February 14, 2008
Young Padawan
Star Wars fans were excited to learn today that a new animated film based on the the Star Wars Universe will be released this August:
Star Wars: The Clone Wars makes its theatrical debut as an all-new, computer-generated feature film in August 2008, followed by a television series in the fall.
The new adventures in a galaxy far, far away apparently take place between the second and third Star Wars prequel films, similar to the Clone War series of the same name that ran between 2003 and 2005. Returning characters include Anakin Skywalker - who later becomes Darth Vader - along with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padme Amidala. New heroes also join to battle familiar villains from the Star Wars prequels, such as Darth Sidious, Count Dooku, and General Grievous.
“I felt there were a lot more Star Wars stories left to tell,” said George Lucas, Star Wars creator and executive producer of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. “I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of animation forward…” [Link]
One of the major points covered in the press release is that a new female Jedi character will be introduced. She will serve as Anakin’s padawan (the way Anakin was Obi-wan’s padawan). The name of this young Jedi (who will of course eventually be hunted down and killed by Vader) is Ahsoka Tano:
… among the familiar characters like Obi-Wan, Anakin and Yoda is a mysterious new Padawan named Ahsoka Tano.
This young Togruta is eager to prove herself as a worthy Padawan to her bold Master, Anakin Skywalker. Able to wield a lightsaber and pilot a spacecraft with great talent, Ahsoka promises to become a worthy Jedi. [Link]
Tano joins a long list of other sci-fi desi characters. Mysterious is right though, because I can’t find much of a backstory on her yet. The name Ahsoka makes it seem like she is Indian (dot not feather) but the name Tano makes it seem like she is Indian (feather not dot). Or maybe, since this all happened a long long time ago, and in a considerably far off galaxy, ethnically ambiguous is ok. For those of you who like bad-ass ambiguously desi chicks, get your tee-shirt here. For those of you who like your animated warriors more traditional, there is always this.
abhi at 11:52 PM in Animation, Comics, Film, TV · 26 comment(s) · Direct link
March 30, 2007
55Friday: The "I Feel Fine" Edition
Set adrift on memory bliss…
My screen says, “Please replace this generic password.”
Either my kappipaal hasn’t kicked in yet or I’ve got a severe case of Spring fever (perhaps cowbell could cure it?). I can’t focus, let alone devise a password with 12 letters, one symbol, two numbers and an exclamation point. One of my favorite co-workers stops by my desk, with an eyebrow raised.
“You look lost.”
“Can you like, pick a password for me? Like, passwords are hard.”
“Like math?”
This is our favorite inside joke, this reference to Barbie’s great fustercluck of ‘92. Still, despite legendary vacuous utterances, Barbie is beloved not just by me but also his six-year old daughter, because as we three agree, them Bratz dollz are slatterns.
“Sure I’ll pick something for you.” He seems serious.
“You like music. Use a song lyric.”, he instructs, before striding in to his office, which is next door to my desk. Then he pops his head back out…
“I used to use ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine’ as mine.”
“R.E.M. fan, eh?”
He smiles at me in response. We’re nearly the same age; we were both dorky loners who probably spent all our free time between classes with our headphones on, tuning out the world. We both remember how the release of “Green” in 1988, during the fall quarters of our Freshman/Junior year in high school defined a moment, a mood.
“You know, I usually just pick a word in Greek or Latin.”
“That also works.”, he says and then he’s gone.
I’m trying to choose something which is easy to type and still somewhat secure but now I really can’t concentrate. All I can hear is Michael Stipe singing/shouting “LEONARD BERNSTEIN!” and I feel like I’m falling backwards mentally, travelling through time.
Being able to sing along to that song was something impressive; memorizing the rapid-fire lyrics didn’t just prove that you loved R.E.M. and “college rock”, it also affirmed that while others listened to disposable pop, we chose to be “politically aware” and ponder what it all meant.
After my fuzzy trip back to my first year of high school, I realized that perhaps the universe was giving me what I had asked for— inspiration for today’s Friday55. I am so sorry. I’ve meant to do one every Friday since the last nanofiction orgy, which was a while ago, but something always comes up and if it doesn’t, I just blank when it comes to a theme.
