(by Tauseef Shahidi)
Woke-ness, which was supposed to be an esoteric label, like other such labels, has not only been democratised but alsomischievously as well as maliciously co-opted by a set of people infected with self-righteousness. For these reasons, it is no longer seen as a progressive label. But just because something has been abused does not stop people from using it. Woke-ness is not an exception. Conscientious folks do express their woke-ness from time to time whenever there be a need. And imposters remain woke all the time, mostly when there is no need as such. Most recently, they outpoured rage and venom against a movie which was foolish and outdated insome parts but also endearing and relatable in others, Kabir Singh. These formulaic outbursts are disjointed from the immediate reality and driven by sterile morality. The film is set in the world as it largely is. Here mencall the shots on behalf of women and other men.
Being in love is probably a progressive idea only when and where it is prohibited. This happened to be the case in the said movie. And for the rest of the time, love, like other elusive ideas, namely truth and aesthetics, is paradoxical. It could be emancipating and stiflingat the same time. The female protagonist in the movie, who had always lived in the shadow of a proud patriarchal father with a parochial outlook,needed the crutch of love to attain amorous and sexual liberation; and she did within the fence of love she found. She also eventually found her voice to stand up for herself and her lovein a world which continues to incarcerateone half of the population but only to taste ephemeral betrayal at the hands of her betrothed. This so-called liberation by the way was not intended by the incorrigibly obsessedmale protagonist as he did not treat his love as a sociological project to unshackle this young womanto only cage her later in his imagination.
He unconsciously fell for her into the abyss with the destructive pull of passion which usurpedreason at its height. That is why he had to resort to silly rhetoric upon being asked the reason for his love for her. ‘I like you for the way you breathe.’
Love could look graceful or crass,tastesweet or bitter, seem profound or silly depending upon whether you are paying attention to its method or the intent. Every heartfelt love is same in its intent; it is classified as legitimate or illegitimate only based on its methods. Similar to how love outside the sanctimonious bond of marriage was never granted its due by the old guards, the new guardians of morality are equally militant and insular in their definition of love. What almost always looks infringement to woke spectators could come across as boldness to the one being pursued.Unlike the methods of love which are available for all to scrutinise and judge, the intent is most often covertly but fully gets transmitted only to the receiver. The submissive, but not puritan, character of Kiara Advani did notexpressher offense to the risk her suitor took of planting a peck on her cheek before the uninvited audience. Is it because she did not have any agency? Possible given the kind of household she seems to have been brought up in. It is also possible that she was charmed by the forthright move.It feels sort of wicked to think this waybut is not completely outrageous given the reality around us. There is a thin line, but a distinct one, between being a seducer and an assaulter. Was that line breached?
Love is supposed to be beautiful not unflawed. Beautiful things come with their scars. Flawed people pass on their flaws to their love. Passionate personalities are driven by unhindered and spontaneous passion in their love, whereas people lacking such temperament might never witness gush of such emotions and remain orderly even in their business oflove.
Kabir Singh is sick and addicted, first to his love and later to his misery. His disease is his cure.A lot of his misdeeds were indeed spurting of lovebut not all of them, as it was garbed in the movie. Love is a convenient label which could easily be plastered on other virtues as well as vices—jealousy, gratitude, domination, fidelity, possession. He is a frail man in his solitude. He becomesa maverick, almost a genius,in front of people. His virtual lack of astutenessand pragmatism is a double-edged sword. He risks the life of his patient but is not ready to accepthis absolution for the same bought from expensive bribe—hisunique sense of nobility. I expected him to evolve to accept his fate and move on in life just like DevDuntil the very last scene. But, he is terminally ill with love. The love he wants, and she wants. He is ready to penetrate a woman at knife-point. Does that deserve a moral outrage and reproach?That scene was shot in a jovial mood because the act never materialised.
Baradwaj Rangan 
brangan
June 27, 2019
This has got to be a first. Three submissions about the same movie.
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Anu Warrier
June 27, 2019
I like your take on love. But this line?
