Pe Benito | 11

Pe Benito, Karina January 6, 20134-Literature (Un)covering Asia, India: A Review of the Asian-American Experience in the Namesake and Slumdog MillionaireAll that is written, whether on celluloid or any art form, tells a story. If it is made without meaning or the intent is for the audience to derive no meaning from it, is to an extent plausible but still hard to pull off. The absence of meaning is also meaning in a way that it conveys a message by itself. Messages are stories but should not always be perceived as didactic. Some experiences merely tell and reflect the kind of life lived by a particular individualwhether this individual be a man, a woman, one who is of a different persuasion, the way novels of manners would put it, rich or poor, or one coming from a particular ethnicityfor example, from the East or the West. Often in the meeting of these cultures, result in a clash wherein both see the other as post-colonialists have identified and defined as an Other.The immigrant experience has been documented, retold and sold as narratives on the news, on film, and even on the page. Each experience differs from the other and yet these life stories have more often than not begun by an individuals pursuit of a dream of making it onto greener pastures either for him or for the loved ones he has to leave behind. The history of America and the American people can be traced back to various immigration experiences. Native Americans or American Indians were the first peoples of North America until the so-called Pioneers from England have come to settle in the New World and had, in the process banished and colonized the natives from their own lands. America was a colony of the British until the Americans sought their independence and established their nation as their owna land of the White and Free, predominantly-speaking of course. In Canadas case, it was mostly the French who had been their founding colonizers, had a term been made to aptly describe it.America, like most Western countries has become a kind of Promised Land for those coming from developing or impoverished countries. Accepting immigrants has long been a part of Americas history, even before the Second World War, where mostly Jews wanting to escape or exile from Nazi-occupied countries had done so. These migrations can be traced earlier on, from the birth of Hollywood. One of Classic or Old Hollywoods legendary actresses who were of European origin had wanted to escape from the harsh way of living found in their home countries at the time. Actresses such as the Divine Greta Garbo, who had come from a family of peasants back in Sweden and Marlene Dietrich, who had come from Germany only with her daughter Maria carried with them stories of their initial struggles upon coming to America.Unfortunately, those who were colored stood little or no chance of making it big like the white-skinned Westerners who were not only patronized by other Whites but also emulated by non-whites. In a sense, America, was a land of the privileged White yet, did not hinder those of other countries and cultures from attaining the same level of progress as they have. The actress, Anna May Wong, who had starred in a film with Dietrich, entitled the Shanghai Express had to be typecast in roles depicting the Asian, particularly that of North Asian origin as one who is silent and deadly or utterly nave. Dietrichs character treats her as an incidental ally, as both were looked down upon but on various grounds. In the film adaptation of Pearl S. Bucks the Good Earth; Wong was refused the part of the character O-Lan and was given to European actress, Louise Rainier instead. Wong regardless became and remains as one of Hollywoods first Asian-American actors by blood and not through make-up. We love living in Amerika. Amerika is wonderful. Amerika, Rammstein In the Philippines, most families these days have relatives or at least have a relative who works or has immigrated abroad. Globalization meant that all these cultures altogether serve as a part of a melting pot of cultures, one which is ruled by the predominating West. Of the worlds superpowers, despite emerging tiger-economies in Asia such as that of China and South Korea, America, followed by the United Kingdom or countries like Germany, remains the most influential nation in the world. A great percentage of our economy is run by revenue coming from Overseas Filipino Workers; whether in favorable or unsuitable conditions abroad continue to provide for the families they have left behind.There are tales of tragedy and triumph in the immigrant experience. Whether documented in legal terms, they have, as stated earlier on have made their way into narratives, whether written or visual, fact or fiction. The immigrant experience is a tale that must be told either by the immigrant himself or the artist that has posited himself as messenger. Similar to any art form, literature and film are filled with narratives that speak of such experience and in particular one that is Asian, American or both. In this paper I shall be tackling how India, its culture and its people is portrayed and viewed by the West in the two films, the Namesake and Slumdog Millionaire with a brief reference to the film and graphic novel of the same name, Jennifers Body.The Indian-American Immigrant ExperienceThe Tragic: Ahmet from India in Jennifers BodyIn the 2009 comedy-horror film, Jennifers Body starring