So, write about
rapid eye movement
Athens, Georgia
A tournament, tournament (there’s your madness)
the rapture
or
why you feel fine. :)
In other words, pick any phrase or idea out of the lyrics below, that is, if you need a prompt, a gentle nudge, a temporary muse. You may also choose to be a G.D.I. and ignore our theme completely. Whatever you do, pretty please mold exactly 55 words in to a fantastically short short story and post it in the comments below. Friday calls for flashes of fiction, because I (and hopefully you) feel fine.
::
R.E.M.- It’s The End of The World As We Know It
That’s great, it starts with an earthquake,
birds and snakes, an aero plane -
Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn -
world serves its own needs, don’t misserve your own needs.
Feed it up a knock, speed, grunt no, strength no.
Ladder structure clatter with fear of height,
down height. Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a
government for hire and a combat site.
Left her, wasn’t coming in a hurry with the furies
breathing down your neck.
Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered
crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common group, but it’ll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself.
World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed.
Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right - right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight,
bright light, feeling pretty psyched.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
Six o’clock - TV hour. Don’t get caught in foreign tower.
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn.
Lock him in uniform and book burning, bloodletting.
Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate.
Light a candle, light a motive. Step down, step down.
Watch O’Neil, crush rush, Uh oh, this means no beer Cavalier.
Renegade and steer clear!
A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies.
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
and I decline.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide.
Mount St. Edelite. Leonard Bernstein.
Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom!
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam, but neck, right? Right.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine…fine…
(It’s time I had some time alone)
anna at 09:33 AM in Animation, Haiku, Music · 42 comment(s) · Direct link
November 10, 2006
Horn OK Please now online
Commenter “Midwestern eastender” used our News Tab to tip us off to the fact that the movie I blogged about earlier is now on-line for your viewing pleasure.
Enjoy your weekend and drive safe out there.
abhi at 04:37 PM in Animation, Film · 13 comment(s) · Direct link
November 07, 2006
Finally, Indian Christmas carols
On our News Tab SM reader Pallavi introduces us to the music of “Boymongoose.” They’ll be dropping their album, Christmas in Asia Minor, just in time for the Holidays:
1. Thanking You
2. 12 Days Of Christmas
3. Single Girls
4. Internet Dating (Radio Saffron)
5. Once In Rahul Dravid’s City
6. Oh Therapy
7. No More Brown
8. It Had To Be Said (Radio Saffron)
9. Hark the Herald, Angel Singh
10. The Worst Motel
11. Miss India (Radio Saffron)
12. We Are Wishing You A Merry Christmas
13. Think Of The Children
Here is a video of their version of 12 Days of Christmas. It’s an outstanding 4 minute waste of time (and the animation is solid):
abhi at 12:38 AM in Animation, Holidays, Humor, Music · 33 comment(s) · Direct link
June 13, 2006
Apu-calypse Now!
It’s probably not a surprise that I’m a Simpsons fanatic, and have been since the first days (we collected Matt Groening cartoons in junior high) but it was the evolution of the character of Apu that really clinched it for me.
Now, the first reaction upon encountering or hearing about Apu Nahasapeemapetalan is invariably a groan—yet another stereotypical 7-11 manager/operator—whether when he debuted, or today. But Apu evolved, as most Simpsons’ characters, into someone complex, worthy of both ridicule and empathy. He has a PhD, entered into an arranged marriage (but not before a stint as Springfield’s most happening bachelor, Trans Am and all) with the witty Manjula, sired octoplets, revealed his veganism and his illegal immigrant status, which he fixed by getting that long-awaited H-1 Visa. His worst sins are quirky saying in accented English, his two instances of infidelity to his wife and a tendency to overcharge (nothing compared to miser Mr.Burns or desperate Moe). Despite repeated attempts to run away from the overwhelming demands of his family of octoplets, Apu remains an excellent vehicle for Simpsons writers to explore desi issues. I highly recommend Wikipedia’s detailed biography of Apu here.
But Apu was absent in the most recent Simpsons exploration of desi culture, when Homer gets outsourced to India. Desi culture has become too big even for Apu.
