making fun of indians?
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kathiemoffett — 18 years ago(December 14, 2007 02:02 AM)
Quote:
" by oy___vi (Wed Jan 25 2006 18:34:55)
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I think the character is Indian not just because they needed an "outsider", but also because the Indian culture is reputedly "spiritual" and as such a great contrast to the culture that Blake Edwards is commenting on.
As far as him being "offensive", I totally agree that he is basically as bumbling as Cluseau (but without the arrogance)."
EXACTLY.
if the French aren't insultedLOL.
Plus, as others have pointed out, Sellers' and Longet's characters are the only decent people in the film, fergawdssakes.
I do think they perhaps chose to make the character Indian because, simply, Bollywood (the Indian film industry) is apparently second only to Hollywood in world profit volume (or maybe they surpass Hollywood, lol, I forget.) Plus, I seem to recall that in the mid to late 60's cinema, Indian filmmakers like Satyajit Ray and all were really coming to world prominence. Makes sense at that point that an Indian actor would be trying to make the jump to Hollywood, and that Hollywood would've wanted to try him out. -
rmkbklyn — 19 years ago(September 24, 2006 12:28 PM)
I am a big fan of Peter Sellers, but as an Indian-American, I was really offended by this movie. I didn't think it was funny at all. If he had been in blackface, there would have been an uproar, but somehow it's ok to do "brownface"
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sun_mig31 — 19 years ago(September 30, 2006 03:55 AM)
i am an indian living in india, and i do not think that this movie is offensive at all to indians,if at all it pokes fun at the upper crust hollywood society, and I think we need a sense of humour to appreciate and the ability to take oneself less seriously. I can imagine why someone would be incensed when they see the depiction of indians in temple of doom, which despite being helmed by a director like spielberg has some of the worst stereotyping of indians, still rather than be offended i would put it down to the ignorance of the makers as well as that of the average viewer.
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ejavignon — 19 years ago(November 10, 2006 04:59 PM)
I think the new Borat movie might be relevant to this thread. One might find his Kazakhstani character to be an offensive (and grossly inaccurate) stereotype, but his real target is western prejudices. Sometimes juxtaposing one set of stereotypes against another can be very enlightening.
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TheMagpie — 19 years ago(November 14, 2006 08:22 PM)
Damn, I was about to make that same intelligent comment.
The use of Hrundi is for the fish out of water aspect and the outside looking in aspect, nothing racial. The same goes for Borat, but it looks as if Kazakhs have a far smaller sense of humour than Indians.
Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention
Joel Barish -
Rickieroo — 19 years ago(December 14, 2006 07:03 PM)
This movie was not attempting to be racist towards indians but instead having the audience understand what immigrants must go through when arriving to different countries.The whole movie was metaphorically stating the fact that the protagonist , Hrundi was a foreigner trying to conform with these stereotypical north americans. His spot in line? Not having a seat on the dinner table? Like thrid world countries not having a spot in certain assemblies because they are not as technoligically advanced and industrialized as we are. Over all the film, was trying to prove a point that immigrants must face these conflicts and stereotypes everyday but learn how to conform to society.
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cfire-4 — 19 years ago(January 22, 2007 09:01 AM)
I first saw this film in 1976, a week before the Indian Parliament, showing a regrettable lack of humour, banned the film. Interestingly, the film was running to packed houses as the impending ban was well anticipated. My friend and I had to buy tickets from a scalper and I think we paid about double the official price.
If memory serves me well, I remember the theatre (Aurora at Kings Circle, Bombay) was full to bursting they even had people seated in the aisles. And the roof shook with repeated roars of laughter. Far from causing offence, the completely Indian audience loved the film.
