making fun of indians?
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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? -
CatBurglar — 18 years ago(September 14, 2007 07:55 PM)
Hey Zap,
Do you know that the group of INS employees in charge of naming different visa types went to a screening of "The Party" one night after work and loved Sellers' character so much that they named H1-B visas after Hrundi V. Bakshi? Their stickler boss vetoed HVB as the name, so they replaced the "V" with a "1".
I may be kidding about that, but I like the idea.
cb -
mrernestjames — 18 years ago(September 15, 2007 03:20 PM)
this movie was made in a time when we weren't afraid to poke fun at stuff we weren't accustomed to. this movie is making fun of everyone.. but thats just it, its fun
sadly, we live in an age where political correctness is being taken to the extreme, often being abused for the advantage of the so-called 'victim' -
bbmaps — 18 years ago(December 29, 2007 09:14 PM)
Yes - I think we all miss Sellers.
He played a bumbling Indian in this movie, and while that may not be exactly politically correct these days, his sweet and sincere performance is pretty inoffensive, even if the character is not very bright. The reason for the controversy, of course, is that he is playing the role in brownface. As if, somehow, his rather sympathetic portrayal of an Indian is offensive, but his British idiot idiot savant in "Being There," French idiot policeman in all the Pink Panther movies, American idiot president AND German idiot mad scientist in "Dr. Strangelove," the openly racist Chinese idiot in "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu" and a less-than-bright Queen Victoria in "The Great McGonagall" are not still idiots. Somehow, these characters don't give the offense they might, because they are played for laughs by a comedy genius and there is a sincere truth to what they do. The harder they try, the more trouble they cause, but they keep on trying.
Even though this was 40 years ago, his performance still comes off as a hoot. Hrundi is not smart, but he is sincere, tries as hard as he can, and gets the girl. I think they brilliantly zapped the shallow nature of people in the entertainment business in this film, all of whom are sure they are the smart guys. Hrundi rescues Michelle from the sleazy slob producer, Mr. Divot, and looks to have the start of a nice relationship - and maybe a happy life. The rest of the characters in the movie are pretty much confused, molesters, unhappy or drunk. Hrundi is sober, happy and knows who he is. He is " Not your sugar."
This was a full year before the infamous Star Trek kiss - the first interacial kiss on American TV - which stations in the South refused to show. In how many other 1968 movies did the brown guy romance the white female lead and there wasn't any hint of controversy?