Shashifest Alphabet Game!

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I am loving all the alphabet games we’ve got going. click the “Games” link from the homepage to find them all and join in the fun! And for Shashi fest, of course I need a Shashi one.

Movie titles, songs, co-stars, all too hard. I’m gonna say “elements of Shashi wonderfulness”. We’re gonna go through the alphabet until we run out. Only challenge is, you have to have a photo along with your element.

A = Adolescent!

Image result for shashi kapoor geoffrey kendal

78 thoughts on “Shashifest Alphabet Game!”

    • UGH Rachel Dwyer!!!!! Her and Rahul Desai, I hate them so much. But I will accept that she is still allowed to love Shashi, since he is above all these petty disputes.

      Also, Hairy

      On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 1:59 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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        • Since we are just chatting, let me let loose on Rachel Dwyer in the privacy of the comments section.

          There are three general ways to look at film, considering the industry it came from, considering the text in isolation, considering how the text has been “used” by the audience. Dwyer has no ability to do any of those things. She fell into her position simply because she was the first western scholar to seriously study Indian cinema, she fell in love with Yash Chopra and pretty much stopped exploring after that. Her knowledge base is what Yashji told her and his movies, very mild awareness of anything outside his genre/era. In her writings, she never interrogates why films are the way they are beyond the most superficial conclusions, she never questions anything anyone tells her in an interview, she never tries to consider the greater Indian society. While another writer would say “this film shows the frustration of Indian youth with the way they are powerless in front of the authority of their elders thanks to the Indian family structure”, Dwyer will say “In India, people revere their parents”. Like, WHAT? There’s no sense awareness of basic Orientalism thinking, because of course if she had studied Orientalism she would be aware of how she falls into it herself. She luxuriates in the White Privilege she is blind to. Oh, and if you read actual real scholars on Indian film, no one discusses her. She is off in her own little world, only impressive to people who know nothing.

          I mean, look at that Shashi article you linked to! It’s fine, reading it I would think this is some housewife who was asked to write an article as a favor because she knew Yash Chopra and had met Shashi. But this is a woman with TENURE??? Who gives speeches all over the world? Who has bestselling books claiming to be able to introduce people to Indian film? She gives no textual analysis beyond “this is the text”, she gives no sense of positioning Shashi within a greater industry beyond saying “he made western and Indian films”, no discussion of why that was so unique and risky for him and how his performance changed between the two, and no discussion of his place in the hearts of his fans beyond “he was handsome”. I mean GOOD LORD.

          After Dwyer came Ganti, Rosie Thomas, and before her was Gayatri Chatterjee, and there are literally dozens of other scholars who do deep original work, massive research, massive interviews. Heck, Anupama before she lost her mind did AMAZING work! But Dwyer has been holding on to her position as the Know It All just because she was there first. Like the first white woman to open a yoga studio in your suburb.

          But, you know, you can like her. It’s fine.

          On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 2:08 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • haha–I thought it was a nice article, but yes, assuming it was written for someone who knows nothing about Indian movies.

            I super love it when you do a takedown of someone’s work. Reminds me of George Sanders in All About Eve. In a good way!

            Have you read Producing Bollywood by Tejaswini Ganti? I started it and found it interesting but it is very dense and the font is SO SMALL in the paperback version I have. 🙂 It’s on my bedside table. Maybe it can be quarantine reading, but I need an old people magnifying glass for it. 🙂

            Anyway, if you did read it and remember, any thoughts about it?

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          • Ganti is my superhero, she does the best ethnographic work on the industry, especially 90s and early 2000s industrial stuff. She makes Dwyer (rightfully) look like a joke. And to your point about Dwyer being fine if she is writing for an audience that doesn’t know the film, Ganti wrote her Guidebook specifically for new viewers and managed to make something that gives real original thought, and is valuable for folks of all levels. Mostly it’s the conman aspect I hate. Ganti knew that half (or more) of the readers of her Guidebook wouldn’t know or care if she made a factual error, or took the established boring prejudiced perspective on the films, but she also knew that would be wrong, like, morally. And then there’s Dwyer all “poor people like escapism! 1930s Hollywood musicals are identical to Hindi films! I don’t want to think more than the same thing people have been saying for decades because thinking is hawd and huwts my wittle head.”

            Producing Bollywood and Bombay Before Bollywood are the best books you can read, if you really want intensive industrial analysis. For textual, read Oral Narrativity by Sheila Nayyar. She turned it into a book eventually, but the book doesn’t add that much to the original article. For audience reception, read me (my thesis), or some of the people I cite in my thesis. I can’t think of a good book-book on audience stuff. Temples of Desire is bleh, and Ashish Nandy is The Devil. I like Rajinder Dudrah, but he is a bit superficial.

            Oh, and Priya Joshi! Read Priya Joshi’s Bollylite article, it is INSANELY good.

            Oh right, Producing Bollywood. It’s just such a dense book and I love so much about it. She really makes you feel like you are there sitting on the set with her, even the experience of how she got such unprecedented access. Off the top of my head, I love the chapter where she digs into how the filmmakers themselves dismiss the audience for their film, No One respects the Hindi audience, even the people making the movies. I love the bit where she talks about how casually “black money” is used in the industry. And what I really love is that she had two super super long interviews with Shahrukh, one on her first research trip in the 90s and another in the 2000s, and both of them were entirely about how he saw the business part of it, and were so good that he used them as the grand finale of her books.

            I read Producing Bollywood in about 3 days, it was like an addictive novel for me, just loved it. And as you can see, it really stuck in my mind. But for a lay person, you might want to start with her Guidebook first.

            On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 3:01 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  22. S- Smile!

    https://www.deccanherald.com/sites/dh/files/styles/article_detail/public/article_images/2017/12/04/646309.jpg?itok=rjLB94Sk

    https://akm-img-a-in.tosshub.com/indiatoday/shashi-kapoor—story_647_120417062909.jpg?PKeOZn_Y1Otb3tl0jcqHiXstV2ZnsC4u&size=1200:675

    https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/HDkelE6xvbvnnB4UZlWiekCOsdjsDXWAUhc46Dd40bzhC-9YpF5NYlCy6atv0eow00sFDV4Gzidhy7i2-7FNNPzIYkU7vstDfGMqPTW8oVMbP38eH-BYlcD5cW-IAAQm5C2qI6_uy4PnYYUaRQ

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