Happy Monday!!! I had an extremely productive weekend (Halloween Decorations! Cleaned the kitchen! Started a puzzle!) and now I am back at work-work. And more importantly, back to chatting with y’all.
Here is where you get to ask me anything from “what did you have for breakfast?” to “what is Gandhi Jayanti?” Just keep swinging back here all week as you think of new questions!
Now, question for you! One of Gandhi’s most famous protests was the salt march in which he led people to the sea to collect their own salt, rather than paying for the British salt. With that in mind, which flavor do you prefer, sweet or salty?
I’m definitely a salty person. I like sweet, absolutely, but if I am thinking about my absolutely favorite foods, it’s more along the lines of cheese and crackers than cookies. And of course this new trend of putting sea salt on sweet stuff is just THE BEST.
dontcallitbollywood 
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I like savoury as my all time favourite foods are biryani or kebab.
Also I watched a few Indian movies from the 2000’s and a few movies from the 70’s and I was shocked to find the 2000’s ones more regressive than the 70’s. My question is why do you think that is the case?
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In Indian pop culture criticism, it’s generally accepted that the 90s started an era of huge regression. Especially in Hindi cinema, the far right became increasingly aware of the power of pop culture and started infiltrating the industry. Stories that privilege Hinduism, Patriarchy, “Family Values” started gaining traction. The other theory that goes along with this is the growth of the diaspora audience. It’s easy to sit in America and idealize the joint family structure, a lot harder to do that in India where you are living it.
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It makes sense, as the female characters are especially regressive. There is this whole idea that women do not have valuable thoughts or choices so they need men to guide them which I especially hate. Oh Also have you watched Sunny (1984)? It is so good and shows female characters having their own choices
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I haven’t! But I just looked it up, and it’s by Raj Khosla who started out in the 50s/60s, it was one of his last movies. So that makes sense, he is bringing the sensibility of the progressive 60s into his film of the 80s.
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Sunny is such a good movie! If you ever want to discuss old Indian movies, you will probably find a group of us on here that are always willing to chat about them!
If you are looking for a more progressive movies from the 2000’s and I recommend Kuch Naa Kaho. It doesn’t have subtitles though, so it does require you to know Hindi.
And one from the 60s that is lovely and has many progressive elements would be Junglee. I don’t think that has subtitles either.
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I’ve watched Junglee and I love it. So happy, so fun and so progressive. I’ve watched the movie 4 times and even though it is so light it also deals with a lot of serious issues.
Sunny is more serious than Junglee but it still has a remarkably modern view on the whole issue of illegitimacy and what makes a mother.
I’ve not watched Kuch Na Kaho but I have watched Aa Ab Laut Chalen which is similarly light but has some nice serious issues. Though I didn’t like some parts for the most part it is super progressive.
I can understand Hindi.
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I figured you understood Hindi but also did not want to be presumptuous.
Yes, Junglee is SOOOO good! I especially LOVE how they have handled Shashikala’s ark. And Saira Banu’s character , Raj, might be one of my favorites of all time. I first watched Junglee as a 9 or 10 year old because my grandparents loved Shammi Kapoor and I remember idolizing Saira Banu’s character. And now, thinking back at it, Raj is a pretty great role model to have for a kid!
I have similar mixed feelings about Aa Ab Laut Chale. If you end up watching Kuch Naa Kaho, I would love your thoughts! There is so much to talk about with that film. And if there are films you would recommend, I am always looking to find gems that I haven’t seem before.
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One of my eternal refrains!
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I agree! Do you mind sharing which movies in particular led you to this realization?
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Just jumping in to say, I just put up a new post inspired by this discussion thread! Go over there and keep talking!
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A lot of them are progressive in some ways and then regressive in others, so it’s different ones for different things. One thing I like about Amrapali for instance is the skimpy clothes and the plot where she does not get punished for sex outside of marriage and also does not even get married at the end! Truly I don’t think you’d get something like that right now. Same for Sujata. And when you start looking at masala films they usually have at least one thing that’s insane compared to now, let alone stuff like Geeta Mera Naam that has all KINDS of weird stuff including unpunished bad girl stuff and S&M.
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I watched Sunny and Anupama from the 80’s. Then I watched Remo and Paragu.
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Paragu wasn’t bad but I just didn’t like that the girl lost her voice in the second half.
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Comparing across industries is more difficult i think. My opinion is in the context of Hindi films, I’d like to know from others more knowledgeable about other industries if this applies there too.
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I feel the same way. I have a tough time comparing industries. My input comes from Hindi movies only. While I have been watching more south Indian movies recently, I am still a novice and do not have enough experience to provide input on topics like which decade is most progressive.
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At Least I can speak for Kannada films even though I am a novice still in that area. In the 70’s to the 90’s, Kannada films were extremely progressive with movies like Gejje Pooja(prostitution) and Ranganayaka (son and mother falling in love). However in the 2000’s there was suddenly a dip in the quality of films. From my knowledge (which is still limited so people can correct me) this seemed to be common with many industries in the south where the general quality of the films dipped in the late 90’s and 2000’s. There were exceptions but the general movie quality became much worse.
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I have a question about double roles. I now associate one actor playing multiple roles in a film with Indian cinema. But clearly it isn’t only done in Indian cinema. The third season of Fargo (the TV show) has Ewan McGregor playing a two brothers. I somewhat assume double roles are more popular in Indian cinema because Indian cinema is generally more star based than in other countries, so if people want to see their star play one role in a movie they REALLY want to see a movie where their star plays two roles. But there are stars in other countries. Why is the double role so rare in the U.S.? And why don’t we see more women in double roles in India?
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Oh! I’m gonna throw another India vs US thing at you! Length of film. There’s a lot of double (or far more than double, like Orphan Black) roles in US TV, but maybe it’s just that our movies aren’t long enough to handle that kind of complicated plotting?
As for why not so many women in double roles, I think just stardom stuff? There have been really really big actresses who did double roles, but you have to be really really big to pull it off and actresses just aren’t allowed to be that big usually. But Sridevi, Madhuri, Aishwarya, Hema Malini, and Kajol TWICE all got to do double roles.
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The length of movie does make sense! And the US double role I mentioned is a TV series!
I never made it through Dushman, too upsetting. But now I kinda want to go see all the female double role films!
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Most fun double roles are by Sridevi (Chaalbaaz) and Hema Malini (Seeta Aur Geeta), both based on the same story. Few others – Sridevi (Lamhe, Khuda Gawah), Raakhee (Sharmilee), Sharmila Tagore (Mausam), Sadhana (Geeta Mera Naam).
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