Here is the lecture content:

"Our film for this week is Chennai Express and this 2013 film
was a blockbuster. It was really terribly received by the critics and the
people loved it. It was a huge hit and it also like, doesn't hurt that it had
two of the biggest stars of of. Well, I guess now too like our our time
Deepika Padukone and Shahrukh Khan. So it's, it's, it's a pretty it's a pretty
popular film but it was really criticized for for a variety of things and some
of them will talk about here again I really want to warn you this is
triggering especially because we talk about skin color a lot and we talk
about. Talk about the association of skin color with people from southern
India. So. People from southern India have been represented in.
Questionable ways in a lot of Bollywood film and in the first lecture for
today, we learned that there is something to be said for how somebody is
talking and what that talking on the image on the screen means how
they're talking and what that means. Not means in terms of a literal way,
but what it what it's trying to convey to us. So when you are in, in a lot of
films from South Asia from, from, from Bollywood, you would see
somebody who is portrayed as South Indian because they're wearing a
particular type of dress, because they're wearing their their bindi in a
different way, in a more more localized to South Asia way and you can say
that they are southern. They're from southern India also. I should say that
southern India is like saying the Midwest, right? There are like 9 states
there. So it's not someone big BLOB of people. There's like so many
different languages spoken again, lots of diversity. Kerala is different from
Tamil Nadu, which is different from Karnataka, which is different from
Andhra Pradesh. So it's not like some, some BLOB of that is South India,
right? There's a lot of diversity. In South India, that's another thing that
Bollywood completely misses. Bollywood completely treats South India as
if it was one BLOB, and that in and of itself is offensive and problematic.
But when we but, but when Bollywood film is usually representing
someone from South India, they're doing it in a negative light. And this
negative light can be they become the point of jokes. They're like, oh, we
will laugh at your expense. We will laugh because you're using language in
a certain way or because you are doing something in a certain way, right?
So you will just insult you and that will somehow be humorous for us. So
that is 1 aspect of of of representation of people from South India that
Bollywood. Bollywood kind of propagates or propagated till very recently.
Other aspects are uh people from other states in India, how are they
represented in Bollywood? How is somebody from Gujarat represented?
How is somebody from Bengal represented? How is somebody from
Kashmir represented? Like what is happening with those other states,
right. So the one example that of the representation of. Of a South Indian
person is is the song that you can watch here. And I want you to watch like
about two minutes of the song. And it's a really weird, odd song from a
film called Padosan that came out in the late 1960s, I want to say. And it
was again a very popular film. The music from this film is still like is still
alive, still active in a lot of ways. But but the main character, the character
who was the. The source of most of the humor and most of the bad humor
in the film was Assad's, but was a southern Indian person. Other
characters in the film were also from other regions of India, but they were
not made fun of like the person that who was from South India. So go
ahead and watch this song.
Film Clip 1
A clever woman is all decked up She enters into the door of my heart And I
keep dying, oh my. A clever woman is all decked up A clever woman is all
decked up A clever woman is oversmart She keeps digging her own grave
I kep on laughing, oh my. A clever woman is oversmart -Why do you... -
That’s bad Why do you pay attention to them? The world will try to trick
you I’ll handle them. From now on if they call you, I’ll handle them.
Lecture Video Continued
[Dr. Ila Nagar] We see the person that is South Indian, he, he, he has a
shaved head. He has a very different type of marking on his forehead and
he is, he's kind of represented in a questionable in a weird sort of way, the
next song I want you to watch again about a minute or so of it. Is a
representation of a person from Punjab from the western state of Punjab
and usually Punjabis are represented in Bollywood film as these very loud
big hearted. Food loving, fun loving. Like amazing type of people. Lots of
Punjabi words in Bollywood films are used. So there's a very different type
of representation. I'm not saying that these two films, these two songs are
comparable. What I'm saying is like there's a broad difference in how the
representation is working. So also these are like really far apart the first
song that you that you have already. Dean is is from the 1960s. This one is,
I want to say, like anywhere from like 10 to 15 years old. It's from a film
called Jab. We met when we met. It's also a very popular film. Go ahead
and watch.
Film Clip 2
I am starting. You all please join in, too! No problem! We all will join in, too.
We are Punjabis! We need an opportunity to start celebrating! Okay,
silence! Silence! Settle down, sit comfortably! A capricious, bubbly girl. Her
mesmerizing eyes are like daggers. And her beauty is lethal When her
beauty created rampage, the discussion started. Beat the drum...
