i've just done a write up on the bollywood film "my name is khan" on my own blog. as i wrote there, i've pretty much gone off bollywood films, but have managed to catch 2 in the last month. the other one is "3 idiots", which was recommended to me by several people who thought it was hilariously funny.
well, yes, it was laugh-out-loud funny in parts, and yes, it did deal with a very serious issues for young people in india: the pressure to study (and excel) a degree course chosen by your parents with very little input from yourself. it pushed boundaries for a bollywood film, particularly in terms of the child birth scenes, with detailed diagrams and all.
but the one thing that soured it for me was the inclusion of rape jokes, reasonably liberally throughout the film. not just because i don't like them & particularly not in the way that these jokes were presented, but also because this is not a part of indian culture. at least not what i've seen of it.
i haven't heard rape jokes in bollywood films, unless by the evil villain to show just how wicked he really is. it's not something that normally happens in conversation amongst the indians i know. this seems to me to be a definite import from western culture, and that's what annoys me the most. there are so many wonderful aspects of western culture that could happily be adopted by bollywood, but somehow they always seem to take the worst of MTV and appatow movies and present it as if it's all so edgy and modern. spew.
and just as an aside, i really am not interested in watching people sitting with their pants down on the toilet, in hollywood or bollywood films. what is it with that? nowadays, we even have to get shots of them wiping their bums (bollywood hasn't got quite that far yet, but this movie has started moving in that direction), and really, i'd put it under the category of "too much information". but i suppose that's just me.
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