The Simpsons characters often spend an episode in another country, gleefully exploding and exploiting stereotypes, and the Indian outsourcing episode is no exception. When Homer gets outsourced by Mr. Burns, he’s naturally incompetant, a fact that the PhD-educated Indian workers quickly catch on to. Fast forward six months—the Simpson have not heard from Homer, until Mr. Burns tells them that Homer has gone “native” and thinks that he is a god.
Enter Apocalypse Now.
I read Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in junior high, and loved it immediately—I read it as an adventure novel, and later as a psychological exploration. I did not think about the inherent racism in the tale—we discussed it in class, but so much of the novel seemed symbolic. It seemed logical that the search for Kurtz was pure symbolism—a search for how power could cripple even the best of men. And the darkness, to Victorian minds, was represented by the corruption brought from plumbing the depths of the Congo. By the time “civilized” man reached Kurtz, he was already lost in the depths of the jungle.
By the time I saw Apocalypse Now (from beginning to end) in college, the racial issues were on the forefront. This movie took the central issues of Conrad’s novel and moved them into the Vietnam war. The result was harrowing—predictable with with sledgehammer director Oliver Stone at the helm. The three-dimensional characters were all soldiers; the masses were all Vietnamese. By the time Willard (an obviously strained Martin Sheen) kills Kurtz (a incoherent, overpowering Brando), Stone can’t resist rubbing in the point, and the scene of Kurtz’s death is intercut with the graphic, ritual slaughter of a bull outside.
Both stories were the same—the exotic Far East as a mindless, corrosive influence on the West.
Leave it to the Simpsons to say—fine. That’s us.
When Mr. Burns and the Simpsons arrive in the “dark jungle” of India, they find a deluded Homer thinking he’s a god—and a crowd of Indian workers who’ve created a union based on all the secrets that the mercenary Mr. Burns didn’t want them to know about: part-time hours, mandatory health plans, onsite day care, one-hour lunch breaks.
Mr. Burns holds his head “You’ll ruin me! You’re fired!” Indian worker: “Woo-hoo! Free golden parachutes for everyone!”
In the spirit of Orientalism, the “heart of darkness” can be the Congo, Vietnam or India, with little change of implication of a mindless, decadent Far East. But, in this episode, the clever Indian plant workers don’t mind placating their Caucasian superiors, letting them think they worship Homer (in a Indiana-Jones-2 “pagan” style)when in reality they’re manipulating his incompetence. Over the years, the Simpsons have leveled the playing field when it comes to desi in pop culture—the exotic “coolie” who worships his oppressors must make way for the very real, very universal concerns of the modern, employed Desi.
But are the tables turned? Originally, the exotic East corrupted the West; now it may be the other way around. As a proud Lisa tells Homer later, he’s managed to export the American worker’s sense of entitlement. Now that the Indian plant workers know that they don’t need to work a 20-hour day the question is—what happens to the Indian work ethic—exemplified by Apu and his 24/7 Kwik-E-Mart? Furthermore, which way is the colonialization going? The plant moves back to Springfield—for obvious plot purposes—but the implication is clear. The Indian worker is on the move.
I recommend Wikipedia’s entry on Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bangalore (yes, I’m a wikipedia-whore). And if you get a chance, catch the episode, I haven’t done it justice.
neeraja at 12:07 AM in Animation · 52 comment(s) · Direct link
May 23, 2006
The saga continues in Lanka
Things in present day Sri Lanka have been taking a depressing turn of late:
At least 150 people have fled the village of Allaipiddy in the northern Sri Lankan peninsula of Jaffna.
It follows last weekend’s murder of 13 Tamil civilians. The navy has been accused of the killings - they deny it.
Police and international truce monitors have both launched investigations into the incident.
The killings came only two days after Tamil Tiger rebels launched a suicide assault on a naval convoy in which 18 sailors died. [Link]
To take your minds off of the grim reality of the present I feel that I must point you to animator and SM commenter Nina Paley’s website. She has just released the newest segment of the her multi-part saga, Sita Sings the Blues. It is titled “Battle of Lanka.”
