Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Vamps, victims and videotapes
By: Paromita Vohra
2010-10-03
MidDay Mumbai
Last week a YouTube video called VAMP Protests 'Prostitutes of God' went viral. Produced by Vaishya Anyaya Mukti Parishad (VAMP), a sex worker rights organisation in Sangli, it features some very pi**ed off folk calmly addressing a British filmmaker, Sarah Harris, director of a documentary Prostitutes of God, featuring them and
playing on the VBS network's website.
The film is about sex work around the cult of Goddess Yellamma--linked to the Devdasi tradition.
VAMP's video is nothing fancy but it is power-packed. One after another, the interviewees ask the filmmaker why she betrayed their trust by insulting their gods, misinterpreting their culture and portraying them as craven victims.
It's not the first time people have felt this way about a documentary made by a first world filmmaker/network about an 'Indian problem'. The producers usually have two responses: we are people who care, and some things have to be 'simplified' so that our audiences can understand the unfamiliar.
The VAMP video, as a direct testimony of the people the film is about, is hard to ignore as carping. In the flabby verbiage about the power of digital media, this stands out as a politically creative moment. It also throws a light on how documentaries work, and so, how not to make them.
Watching the film, you see that Harris, like others before her, is not a bad person. But niceness does not prevent mediocre analysis or filmmaking. The hard work of questioning your assumptions might. There's little space for that in this format of filmmaking.Beginning with the never-before 'insight' that 'India is a land of extremes, ancient tradition and modern capitalism', the filmmaker 'bonds' with sex workers--giggly chapati-making and sari shopping--overlain with a commentary about how 'these people' have terrible lives, exist in a superstitious society, suffering the iniquities of tradition.
While there's truth in this, is this the only way to understand the truth?
Documentaries can explain something simply and clearly. Or they can provide a textured experience of the unknown, and by making you see people as complex individuals, not examples or types, provide a compassionate understanding and awareness about the issues, subjects and our prejudices.
Neither happens in this style of filmmaking. Despite many bonding gestures on camera--we never understand the humour, sensuality or choice of subjects as individuals--evidence of the filmmaker's connection to the people. Nor do we understand sex work differently from the common perception as a terrible fate to be rescued from, or the difference between an empowered sex worker and one who isn't.
There's a declared incomprehension about the Yellamma myth--as some bizarre story featuring 'fat gods in gold bikinis'. If the Indian informants were inarticulate (as the film makes clear by using translators who can't speak English well, and using that for feeble humour), there's Wikipedia.
Reading the entry, I found it comprehensible as a myth that's a way of legitimising courtesans/prostitutes to ensure respect and livelihood unlike the moralising which renders sex workers illegal, unorganised, improverished and vulnerable.
Responses on the film's website indicate what this kind of storytelling achieves: most comments are in the unthinkingly racist "what's wrong with these barbaric people" category. The simplification excuse-- turning people's lives into baby food to feed babies--doesn't hold, and a different filmmaking style is needed.
Noble intentions (sometimes called 'human interest stories') can be dangerous, for they absolve us of interrogating ourselves.
We must cast others as fallen victims so we can be seen as their noble saviours. Sometimes being the devil, or his advocate, may give us something to chew on and help us grow up.
Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. She runs Devi Pictures production company.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Encounter Killings - India and Pakistan
DANIEL PEPPER - a "free lance" journalist has a feature on Encounter Killings in the Maoist regions in India.
Mr. Pepper couldn't possibly have known that the same issue of the Times would ironically publish a report about innocent civilians being killed by the US across the border: "U.S. Missiles Hit Militants in Pakistan, Killing Eight"
Mr. Pepper couldn't possibly have known that the same issue of the Times would ironically publish a report about innocent civilians being killed by the US across the border: "U.S. Missiles Hit Militants in Pakistan, Killing Eight"
Friday, January 2, 2009
WHO CONTROLS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IN INDIA?
NDTV:
Funded by Gospels of Charity in Spain. Supports Communism. Recently it has developed a soft corner towards Pakistan because the Pakistan President has allowed only this channel to be aired in Pakistan. Indian CEO Prannoy Roy is co-brother of Prakash Karat, Gen Secy of Communist party of India.
CNN-IBN:
Funded solely by the Southern Baptist Church in the US. It has branches in all over the world with headquarters in the US. The Church annually allocates 800 million dollars for promotion of this channel. Its Indian head is Rajdeep Sardesai and his wife Sagarika Ghosh.
TIMES GROUP LIST:
TIMES OF INDIA, MID-DAY, NAV-BHARTH TIMES, STARDUST, FEMINA, VIJAYA TIMES, VIJAYA KARNATAKA, TIMES NOW (24 hour news channel) and many more.
