to power, it becomes increasingly important to be aware of the influence of groups such as VHP and RSS, and how they will sway the political rhetoric as well as women’s rights in India. In a recent interview with filmmaker Shazia Javed, Pahuja, speaking of the content of her film, said that “with the new government, people really need to know that these things exist . . . Now that the BJP and Modi are in power, we have no idea what is going to happen. But to me, it feels that these groups feel a certain kind of validation. They feel emboldened; there is a confidence now. So I think that the film reminds us that we can’t close our eyes. It reminds us that there is a potential for these movements to grow and that is a threat.” Pahuja sees the film as going beyond the issues of women’s rights; according to her, the film is about India, and what’s happening there, and the fear about the future as the culture of the country goes through extreme changes. She adds that, through the film, she would like to showcase the kind of “hatred being taught in the camps in the guise of patriotism.” Starting in October 2014, Pahuja has done grassroots screening of the film with women’s rights and human rights activists, and those who work in the area of communal harmony. The World Before Her, well researched and edited, is a welcome addition to social issue films.

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.

Choice Within Fashion and Fundamentalism: ‘The World Before Her’

In making ‘The World Before Her,’ Pahuja chooses to walk the neutral line by avoiding a personal stand and trying to hold up a mirror instead. In an interview with ‘First Post,’ she says that she made this documentary in an attempt to create a dialogue. Her humanizing, vérité cinema approach works to that effect.

This is a guest post by Nandini Rathi.

Chinmayee, a young girl at the Durga Vahini camp in Aurangabad, takes pride in the fact that unlike before, she has no Muslim friends anymore since her thoughts have matured in Hindutva at Durga Vahini. She takes exclusive pride in Hindu culture and looks forward to strengthen her thoughts about it in the future camps.

In another part of the country, Ruhi Singh, a 19-year-old Femina Miss India 2011 aspirant laments that her hometown, Jaipur, is not supportive of her ambitions as many people fear that allowing girls to get educated and choose their own careers will be tantamount to a loss of culture. “As much as I love my country and my culture,” she says, “I consider myself to be a very modern, young girl. And I want my freedom.”

This freedom, which is echoed by other characters in the The World Before Her (Pahuja, 2012), is of being who they want to be and living as they choose to live, without constantly having to worry about safety. Even though many institutions nurture the dream and promise to fulfill it, they come with strings attached. Indo-Canadian director Nisha Pahuja works hard in this phenomenal documentary to reveal some tensions within a rapidly modernizing India, through the microcosm of the Miss India beauty pageant and the Hindu nationalism of Durga Vahini. Apart from raising questions about objectification of women in the glamour industry, the movie also touches upon the state of communalism and religio-nationalism in India.

After stumbling upon its fascinating Kickstarter pitch video almost two years ago, I finally watched The World Before Her on Netflix. It was thoroughly engaging and every bit worth the time as Pahuja juxtaposes two diametrically opposite, extreme worlds of modern Indian women — behind the walls of the Miss India pageant boot camp in Mumbai and the Durga Vahini physical training camp in Aurangabad. Durga Vahini is the women’s wing of Bajrang Dal, a subsidiary of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu right-wing organization in India.

Beauty pageants deem all their critics to be a singular species from the “Old World.” Right-wing Hindu organizations see beauty pageants as a sign of Western attack on their frozen-in-time, monolithic conception of “Indian culture.” Archival footage informs the audience of the Hindu right wing’s various physical attacks on girls in pubs, in the name of desecration of this “Indian/Hindu culture.” In making The World Before Her, Pahuja chooses to walk the neutral line by avoiding a personal stand and trying to hold up a mirror instead. In an interview with First Post, she says that she made this documentary in an attempt to create a dialogue. Her humanizing, vérité cinema approach works to that effect.

The narrative of The World Before Her cuts back and forth between a Miss India crown aspirant, the sweet 19-year-old Ruhi Singh and a Durga Vahini camp youth leader and staunch VHP supporter, the 24-year-old Prachi Trivedi. It is full of ironies along the way, as the two radically opposite worlds come out to be more similar than what we initially imagined.

The doors of opportunity and exposure open far and wide for the Miss India crown-bearers. Pahuja claims early on that the beauty and glamour industry is one of the few avenues in India where women stand at par with men. Ruhi has the drive to win and the full moral support of her family. However, for many girls, to make it as far as the Miss India pageant is a difficult task of overcoming family reluctance as well as personal resistances. These girls understand that culture is, and was, never a fixed entity — but one that constantly evolves with time and contact with other cultures. Contestant Shweta says that that they are often accused of becoming “American,” to which she smartly argues that she isn’t becoming American for wearing jeans or eating a burger, anymore than Americans are becoming Indians for taking up Yoga.

42 Durga Vahini camps veteran and leader Prachi Trivedi is easily the most fascinating character, who likes to command others and talks to Pahuja with breathtaking candor. Prachi strongly believes in her Hindu nationalism which is based on the idea that the golden age of Hindu India was marred by outsiders who are still the enemy within. She has no qualms about killing any moment for her religion. Her father is cheerfully antagonistic to what she wants to do with her life. He fulfills his duty towards Hindutva by teaching the young girls in the camp — who the “bad guys” are, aka Muslims and Christians. Unlike Ruhi’s parents, Prachi’s father believes that she doesn’t have any rights besides what he gives her. One gets goosebumps when Prachi says that she forgives him for all the bullying, because it’s enough for her that he let her live — and didn’t kill her at birth for being a girl child, like many others do.