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A pivotal scene from “Battle of Lanka” |
Battle of Lanka was made about a year ago, and is chapter 4 in Sita Sings the Blues, after Hanuman Finds Sita and before Trial By Fire. In this episode, Rama, Hanuman, and the monkey armies cross the sea to Lanka to conquer Ravana and the rakshasas, and rescue the captive Sita. Assisting me was Jake Friedman, the only animation apprentice I’ve ever had. Jake wanted to learn Flash and had excellent animation chops and a good eye, so he came to Brooklyn almost every day for a month. Jake animated much of the monkey-on-demon violence: monkey swinging axe, monkey throwing axe, monkey bashing demon with club, monkey kicking demon, etc. A panorama of Jake’s animation occurs at 1:28, in which I took pretty much everything he’d animated on the project and composited it into a single scene. It’s worth multiple viewings, to catch all his lovingly considered variations. Thanks Jake… [Link]
Ahh, it is far easier to accept monkey-on-demon violence than the real thing (however, if it were the other way around there would have been a revolt in the SM basement). Also keep in mind that the segments she has released is not the whole movie but just a few bits to tease you. The poor girl has to make SOME money for all of her years of hard work. Show her some love people! There is a donation button on the sidebar of her website.
There are several more episodes I haven’t posted publicly, and I reformatted Trial By Fire for widescreen, as well as changing a few scenes, and haven’t uploaded the new version. I don’t want to post everything online before the film is done, but you can see stills from all 8 episodes.
See Previous Post: ‘Sita Sings the Blues’
abhi at 12:58 AM in Animation, Film, News, Religion · 38 comment(s) · Direct link
February 16, 2006
Kali’s video game debut
File this under “It’s only offensive if somebody else does it.”
Only desis could get away with making a video game about Emperor Ashoka that uses figures from Hindu mythology and art just to give you something to fight:
Kali is appearing in the forthcoming Emperor Ashoka … which recreates battles from the life of a legendary Indian king who lived in the third century B.C. The game allows players to engage in bloody historic battles based in ancient temples and other antique environments. Some mythical creatures are also thrown in — in addition to Kali, there are gargoyle-like interpretations of the voluptuous female statues that adorn sacred buildings in India, who come alive and fight. “We wanted to have an edge,” says Indiagames CEO Vishal Gondal. “It’s a storyline that hasn’t been seen before” [Link]
If the game makers had been white, the blogosphere would have been up in arms with people yelling “Temple of Doom, never again!”
For their part, the games makers are presenting this as a “serious” use of Indian history for inspiration rather than a casual ripping off of cool looking icons :
Indiagames flew designers from … [Cambridge] to India, where they toured classical temples such as those at Khajuraho — iconic sacred buildings dating back to the 11th century AD and known for their spectacular architecture and erotic sculptures. They also visited Indian museums and libraries to study statues from a variety of time periods and historical texts related to Emperor Ashoka’s life… [designersthen ] drew the prototypes that … Indiagames then turned into 3-D computer-generated characters. [Link]
No word on whether there will be any cheat codes [NSFW] concerning figures from some of the erotic sculptures, but given Indian male video game designers, I’m sure there will be an easter egg or two 
Personally, I think that Ashoka’s real life story has more than enough material to make a good video game without gilding the lily:
A fierce warrior, his most brutal battle was fought at Kalinga, where his armies are said to have killed more than 100,000 people. [Link]
Related posts: Father figure, Artist attacked for blasphemy, Religious weaponry
ennis at 12:20 PM in Animation, Arts and Entertainment · 68 comment(s) · Direct link
December 15, 2005
Skype’s Sepia Avatars
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Disco DJ Ennis in da virtual hiz-ouse! |
Remember “flesh colored” bandaids - the ones that didn’t look anything like your flesh, and which stood out like a pink gash on your arm? This same problem recurs in the virtual world. Cyberspace is oddly eurocentric given the vast number of cyber-coolies who work to maintain and extend it. Despite the years that have elapsed since the end of the flesh-colored crayon, very little of the virtual world is easily extensible to look like me.