Times Group is owned by Bennet & Coleman. Eighty per cent of funding is done by the World Christian Council. The balance of twenty per cent is equally shared by an Englishman and an Italian. The Italian Roberto Mindo is a close relative of Sonia Gandhi.
STAR TV:
Is run by an Australian who is supported by St. Peters Pontifical Church in Melbourne, Australia.
HINDUSTAN TIMES:
Owned by Birla Group, but hands have changed since Shobana Bhartiya took over. Presently it is working in collaboration with Times Group.
THE HINDU:
An English daily started over 125 years by a Sri Vaishnava Hindu family. It has been recently taken over by the Joshua Society in Berne, Switzerland. Edited by the Communist Sinophile N. Ram. He also edits the newspaper's fortnightly Marxist magazine FRONTLINE. THE HINDU is known in Chennai (Madras) variously as "The Sapper" (because it supported the British during the struggle for Indian independence) and "The Old Widow of Mount Road" (because of its lugubrious, cliche-ridden style of writing and incomprehensible editorials). More recently it has aquired the title "China's National Newspaper in India".
INDIAN EXPRESS:
It is divided into two groups. THE INDIAN EXPRESS in North India and THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS in South India. Founded by the Hindu freedom fighter Ramnath Goenka. Controlled by Acts Ministries who has a major stake in the INDIAN EXPRESS. THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS is still with its North Indian counterpart.
EENADU:
To date this Hyderabad newspaper is still controlled by an Indian named Ramoji Rao. It is under concerted attack by the Christian Church, the Andhra Pradesh Christian chief minister Y.S. Rajashekhara Reddy and the Congress Party.
ANDHRA JYOTHI:
The Muslim Party of Hyderabad known as MIM along with a Congress minister has purchased this Telugu daily very recently.
THE STATESMAN:
It is controlled by Communist Party of India.
KAIRAL TV:
It is controlled by Communist Party of India (Marxist).
MATHRABHOOMI:
Leaders of the Muslim League and some Communist Party members have major investments in the newspaper.
ASIAN AGE & DECCAN CHRONICLE:
These popular newspapers are owned by a Saudi Arabian company. Its chief editor was M.J. Akbar until early 2008. New chief editor unknown. These papers are aggressively pro-Christian (Roman Catholic) anti-Hindu newspapers.
DOORDARSHAN
India's national TV network broadcasting in all corners of the country. Since Sonia Gandhi's Congress Party has come to power, all DOORDARSHAN stations carry Christian missionary programmes dubbed into the regional languages.
Courtesy: Intellibriefs at http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2006/12/why-eenadu-etv-is-under-siege-in-ap.html
______________________________________________________
THE USURPATION OF CONTROL OF THE INDIAN MEDIA HAS BEEN DONE BY THE AMERICANS
By Gautam Sen
India happens to be one of the very few major countries in the world whose dominant media is controlled directly or indirectly by foreigners. The usurpation of control has actually been by Americans, much of it through surrogates of evangelical organisations that are in fact quasi-government agencies. Paradoxically, Leftist Indian political parties supposedly hostile to a US presence in India have been subdued with alacrity by these quasi-state religious agencies, which have been operating effectively in other parts of the world as well. In Latin America, where liberation theology offered succour to the poor, the very same neo-fascist, American evangelical organisations, working in conjunction with the US State Department and intelligence services, ousted them. In India, most English language media outlets, are, in effect, vying with each other to accelerate the fragmentation of India in consonance with Anglo-American goals.
Viceroys to India in the decade before independence, Linlithgow, Wavell and Mountbatten are destined to prove prescient about its innate fractiousness. The alleged oppression of minorities is the political bridgehead that modern evangelical organisations have entrenched in the public consciousness, relentlessly distorting its reality and using it ruthlessly to fuel discontent within India. By deliberately misrepresenting the Godhra communal riots as genocide, though both communities suffered, the media has gleefully incited Islamic terrorist attacks against Hindus and harsh international condemnation of India. As a corollary, the rise of the BJP inspired them to equate mundane nationalist aspirations with the oxymoron of Hindu extremism. Yet, there is resounding silence on the role of the minority community in providing succour to Islamic terrorism through vote bank politics and concealment from attention.
Courtesy: India-Forum: News and Analysis
"Indian Media's War on Hinduism" - A Historic Symposium in Chicago.
Funded by Gospels of Charity in Spain. Supports Communism. Recently it has developed a soft corner towards Pakistan because the Pakistan President has allowed only this channel to be aired in Pakistan. Indian CEO Prannoy Roy is co-brother of Prakash Karat, Gen Secy of Communist party of India.