Prachi does not think her life is intended for marriage and family. She wants to dedicate her whole life to the Parishad (Vishva Hindu Parishad). But she is not sure if, being a girl, she has the freedom to make such a choice. The choice of a woman to stay single and not produce children is completely outrageous to the Parishad as well as her father. Her candid self-awareness reveals her vulnerable side in that poignant moment; it is so easy to forget then, that her ambition is to become the next Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur of the Malegaon bomb blast notoriety.

There is a palpable tension in the values inculcated at the Durga Vahini camp. “Sher banne ki prakriya yahan se shuru hoti hai (the process of becoming a lion begins here)”, says one of the camp instructors to the girls. On one hand, they want to increase young women’s confidence so they can be independent enough to rise to the call of action for the religio-nation. On the other hand, they are taught the dharma (duties) of a Hindu woman — in which chasing careers is a futile, corrupting, Western pursuit and only a “high moral character” matters, especially in the role of a wife and mother. Women’s action and power matters and is extremely important, but only while it actively and appropriately services the religious nationalism. They are nowhere expected to take liberties or choose their own paths. A conflict from this is likely underway in the future, as it is for Prachi.

On the occasion of Nina Davuluri’s crowing as Miss America, Rediff columnist, Amberish K. Diwanji noted that India’s beauty pageants do not reflect its diversity. Although the issue of inclusion of an Indian dalit or tribal woman in a beauty pageant is much more complicated (keeping in mind, the economic disparities, rural/urban divides and cultural clashes), simply speaking, the definition of beauty in pageants (and the glamour industry) is disturbingly narrow. I was shocked by Cosmetic Physician Dr. Jamuna Pai’s ease in administering Botox injections to achieve some ‘golden rule’ in the facial proportions of the contestants. Add to it, the application of face-whitening chemicals to burn through their tans. Miss India trainer, Sabira Merchant, describes the Miss India pageant boot camp as a factory, a manufacturing unit where beauty is controlled and prepared to meet the demands of the national and international fashion industry. The rough edges have to be straightened out and polished. The routine of the camp makes sure that any personal inhibitions on the woman’s part have been overridden. “The modern Indian woman” is produced for the world to look at.

“… I always had this vision of putting cloaks on women so we can’t see their faces, only their legs — and then decide who has THE best pair of legs. Sometimes you may get thrown — beautiful girl, lovely hair, she walks so good, she has a great body — we don’t want to see all that! I just want to see beautiful, hot legs!” –Marc Robinson, former model and Pageant director

Out of context, this would read as a perverted person’s fetish fantasy. I am trying to remind myself that Robinson speaks for the beauty industry– and so I shouldn’t think of only him as a creep. The parading Ku Klux Klan-esque figures are the contestant ladies, who ought to feel hot when they catwalk up to him like that.

What about self-respect and dignity, one is forced to wonder. Contestant Ankita Shorey, who felt claustrophobic during the cloak session, reflects on her feelings about bending over backwards for the sake of success.

“Aurat ko maas ke tukde ki tarah plate par rakhkar serve kiya jaaye, aur taango, breast aur hips ke aadhaar par taya kiya jaaye – ye toh poori duniya ki aurat zaat ke liye be-izatti ki baat hai, khaali Hindustaan ke liye nahin.” — an Activist in the 1996 archival footage of demonstrations against hosting Miss World in India

(To serve a woman like a piece of flesh on the plate, and to judge her on the basis of the size of her legs, hips and breasts – it is disrespectful to the womankind all over the world – not just to women of India)

My roommate’s and my reaction was — that’s true, she’s right. She expressed a genuine concern that would resonate with anyone who is even mildly concerned about the male gaze and the objectification of women’s bodies in media/glamour/film industry. Her saffron clothes suggest that she could be from a Hindutva-espousing party that sees pageants as a plain attack on “Indian culture”. It’s that awkward moment when feminists and right wingers find themselves to be bed fellows on this cause.

The formidable Ms. Merchant says in the second half: “There is a dichotomy and the girls seem like very with it, but they have traditional values. Should we go with the Old World or should we go with the New World? When they ask me that question, I always tell them to go with the New World, because the only thing constant in life is what? Change.” Just as Hindutva-espousing groups like VHP have no reason to not promote a blind hatred of Muslims and Christians, the beauty industry has no need or desire to parse out what the “New World” values really are.

P.S. While there is definitely a dichotomy between the old ideas and the new ones, Pahuja has chosen extreme, contrasting examples for the most narrative oomph. It creates a better story, which I am all for. The documentary is also timely as it is being viewed at a time when the Hindu right in India is gaining power and popularity (since Narendra Modi’s victory at the center). That said, it is crucial to remember that girls who participate in beauty pageants and those who participate in the likes of Durga Vahini camps are extreme minorities. They do not represent the majority.

Nandini Rathi is a recent graduate from Whitman College in Film & Media Studies and Politics. She loves traveling, pop culture, editing, documentaries, and adventures. Now living in New York city, she wants to be immersed in filmmaking, journalism, writing and nonprofit work to ultimately be able to contribute her bit toward making the world a better place. She blogs at brightchicdreams.wordpress.com.