actresses Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Check, played by Fox is sacrificed to Satan by an aspiring Indie band named Low Shoulder. By lying about her virginity, the demon, instead of taking only her life and by the standards set by the ritual is possessed and is revived as the boy-eating killing machine of American small town Devils Kettle. Prior to the ritual and the fire that took down Melody Lane, the bar where the band was to perform, Jennifer and Seyfrieds character, Needy enters the bar and gets a good look of the people in it. One of the people familiar to them is Ahmet, an exchange student from India. Jennifer makes a sick joke about Ahmet to Needy, imploring if hes circumcised or not.After the fire, Jennifer, after getting lost coming from the woods and out of Needys house stumbles upon Ahmet who remains terrified of what happened in Melody Lane. Jennifer asks him the following questions: Are you lost? Does your host family know youre alive? Does anyone know youre alive? He gives a nod, a shake and another shake as a reply. Ahmet unwillingly becomes the first of Jennifers victims.The tragedy that became Ahmets life and untimely demise in America is only implied in the film but is explored in the graphic novelization and adaptation of the film of the same name. As Jennifer had predicted and observed by Needy, Ahmet was assumed to have died along with those who have actually died from the fire. His body, unlike victims such as local jock Jonas and emo-goth provocateur Colin, both white and local town members, is never found. In the graphic novel, the circumstances surrounding Ahmets migration to America comes from a dream: one, to make it as a baseball player for the local high school and two, to provide for his poor family back in India who had spent their remaining fortune for him to make it abroad. Ahmet, despite his and his familys perception that America would welcome a studious and aspiring student like him, is immediately proven wrong upon his very entry to the country. At the airport he is harassed and made fun of by the people on immigration. At school he has no friends for they are puzzled over how his culture differs greatly from theirs and how his skills, though up to par with others have unsettled them enough not to get him accepted by the team.The story of Ahmet could be that of anyone, anyone who has been socialized on the pursuit of the American dream. What happened to Ahmet serves as a reminder that not every migration story is that of triumph. Though Ahmet served a minor part in the film and the graphic novel, the story that had become his life reflects his sense of diaspora and that of others like him who have nothing to return to back at home and is forced to adapt to a crowd, a country that does no welcome him. Devils Kettle is a small town and it is often selective on its inhabitants.On Identity and the NamesakeUnlike the life of Ahmet as depicted in Jennifers Body, the Namesake, the film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Jhumpa Lahiri, takes on the Indian-American experience on a lighter note. The film deals with the burden of identity through its characters. Am I Indian or American? Am I both? What makes me one? Does my ethnicity affect my perception of myself or how I identify myself? These are one of the key questions addressed in the film, particularly by characters such as Ashima and her son, Gogol.The then-husband of Ashima, Ashok at the beginning of the film expressed similar concerns to that of her and eventually their son. Ashoke while in India was on his way to visit his grandfather by train. Onboard he encounters, an older man, a scholar by the name of Ghosh. Mr. Ghosh tells him to travel and conquer the world which he counters by insisting that the journey a reader makes in a novel is good enough for him. At this point, Ashoke does not know what was to become his life, and whether his sense of contentment over the course of his life so far was a mere farce. He continues to read on Nikolai Gogols Overcoat until a train accident occurs and as Ghosh had advised him to, alters his way of life. Prior to the life-altering accident the act of travelling has become a search for ones identity which most of the characters experiences in America and in their trips to India, which was Ashima and Ashoks country of origin. Ashoke by being a voracious reader matures by what he has found on his physical journey to places and the places presented to him and mapped in the pages of the books he has read, especially that of Gogols works. Ashoke finds the life he had begun in America, not in the pursuit of the American dream or to forget India but as a way of finding himself. The question of whether or not he is American or Indian does not bother him, for as long as he does not forget the cultures that have shaped him and continues to apply to his and the lives of his family. When he reveals to Gogol the circumstances surrounding him and Ashimas choice of naming him after the eccentric and prolific Russian author and the accident that had followed it, Gogol is at first hesitant and confused, thinking that naming him was something left either to chance or as a reminder of the grim train accident many years back in India. Ashoke tells him otherwise. What had followed after the accident and the early period of time he had spent in America prior to Gogols birth were what his name represented reveals not only a journey towards himself and