One noteworthy exception is a company called Weeworld that specializes in the creation of avatars for use with Skype or other services. Their web application lets you specify settings for 23 variables, each of which can take on multiple values, to create an image of yourself for only 1.5 Euros. Not only can you specify whatever skin, hair and eye color you want, but you can also give your icon facial hair and even a fairly realistic looking turban! It is a profound demonstration of the deep penetration of desis into British cultural life when a British company, producing for a largely European audience, includes a turban as a standard option. [Hat tip to Mr Sikhnet]
ennis at 12:05 AM in Animation, Science and Technology · 28 comment(s) · Direct link
November 16, 2005
Demo reel uses ‘Jaan Pehechaan Ho’
A British ad agency’s animated demo reel uses ‘Jaan Pehechaan Ho’ as its cinematic score (via monika). Thanks, Ghost World!
[C]heck out the showreel of studio aka - an animation studio based in london.. http://www.studioaka.co.uk (follow the ‘overview’ link and then click on ‘showreel montage’).. enjoy!
manish at 10:13 PM in Animation, Music · 1 comment(s) · Direct link
October 27, 2005
Rollin’ down the street
A faux remnant of the British Raj…
Bombay Sapphire is a brand of gin distributed by Bacardi. The name hints at the origins of gin’s popularity in the British Raj. During their administration, the British took quinine in order to protect against malaria in the form of tonic water. This was mixed with gin in order to make a more pleasing and sociable drink of this medical necessity. [Link]
… put out a moody, animated, Simba-esque ad some time ago. It updates the look of old Chinese scrolls (cherry blossoms, carp) with dandelions, butterflies and… a bug zapper? It starts off in silhouette like a film studio intro, but gets more innovative from there. Watch the clip.
Tonic water was never intended as a cure or preventive for malaria, but malaria is the reason the quinine is in there. Quinine has a bitter taste. To make the stuff palatable when used as an antidote for fevers, legend has it, British colonials in India mixed quinine with gin and lemon or lime. Over time they learned to love the godawful stuff. (You can see this principle at work in a lot of British cuisine…) Quinine is also used, along with other herbs, to flavor vermouth…[Link]
Quinine comes from the bark of the cinchona tree, which grows in the rain forest on the eastern slopes of the Andes. (One begins to comprehend the importance of preserving rain forests.) The Spanish first heard about the medicinal properties of the bark of the “fever tree” from the natives in the early 17th century. According to tradition, the stuff was used in 1638 to cure Countess Anna del Chinchon, wife of the viceroy of Peru, an event commemorated a century later when botanists named the plant. The viceroy shipped a boatload of it to Europe in 1640, and the Jesuits began using it in their missionary work, whence it acquired the nickname “Jesuit’s powder.” For a time religious and national rivalries kept quinine from being universally adopted, but eventually everybody began using it, and many historians today say it permitted the European conquest of the tropics.
Quinine was the only effective treatment for malaria for 300 years. After World War II, however, it was largely supplanted by synthetic drugs such as chloroquine that were safer, more effective, and easier to make. (Though quinine kills malarial parasites in red blood cells and alleviates fever, it doesn’t completely destroy malaria in the body, allowing relapses to occur if quinine therapy is halted.) But some strains of the malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum became resistant to the synthetic drugs—one reason the global malaria eradication program launched by the World Health Organization in 1955 was declared a failure in 1976—and in some parts of the world quinine has again become the antimalarial drug of choice. [Link]
manish at 02:52 PM in Animation, Health and Medicine · 9 comment(s) · Direct link
July 10, 2005
Blood brother
SM reader Ravi Swami is an animation designer, and I love what little of his work I’ve seen. His demo reel includes retro desi artwork, war propaganda-style satire, psychedelic flying Bugs and a kitschy robot that’s a cross between Sky Captain and Futurama.
Swami mashes up kaleidoscopes, lotus mandalas, Indian revolutionaries and multi-armed deities. Behind a Bollywood theater, London’s Erotic Gherkin lurks erect. It’s all set to the moody atmospherics of Domenico Modugno’s original recording of ‘Volare,’ popularized again by the Gipsy Kings. Watch the demo reel.