He is ready to penetrate a woman at knife-point. Does that deserve a moral outrage and reproach?That scene was shot in a jovial mood because the act never materialised.
That’s unacceptable because there’s nothing jovial about being coerced at knife-point. ‘Attempted rape’ is a chargeable offence. And ‘the act never materialised’ doesn’t undo the outrage that he thinks it acceptable to do it in the first place.
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Ramit
June 27, 2019
What a fantastic write-up!
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tina_84us@yahoo.com
June 28, 2019
“The love he wants, and she wants. He is ready to penetrate a woman at knife-point. Does that deserve a moral outrage and reproach?That scene was shot in a jovial mood because the act never materialised.”
This is so WOKE I am thinking that this guy is a chronic insomniac!
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brangan
June 28, 2019
Tina: Hahaha. That was funny (though I know you wrote it out of irritation).
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Tauseef Shahidi
June 28, 2019
Anu and Tina: I had more to say on the last bit which you two have highlighted. I realised that only after the submission. This part was written in haste and was not that well thought out. It clearly deserved a few more lines and probably a tad bit more of sensitivity.
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Anu Warrier
June 28, 2019
Tina, lady, I laughed! 🙂
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brangan
June 28, 2019
I get a mention here:
https://qz.com/india/1653197/kabir-singh-arjun-reddy-serve-old-bollywood-misogyny-in-raw-form/
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vinjk
June 28, 2019
@brangan A sentence from the article “As for those likeable stalkers, disguising toxic masculinity with song and dance, complemented by a Manish Malhotra wardrobe, those are the ones we need to worry about.”
I think it’s a very valid point. Those are the kind of movies which normalise stalking and other such behaviours.
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Rahul
June 28, 2019
Tauseef, feel free to complete your thought about that scene in the comments section.
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Madan
June 28, 2019
Tauseef: Tad bit is probably an understatement. Please think through what you’re implying again. You’re saying it is OK to use assault weapons to threaten rape. You’re going to have to come up with a good reason why that shouldn’t have called for outrage and reproach.
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Tauseef Shahidi
June 28, 2019
A tad bit only because the part in the write-up was short of words I needed to express, not that I lacked sensitivity in my intent or approach per se.
Anyways coming back to the point I would have liked to elaborate: The scene felt funny because what the protagonist did seemed a quick reaction – in response to a stimulus sort of way. (If you notice, everything happens too quickly in this scene.) His reaction was similar to how an imbecile or a kid (and not a grown-up man) would react upon not getting something he wants to have. Hence, it felt silly, not repulsive until this point. The character was borderline degenerate – not quite there yet- if you consider his behavior in other scenes. He had not yet completely lost it. That is why I am ready to give him the benefit of doubt. There are good reasons to believe (and hope) that he would not have completed what he initiated in that scene, i.e. the act of coercion. I think crossing that line (between trying to do and actually doing) would have been the real test which none of us got to see. That is why I will withhold my moral verdict on this.
Further, the mood in which the director/cinematographer shot it made me feel (actually convinced) that they were not filming a rape scene and, hence, not trivializing the act of rape in any manner because rape is not what was happening here. When you watch something because an act in a movie is not just a few mechanical steps involving body movements/dialogues rather involves everything– the general mood to the tonality to the background to the pace to everything. These aspects together make you know/feel what the director/writer is trying to say — who btw is the ultimate voice which actors are only transmitting.
The larger point is that no matter what your pre-conceived notions are but when you see something you know what it is or it is trying to represent if you take its overall context in the account. I will not right away get onto the act of dissection and turn away from the overall representation. I will always keep the ‘whole’ in mind while looking at parts.
At the very end, if none of what I wrote above convinces you, do not forget that it is just a piece of art, not a real act.
P.S. There could be jokes or jovial takes on anything and everything (including rape). Jokes could be good or bad. It all depends. Depends on where you are coming from.
Ricky Gervais put it best – “If you can’t joke about the most horrendous things in the world, what’s the point of jokes? What’s the point in having humor? Humor is to get us over terrible things.”