outside of himself. His new life with Ashima through Gogol reminded him of that. And in this sense Ashoke is at home more than ever by his distance to his homeland, whether he is abroad or not. The journey makes the man, so to speak and leads him hometo his family, to his homeland and America, a land that too had been his home until his death. Ashima, his wife, only realizes this after Ashoke dies. Ashima at the end of the film decides that her journey in America had ended and there was nothing for her to do towards the decisions made by her children. It was their journey now, their own lives; whether it satisfied the traditions they have in India or not. Ashima tells everyone in their final Christmas party at the house she plans to sell, that for years, America too had been her home. For Ashima, she had finally seen what Ashoke had wanted to tell her all along.Ashima as was never like this. When she had first arrived in America she was fearful of what might happen to her and only her responsibilities as a wife helped her adjust to a different world and culture that she was now a part of. This can be compared to the way Ashoke was certain about travelling by train and reading but never really getting anywhere with his life. Their assimilation into American life, one that was foreign to them, strengthened their reliance on Indian tradition, for it is where their identities or sense of identity stems from, aside from their language, their names, and the color of their skinmaking a culture and identity that is both Indian and American. This is best reflected in Ashimas strong insistence on maintaining her identity as an Indian woman, starting with the way she dressed herself. Of all the characters, she was the one mostly affected by the move from her homeland. She struggles to impart to her children Indian traditions but eventually realizes that they are in America and though they are aware of their heritage they are Americans now. Since Ashima migrated only to America and not born and raised in it, she struggles on keeping her sense of Indian identity or to become Americanized. Though she admits that it has been her home too after a long time, this is before her planned return to India. Her past as a singer back in India is significant for it reminds her of the life she had once before she was betrothed to Ashoke. At the end of the film she resumes what she has left behind. India remains her home but does not forget the home or family she had with Ashoke in America. Despite her insistence on her identity as an Indian, the years she had spent living in America has already changed that. She is neither Indian nor American anymore but bothIndian-American but is more tied to her Indian roots compared to her children.Of Ashima and Ashokes children, it is Gogol, the eldest who questions and struggles with finding his identity. It begins with his name, which becomes the main problem of the film. At the hospital after he was born, Ashima and Ashoke had to forego waiting for the letter of the names approved and suggested by their relatives back in India. The man tells them that they cannot get out without having to register a name for him. What he says next actually predicts the kind of identities they would have as immigrants and that of their children (first-generation). This is America he says. If they were to live in America, they have to adjust to their standards, whether legislative or cultural. The same thing does happen for any immigrant, in any country, which then alters ones sense of identity. If ones sense of identity comes from or is dependent on ones heritage or a single culture, what then would it be once an individual is introduced to other cultures than his own? Does he adapt, lose his identity to accommodate the prevailing culture of a place he has settled in or does he keep both, making an identity, a hybrid one.In the scene wherein Ashima takes a young Nikhil/Gogol home from school, she reads a note from the principal about him. He asserts to be called Gogol instead of Nikhil and Ashima asks him What about your parents choices? The scene already preempts the dilemma Gogol faces later on. Contrary to his younger sister Sonia, Gogol struggles with his identity. There is a part of him does still wants to acknowledge his Bengali roots despite his insistence that he has become Americanized. Sonia has identified herself Indian-American but is more lenient towards being American. What changes Gogols mind regarding his identity is the death of Ashoke. In his state of grief and confusion, he sees how different he still is from his girlfriend Maxine. Maxine tells him to come away with her to forget Ashokes death while he wants to stay and honor it. Gogol refuses to take the offer.Thinking that he and Maxine cannot be together based on their cultural and racial differences, they break up and Gogol begins revisiting his roots as a Bengali through his father, Ashoke. He finds the book bearing Nikolai Gogols stories, the present Ashoke gave him while he was listening to Pearl Jam. He reads the dedication about him and his namesake and how it was no accident, as there no accidents. This resolves the struggle he has with name. He accepts it and begins reading the Overcoat; after all We had all come from Gogols Overcoat as his father once told him. While this does bring him clarity and a kind of reprieve over not having taken his father and mother seriously, it does little to the other