If I could make one film that worked as well as this one, I would die a happy man. -
juliano66 — 19 years ago(February 15, 2007 08:24 PM)
Thank you for the enlightening description of an Indian audience's reaction to "The Party" as shown in 1976. I am not surprised that the audience enjoyed the filmSellers' overthetop yet sympathetic performance is even more poignant in
retrospect given the man's complete dedication to his craft and his obvious love for his character and the culture. There is much joy and humour to be had in this movieSellers was his own Austin Powers for a gerneration that was not anywhere near retro yet still backwards in many respects. Movies like The Party we're subtle attempts at breaking through racial attitudes that went way beyond stereotypes Movies like Ghandi could not have happened without stuff like this
preceding it. -
vmacek@mindspring.com — 19 years ago(February 03, 2007 06:27 AM)
I remember in 1968, when this movie came out, people here in the West were quick to stereotype Indians as possessing spiritual enlightenment and a transcendence of the grubby, venal material world. Sellers' character (easily his most likeable and sympathetic) kind of follows the pattern - if you're going to get stereotyped, better to get a good one, I say.
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Grammaw_Oddree — 19 years ago(February 05, 2007 01:38 AM)
I never really thought about it that much, not being Indian myself, but I think that Hrundi is so likable and harmless that we are actually laughing with him and not cruelly at him. The Beatles movie "Help!" from 1965 is more fitting for the that criticism than this film.
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harish-kumar-1955 — 19 years ago(February 19, 2007 11:20 AM)
I think things have changed in India so much that a lot of people would take it as a humorous movie rather than feeling offended.It was stupid to ban this movie in India then..I laughed my heart out watching sellers speak like an indian.I dont think anybody can do even half of sellers job if there was a remake.
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robbystrauss666 — 19 years ago(March 07, 2007 08:54 AM)
i've just watched the film and him and the female french leading lady are the only principalled characters.
sellar's character would find it impossible to be offensive to the other characters in the film through his almost pathological politeness, and i find this character his most endearing part.
listen dear, they are playing our tune. -
radiounactive — 18 years ago(April 17, 2007 03:15 AM)
I'm an Indian, and I loved the movie, I don't know why it should offend anybody. Aren't there people like Hrundi in India?
Many!
I'm Indian too and I didnt find the movie offensive at all.
And said that just one word.
But it was a word that set my heart singing.
Querida -
zap644 — 18 years ago(June 24, 2007 12:43 AM)
I work with a fair number of Indians and I mentioned this movie to one of them a couple of months back and he had seen it and thought it was funny too.
Peter Sellers is a friggin' genius and I think it's rather bigoted to think Indians would be offended by this movie. Even though Seller's character is a bit of a buffoon in this film, his buffoonery is shared by many of the American characters. In fact, he wouldn't have even been invited to this Party if it were not for the comedy of errors in which the Hollywood idiot who tried to get him blacklisted actually ended up inviting him to the Party.
If someone comes away from this film thinking that Indians are idiots, they probably had that idea to begin with. How many movies have we seen where there were Americans portrayed as less than smart? Quite a few unless you've been living in a cave.
I had the pleasure the other day of reviewing a document that was written for Indian workers who come to the US to work on H1-B visas. I looked over it (skimmed all 94 pages) with an Indian co-worker and some things were right on the money and other things were comical.
A few of the more interesting points were that many Americans believe that India is populated with snake charmers and beggars. I jokingly told him that I would include IT workers among Indians. It also said that many Americans believe that the US is the universe - a point driven home a bit later when we were discussing the largest cities in the US. I typed "biggest cities" into Google and came up with a list of the largest cities in the US. I thought nothing of it, but he pointed out that I only got a list of the biggest cities in the US (after all, that's what we were discussing). I found the "slang" portion of the document quite interesting. It was mostly right, but a few things were off. The thing that really caught my eye was the first word on the list "Acid - LSD". Now why would this be so important for Indians visiting the US to know? Does this give the impression that all people - or at least IT workers - in the US take LSD?
Granted, a consultant from Arthur Andersen once said to me that she thought hallucinogenics probably were beneficial for IT workers, but she was only joking.
Anyway, I'm probably just rambling now, but I will say this - most of the Indians (not all, but certainly most) I have known are very intelligent and speak English almost as well as native-born Americans. And that is how it should be - with 1 billion Indians, you wouldn't expect us to allow the dumb ones into the US on H1-B visas, would you?