CNN-IBN:
Funded solely by the Southern Baptist Church in the US. It has branches in all over the world with headquarters in the US. The Church annually allocates 800 million dollars for promotion of this channel. Its Indian head is Rajdeep Sardesai and his wife Sagarika Ghosh.
TIMES GROUP LIST:
TIMES OF INDIA, MID-DAY, NAV-BHARTH TIMES, STARDUST, FEMINA, VIJAYA TIMES, VIJAYA KARNATAKA, TIMES NOW (24 hour news channel) and many more.
Times Group is owned by Bennet & Coleman. Eighty per cent of funding is done by the World Christian Council. The balance of twenty per cent is equally shared by an Englishman and an Italian. The Italian Roberto Mindo is a close relative of Sonia Gandhi.
STAR TV:
Is run by an Australian who is supported by St. Peters Pontifical Church in Melbourne, Australia.
HINDUSTAN TIMES:
Owned by Birla Group, but hands have changed since Shobana Bhartiya took over. Presently it is working in collaboration with Times Group.
THE HINDU:
An English daily started over 125 years by a Sri Vaishnava Hindu family. It has been recently taken over by the Joshua Society in Berne, Switzerland. Edited by the Communist Sinophile N. Ram. He also edits the newspaper's fortnightly Marxist magazine FRONTLINE. THE HINDU is known in Chennai (Madras) variously as "The Sapper" (because it supported the British during the struggle for Indian independence) and "The Old Widow of Mount Road" (because of its lugubrious, cliche-ridden style of writing and incomprehensible editorials). More recently it has aquired the title "China's National Newspaper in India".
INDIAN EXPRESS:
It is divided into two groups. THE INDIAN EXPRESS in North India and THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS in South India. Founded by the Hindu freedom fighter Ramnath Goenka. Controlled by Acts Ministries who has a major stake in the INDIAN EXPRESS. THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS is still with its North Indian counterpart.
EENADU:
To date this Hyderabad newspaper is still controlled by an Indian named Ramoji Rao. It is under concerted attack by the Christian Church, the Andhra Pradesh Christian chief minister Y.S. Rajashekhara Reddy and the Congress Party.
ANDHRA JYOTHI:
The Muslim Party of Hyderabad known as MIM along with a Congress minister has purchased this Telugu daily very recently.
THE STATESMAN:
It is controlled by Communist Party of India.
KAIRAL TV:
It is controlled by Communist Party of India (Marxist).
MATHRABHOOMI:
Leaders of the Muslim League and some Communist Party members have major investments in the newspaper.
ASIAN AGE & DECCAN CHRONICLE:
These popular newspapers are owned by a Saudi Arabian company. Its chief editor was M.J. Akbar until early 2008. New chief editor unknown. These papers are aggressively pro-Christian (Roman Catholic) anti-Hindu newspapers.
DOORDARSHAN
India's national TV network broadcasting in all corners of the country. Since Sonia Gandhi's Congress Party has come to power, all DOORDARSHAN stations carry Christian missionary programmes dubbed into the regional languages.
Courtesy: Intellibriefs at http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2006/12/why-eenadu-etv-is-under-siege-in-ap.html
______________________________________________________
THE USURPATION OF CONTROL OF THE INDIAN MEDIA HAS BEEN DONE BY THE AMERICANS
By Gautam Sen
India happens to be one of the very few major countries in the world whose dominant media is controlled directly or indirectly by foreigners. The usurpation of control has actually been by Americans, much of it through surrogates of evangelical organisations that are in fact quasi-government agencies. Paradoxically, Leftist Indian political parties supposedly hostile to a US presence in India have been subdued with alacrity by these quasi-state religious agencies, which have been operating effectively in other parts of the world as well. In Latin America, where liberation theology offered succour to the poor, the very same neo-fascist, American evangelical organisations, working in conjunction with the US State Department and intelligence services, ousted them. In India, most English language media outlets, are, in effect, vying with each other to accelerate the fragmentation of India in consonance with Anglo-American goals.
Viceroys to India in the decade before independence, Linlithgow, Wavell and Mountbatten are destined to prove prescient about its innate fractiousness. The alleged oppression of minorities is the political bridgehead that modern evangelical organisations have entrenched in the public consciousness, relentlessly distorting its reality and using it ruthlessly to fuel discontent within India. By deliberately misrepresenting the Godhra communal riots as genocide, though both communities suffered, the media has gleefully incited Islamic terrorist attacks against Hindus and harsh international condemnation of India. As a corollary, the rise of the BJP inspired them to equate mundane nationalist aspirations with the oxymoron of Hindu extremism. Yet, there is resounding silence on the role of the minority community in providing succour to Islamic terrorism through vote bank politics and concealment from attention.
Courtesy: India-Forum: News and Analysis
"Indian Media's War on Hinduism" - A Historic Symposium in Chicago.
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