issues affecting Gogol.Gogol has reconciled with his name. It is Gogol, not Nikhil and yet in a scene wherein he denies it and still uses Nikhil as a professional. Is it really Gogol or Nikhil? In this scene, Gogol is introduced to the friends of the revamped dominatrix figure in the form of Moushumi. She tells him about his real name, Gogol. Her friends laugh but get the reference to the Russian author. Instead of being fine with it, he is angered by what Moushumi has done. He tells her that is something personal, as if he has a secret life with it. Is he really fine with it or not?His marriage with Moushumi comes as a surprise since his affair, as the film had depicted appears to have started quick like that of a fling and is only supported by the fact that theyre both first-generation immigrants with Bengali roots. Moushumi believes this to be so, as she is too is struggling with dealing with her identity. At first the way she looked and presented herself was the problem, one that was superficial and comparable to the unresolved question of whether Gogol is Gogol or Nikhil. Moushumi frequently identifies herself as French, as she had changed her life to that of a Parisian woman, with the cigarette on her hand, appearing ala a brunette Deneuve or Huppert. The end of their marriage came as no surprise though, after Gogol finds about Pierre, Moushumis lover. She tells him she taught the marriage would work since they were both Bengali. Then Gogol counters that it was not the reason why he had loved her. The dance sequence of sorts during their honeymoon was adorable though, and brief as a Francois Ozon sequence in 8 femmes.At the end of the film, Ashima talks to Gogol about Moushumis whereabouts. Gogol tells about Pierre and Ashima realizes her mistake of wanting her children to find another Bengali like them. Her daughter Sonia has been doing well with her American boyfriend but Gogol is left struggling to seek his own peace. Ashima apologizes to Gogol. He refuses her apology not out of spite but upon realizing that he has never been at peace with himself than ever before. He sees his fathers dedication on the book of Gogol he had given to him. He was at the point in his life wherein his father had gotten lost, as he was unsure of himself and course his life would take. The film comes full circle when Gogol realizes that he wants to travel the world, thinking that maybe, in his travels he will find himself.The Namesake overall is a film about finding ones identity set in the backdrop of India and America, its cultures and the immigrant story of the Gangulis. With the discrepancies or dilemma surrounding Gogols name, symbolizes how ones identity is formed and how it is fluid. Gogol realizes that his sense of identity not only comes from his name, his namesake or his Bengali roots but by how he would like to present himself. The problem is that he does not know who he really is yet. The perspective of the film is to look from India towards America and what happens when these different cultures collide or clash. This perspective is best seen through Ashimas eyes. Life in America is better than in India but it was another home away from home. The film does not take on one country as better than the other, instead it sides with both. The concept of identity along with the sense of home becomes fluid despite how stable it may seem to an individual.This is India! On Slumdog MillionaireIn the award-winning Danny Boyle film Slumdog Millionaire, the problem is not with the fact that actor Irrfan Khan who played Ashoke in the Namesake was now a police chief in the film. Kidding aside, Slumdog Millionaire is a film about how Jamal through his experiences was able to win Indias Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? Despite his poor upbringing, being a Slumdog and the kind of life that went with it, he was meant to, as he was fated to be successful later on and be with Latika, his first love. By the title itself, reflects a lot about the setting and the kind of India it portrayed in the film. There is an instance in the film wherein he and Salim, his older brother had to con tourists visiting the Taj Mahal and places near it. Of their first set of victims was a pair of Caucasian tourists who mistook Jamal as a tour guide. Though they have found discrepancies from the guidebook they have with them from what Jamal had been saying, they nevertheless believed what he had said. He describes the Taj Mahal as a five-star hotel among other silly things. The tourists believed him for they wanted to know more about real India. This real India was the projected image that the Taj Mahal represents to that of the world whereas the Real India or the Mumbai he and Salim had grown up in was that of abject poverty, religious divide and crime-syndicates. The projected image of India is what is used to attract tourists looking for something exotic aside from being aesthetically beautiful through the eyes of aspiring architect Gogol in the Namesake. As for the so-called Real India, the viewer is introduced to minutes of poor MumbaiJamal going under and through a pile of shit that appears as mud in order to get an autograph from local star, Amitabh Bachchan, the clash of religions between Hindus and Muslims. The cameo appearance of Rama, which can also be found in the Namesake, is present. Them living and the dumps and being adopted by a crime-syndicate, overall this was another projected image of