Lecture Video Continued
[Dr. Ila Nagar] When we see this song, we kind of see how happy
everyone is, how everyone is dancing, how there's a lot of color and and
this this person who is singing, he's supposed to be a Punjabi person and
lots of like life around them. We really cannot say that for a lot of films that
represent a South Indian people. Uh, in some ways. Chennai Express kind
of reproduced that very stereotypical image of the South Indian person and
in in a very kind of problematic sort of way. So this is just a generic poster
of the film. You might have seen it around. If you have not, you're seeing it
now. And this is another poster of the film. And look at all the people start
standing behind the two protagonists standing behind Shahrukh Khan and
and Deepika Padukone and. Think for yourself what what this
representation says about the film. So we know that this film is about a girl
from South India who is running away from from. I guess her, her cousins
actually and that's that's the first scene. And then the boy from North India
really gets tangled in her life and her father happens to be a dawn like a
mafia guy and. Excuse me. That's how their story starts and eventually the
Bollywood film. They fall in love. There's conflict, it's resolved. Everyone's
happy. So in the process of this conflict and resolution of the conflict, there
are lots of scenes that are that in no way, actually. Say something or in
some instances actually they do. They they like make a contrast between
North India and South India. There's actually a song that makes the
contrast between North India and South India and says, oh we are, we are,
the two of us are the perfect combination. We've kind of come together as
North and South India. But the thing I wanted to kind of show you and and
and and and this this I recognize is highly problematic. But you have seen
the film or you will here soon look look at this image like this is Shahrukh
Khan. In in a comic scene around around people from from South India and
look at Shahrukh Khan and look at the people who are behind him. The
same applies here one all of the cousins that are part of the brigade to save
Deepika Padukone or are. Very different looking than Shahrukh Khan.
None of them is kind of a a hero figure. They're all very villainous and
they're all very villainous in almost comical sort of way. The only person
that is kind of not represented in a negative physical way is the main villain
in the film. So we have tangali here, but. Everyone around him is presented
in this very, very comically villainous, villainous way. So the the point here
is that is that this specific film is literally using skin color as a demarcation
between South India and North India. And not just skin color. It is basically
a juxtaposing villainess with. The particular skin color. So in that sense,
this, this was a really problematic film. And all of the critics, if you go read
any review of the film, most of the reviews of this film were very, very
negative. The interesting thing happens to be that Deepika Padukone is is
a South Indian woman. She is not from North India. And she was like, no, I
would never do that. How can I caricature my own culture? And you know,
that's exactly what the film does. But again, the film was the. Really well
on the box office. And that in some ways speaks to like this normalization
of of particular ways of seeing the world. Which brings me to the last point
here with reference to Chennai Express. What does it mean when we have
representation like this within Bollywood, right? So we know that we are
talking about a very diverse linguistic landscape when we were talking
about. In India, we know that Bollywood is Hindi language cinema. But
Bollywood represents a lot of other types of Indians and a lot of other
types of. That's in fact what Bollywood tries to do. In earlier parts of the
term, we learned that the Bollywood hero is supposed to be this very
generic. Very. Nobody as far as like casts associations go, usually very
middle class, usually very much in the service of the nation person. And all
of this kind of in some ways is represented in the Bollywood hero. But
what happens when the Bollywood hero becomes part of the stereotype of
a particular part of India, right? What happens when, when these
stereotypes become? Become really normalized, right. So. So that is
definitely a very challenging, challenging type of. Questioned answer, but
it's obviously really terrible, right? It's really like. We are. We are on the one
hand constantly as a nation told to to celebrate diversity. Celebration of
diversity, until very recently in India was built into the idea of citizenship,
right? Yet, and and I have been saying so much throughout the semester,
Bollywood is really a lot of times telling us about the Indian nation, how to
be a good Indian, how to be a good or how to be a nation state in some
ways. And when you see examples like this, they really kind of, they really
kind of break that discourse, right? So that is, that is one thing that we
learned from Chennai Express. Gunti teaches us something else. Ganti's
reading is also very connected to how one looks and what those looks
mean. Those looks are tied to socioeconomic status. Those looks are
replacing other people. Those looks actually have real life consequences for
somebody's life. I have a lot of other things tied to that, but a lot of those
things are also about how Bollywood is operating and how operating
within Bollywood has become different. This, like it, tells us that there is
something to be said for South Asian cinema, a Bollywood cinema, and the
use of language in that cinema. So obviously most of you are not native
speakers of Hindi and I would wager maybe one or 2% of you are. So for
those of us who are not, you obviously cannot hear the differences in how
people are. Using different accents of Hindi or people are using different
accents of English in Hindi film. But the point that is being made here is all
of those that are all of those uses of language actually mean something
beyond just using that language and they mean something on the screen.
And they have consequences for how people look at themselves on screen
and how they're represented on screen"

Using only the lecture content, answer the following questions in a 150 word response
1. Why is the representation of South Indian people problematic in Chennai Express?