The Spitfire beer ad is quite witty: pouring a draught becomes a visual pun about rolling a fighter plane. Brill! The reel also includes a snippet of an animation called ‘Mr. and Mrs. Singh.’ Its visual style is tremendous, 3D with a watercolor look:
A few years ago Ravi developed a short film with Gurinder Chadha which was to be shown before the film Bend it Like Beckham. When the Channel 4 animation department folded, so did the short. A real shame because… such a high profile film [could] have helped to resurrect the feature film trailer as a legitimate forum for quality animation shorts… [Link]
Most of the desi bits in the demo reel are from his short film ‘Blood Sutra,’ with director Rajesh Thind and a title shared by a Vijay Iyer album. As part of a public health campaign, the short fights desi superstitions about donating blood. Paper doll doctors dance bhangra at the hospital; a phillum poster announces the debut of an Indian starlet, ‘Heema Globin.’
… Rajesh and Ravi have also gone for a rapid-fire episode series… Shorts within a short if you like. This approach may have something to do with Ravi’s early obsession with Zagreb School Animation and the ‘Mini-mini’ series. The influence of the animated one-minute gag can certainly be seen in ‘Blood Sutra.’ Ravi’s views on the irony of the communist Zagreb School evolving into the capitalist Red Bull adverts could spawn a whole Ph.D. thesis… [Link]
Most who mine old Indian health propaganda (‘An Ideal Boy’) do so purely for art’s sake, winkily adorning a coffee table book or T-shirt. But Swami re-applies the parody to the source. What can you say about making doctor cutouts do a silly dance, then sticking them back in a hospital? It subverts without subverting. I’ve never had so much fun watching a health film. Watch the short (3:01).
The blood donation short for Chinese Brits is ethereally animated (though bordering on cliché), and the mainstream version is nicely tongue-in-cheek. You can find all the bloody films here.
manish at 09:07 AM in Animation, Film · Add comment · Direct link
June 25, 2005
Terrorist tech support
This tech support parody (warning: sound) has a wild-eyed Sikh wearing an Afghan-style turban surrounded by Hindu icons in southern India (thanks, Avi). The usual bad Indian accent and cow jokes ensue. I supposed we should thank the animator for drawing him in an office instead of squatting on the ground with an abacus. Its dissection of brainless tech support is pretty cute, though.
Screwy Flash animations shouldn’t be politically correct, but they shouldn’t be ignorant either. Team America knowingly poked fun at American stereotyping even while engaging in it, by putting together a Middle Eastern disguise for the protagonist. The ‘disguise’ consisted of stray bits of toilet paper stuck to his jawline and brownface splashed on as if by a 2-year-old. That’s about how well Americans understand the Middle East, the movie was saying.
This animation doesn’t do that — it cheaps out with crude, wildly inaccurate ethnic stereotypes. I’m not saying don’t poke fun at desis. Hell, we do it all the time. I’m saying: Ill Will Press, this creative work is trite and lame. Get it right next time. There are a quarter million of us right in your backyard, the second-largest Asian-American group in NYC, so just ask somebody.
Granted, it might be a strained conversation (‘Say, dude, fact-check this animation and do a bad accent so I can make fun of your country of origin’)… :)
manish at 03:41 PM in Animation, Humor, Issues · 19 comment(s) · 1 reader(s) linked · Direct link
June 03, 2005
Giants, dwarves and lemurs
Like that VW ad, NYC sometimes has moments of spooky synchronicity. Like the time two weeks ago when I hailed a cab to SoHo. The fellow who picked me up was an uncle crooning along to Hindi ghazals in the direction of his steering wheel. After crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, we passed a Sikh guy with a black pug and a cute Punjaban walking toward chic bar Mecca. A block later, a group of desi high school kids sounded their barbaric yawps over the sidewalks of the world. The louche lounge turned out all Arabic and Hindi tunes, Turkish lanterns and Bombay tones; ‘twas hookahs and wine, you know the kind.
Similarly, both major movies released last weekend, Madagascar and The Longest Yard, had desi influences. In the animated film Madagascar, a major character speaks in a comical desi accent mouthed by Ali G. His Julian the lemur king is pompous and faintly ridiculous, though aside from the accent he’s funny in his own right. The sound isn’t exactly Sellers, but this movie confirms the cycle of immigrant visibility: first ignored, then laughed at, then accepted. (And finally The Man? Only in spelling bees.)