India, though more realistic than the exotic view of India through the Taj Mahal.Hello poverty porn. At the time I had been reminded of another film on under a similar, Western lens. In the Grammy-nominated DVD, Get Along starring musicians Tegan and Sara is a segment on their first visit to India along with their band a few friends, Sonia, their mom and Vivek Shraya who had wanted to get back to the country he had left as a child. Anyway the film takes them to various parts of the city, which at times could be mistaken for the streets raddled with spit, trash and vendors of the Philippine Metro. At the end of the film, they are asked about their journey and their view of India. Wanting to be polite without sounding insensitive, one of them, recounts how amazing their journey had been, finding India as one that still had order in a place that appeared to be chaotic.Going back to Slumdog Millionaire, there is always a tendency to exoticize a place that is unfamiliar to us. We all have these preconceived notions of what a place should be and so and so and find ourselves, to an extent disappointed when we are faced with the real place itself. Is this it? This is it. This is poor India. There is no real India just India. How we look at it differs from how locals look at it and from their position in society, which too differs from how from how the world sees it. In relation to the segment on India in Get Along, the veil of the exotic is lifted from the tourist just as the viewer is introduced to the kind of India presented in Slumdog Millionaire. The problem with the latter is that it went overboard, presenting the India to an audience who are assuming that the documentary-style found in Indie filmmaking does represent the real place and situation of the people, not simply in that place alone but as well as the entire country. At times it works in grabbing the attention of the audience and the actual problems faced by the country but it will come to a point wherein it becomes the exotic veil people from the West place on the East. Of course there will always be slumdogs but just not as prevalent in first-world countries. It makes us more of a victim if these portrayals do not actually serve anything good for us, whether in India, the Philippines and in other developing countries. I am in no position to speak about what India is or isnt inasmuch a tourist or a person from another country is no position to speak about what the Philippines is or isnt.There is another scene in Slumdog Millionaire when a car, rented by the a pair of Caucasian tourists is scrapped part by part by local thieves reminiscent of the scene wherein the car in the Philippine film, Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank was ransacked by thieves while in the slums. The Indian chaperone to the tourists beat up Jamal for what had happened to the car and their things but prior to that, he utters something about seeing India to the tourists. The white tourists are shocked over what had happened to their things but they, without hesitation stop the man from beating Jamal. The couple picks him up and tells him something like Well, here is a bit of the real America, son and they hand him a hundred dollars. This provides him the answer he needs on what American icon is on that bill but what should be noted here is the way the tourists viewed themselves. By handing him the hundred dollars they introduce the kind of capitalist to democratic way the Americans and those of the West view themselves towards the impoverished slumdog con tourist that Jamal was. The West views themselves as saviors. While their efforts does help, to great lengths in socio-civic organizations whether small on UN-wide, it creates a co-dependent relationship between the two. The third-world peoples are victims and so those of the first-world should save them instead of asserting local and national politicians to actually do something productive so that locals would not have to depend on them in the first place. The problem with poverty is that it has always been a part of human civilization and like prostitution cannot ever be eliminated for as long as there are patrons and customers who keep it that way. The corrupt thrive on this in order to rise from it and keep themselves a level above the lower classes. For the West, they thrive on this messianic complex.Slumdog Millionaire is story of one slumdogs personal triumph and how he had become the poster boy and hope that those who are in the same class of poverty as he is could become millionaires or successes in their own right. According to the film, Jamal is fated to be one inasmuch as Latika is fated to be his. If it is written, it has been set. If not, then what now? Is the fate of the Indian people living in poverty fated as well? Does the position occupied by the West over the East also written or is it merely so by circumstance? I am in no position to speak out on.Sources:Debb, S. (2008, December 15). Vanity Fair. Retrieved from Slumdog Millionaire and the "Real India": http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2008/12/slumdog-millionaire-and-the-real-indiaKseca. (n.d.). Slumdog Millionaire: Postcolonial Critique. Retrieved January 4, 2014, from Media and Cultural Analysis, Spring 2013: http://www.karanovic.org/courses/mca008/2013/04/28/slumdog-millionaire-postcolonial-critique/(2009). Chapter 3: Ahmet. In R. Spears, Jennifer's Body. Los Angeles: Boom! Studios.