The hilarious thing is, American movie reviewers couldn’t place the accent. It was clearly a desi parody, though rounded off via the West Indies or just the fertile mind of Sacha Baron Cohen. Reviewers guessed all over the map: Eurotrash, Middle Eastern, Caribbean. Here’s what the director said:
We had this two-line character, Julian, and we got a tape of the show “Ali G” with Sacha Baron Cohen. He came in and he invented this Indian accent. We gave him a couple of lines and he turned them into eight minutes of dialogue. We were just in tears on the floor and thought, “This guy has to be the king.” So that was just a two-line part that he invented and it turned into that role.
This stereotypical crap is too denatured to be offensive, but it’s consistent enough to be tiresome. Leave Hank Azaria and Ali G to make money off the Peter Sellers gravy train. I’d love to see a weekend when two mainstream releases have desi romantic leads. Then the rest would be a lot more palatable.
manish at 02:49 PM in Animation, Film · 16 comment(s) · Direct link
April 21, 2005
‘Sita Sings the Blues’
Ever seen Hanuman pluck a double bass? Animator Nina Paley has created a witty, ’20s jazz musical version of the Ramayana, Sita Sings the Blues (via Turbanhead). Her lovely, highly stylized characters evoke Betty Boop, Amul Butter ads and Ghee Happy, and Sita is voiced by ’20s blues singer Annette Hanshaw.
Watch the clips or, if the site is slow, see the end of the post to download.
This animation’s original title seems to have been The Sitayana. Like Anna’s feminist neologism, ‘Herstory,’ Paley had replaced Rama with Sita in the title. And she goes even further: Sita has the only speaking part in the entire animation. Rama is strong but silent, a Ken doll and essentially decorative, the inverse of most action flicks. But Paley stays reasonably faithful to the original text. Her Sita is still a maiden in distress rather than a Shrek-like princess-ninja.
Paley also inverts the Moulin Rouge formula. Instead of desi music in an American tale, she uses ’20s American music (one song even includes the banjo) in a quintessentially desi story. Her soundtrack choice is a classy touch; imagine someone doing a version like hip-hop Shakespeare, using Justin Timberlake as the soundtrack.
Shudder.
The fountains of rakshasa blood in part 1 are reminiscent of Kill Bill and anime. Paley makes excellent bhangra choices in the closing credits, and the dancing god is very cool, although the Medusa hair is really more of a Greek thing. The music-synchronized motion is lovely, from the high-stepping crescent moon to Hanuman’s dance. I’m also partial to her version of the golden deer.
However, using only music and no dialogue gets in the way of the narrative, you may need to already be familiar with the story to get it. And the art style gets repetitive after awhile — it’s not Paley’s fault, but I’m becoming bored with highly geometric, computer-assisted art.
Paley is looking for a desi remix artist:
Any chance you folks are tuned into… [the] desi music scene in NY? I’m desperately seeking a composer/remixer to do remixes and additional music for “Sita Sings the Blues.” Please let me know!
You can download the clips below using BitTorrent (get a downloader: Windows, Mac).
- Part 1 - Exile (13 MB)
- Part 2 - Sita abducted (25 MB)
- Part 3 - Hanuman in Lanka (26 MB)
- Part 4 - Sita returns (13 MB)
- All clips (73 MB)
manish at 02:22 PM in Animation, Film, Music, Religion · 20 comment(s) · 7 reader(s) linked · Direct link
January 05, 2005
Happy Diwahanukwanzidmas
Virgin Mobile’s latest promotion is a fine example of South Asian-inspired surrealist kitsch. Not to mention the visions you had the morning after the New Year’s party. No, Virginia, those weren’t sugarplums dancing through your head.
For art that so prominently features a Hindu motif, it sure is strange to extirpate Diwali from the name (Chrismahanukwanzakah). So, I’ve re-christened it, so to speak.
Happy Diwahanukwanzidmas, and watch the animation!
manish at 01:46 AM in Animation, Holidays, Humor, Religion · 2 comment(s) · 1 reader(s) linked · Direct link