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Rahul
June 29, 2019
Tauseef, As we come to know later on, your childish and cute Arjun Reddy who was jovially threatening to rape , had already committed sexual assault on Preethi . In light of that do you want to rewrite your response?
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Anu Warrier
June 29, 2019
There are good reasons to believe (and hope) that he would not have completed what he initiated in that scene, i.e. the act of coercion.
Look at the whole if you wish. Threatening someone at knifepoint – whether for a sexual act or plain robbery – is still morally reprehensible, even if the act is not completed. You don’t have to take my word for it. The law of the land has separate charges for attempted rape, attempted robbery and attempted murder. That’s the ‘whole’.
No one is going to say, ‘Oh, let’s look at the whole and see, he didn’t complete the act of —.’ And no, it wasn’t funny or silly or childish. Art (TM) or no art.
Ricky Gervais put it best – “If you can’t joke about the most horrendous things in the world, what’s the point of jokes?
To all the comedians around the world, especially the ones who have no fricking clue about rape: leave rape out of your jokes.
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Madan
June 29, 2019
Tauseef: Having not watched the film, I will not judge whether it did work in that context or not and in any case, my objection was with the way you framed it in your write up. However:
‘Ricky Gervais put it best – “If you can’t joke about the most horrendous things in the world, what’s the point of jokes? What’s the point in having humor? Humor is to get us over terrible things.”’
Gervais also said the following: “Comedy is an intellectual pursuit, not an emotional one. That’s why I don’t do real racist, sexist, homophobic jokes.”
And…”It’s like, if you start a joke with “Why do all Mexicans…?” I’ll stop you there, because whatever the answer is, they don’t. Racist jokes don’t work comedically. But jokes about race can.”
Just FYI, I didn’t hurriedly google this interview now to make this argument. Rather, I had read it when it was published and recalled him saying the above when I read your quote.
In saying this, he hits upon a significant difference in the way comedy is done and received in UK vis a vis the US/India. Humour in both the latter countries is more direct and slapstick. This is why comedy intended to outrage in both countries also gets into trouble. Don’t just slam the lefties here; there was much outrage from the traditional/right spectrum as well when AIB mocked Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar. On the other hand, in UK, humour is indirect and the point is in being able to get the joke. Therefore, in general, it’s also less malicious if not free of malice.
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Devarsi Ghosh
July 1, 2019
Among other things, I am glad this film revealed how close-minded, dogmatic and absolutely irrational people leaning towards liberal values can be, and how if needed, they can gang up to corner and belittle anyone with any view that is different from what they have as a hivemind. I am simply glad that this film appeared and threw light on the loonies.
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Apu
July 1, 2019
Devarsi Ghosh: “Among other things, I am glad this film revealed how close-minded, dogmatic and absolutely irrational people leaning towards liberal values can be, and how if needed, they can gang up to corner and belittle anyone with any view that is different from what they have as a hivemind. I am simply glad that this film appeared and threw light on the loonies.”
Huh? Elaborate maybe?
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sachita
July 2, 2019
I think what arjun reddy has exposed is how much society as a whole – including the younger generation doesnt get the concept of violence, consent, equality at all. They have machismo hero whom they worship and they cant see why anyone would want to criticize his act.
I mean what is the crime in gunpoint threatening when he didnt actually commit the act? – look at the whole scene. The horror/trauma of being at gunpoint and feeling threatened about physical assault, apparently completely disappears depending on how the scene is staged. It is another matter, this leaves victim usually still shudder with fear, paranoid, PTSD and all of that.
Because heroine is so repressed by her patriachal family, getting little less repressed by a hero is the improvement. WTH!
The film might or might not endorse what the hero does but the entire fans endorse this character and cant/wont take any criticism about him.
We cant even walk away from all this madness – because this is real life for quite a lot of women.
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Devarsi Ghosh
July 2, 2019
Apu: Where to begin? I had tweeted that if film writers can write five lines about film aesthetics, and not just obsess over the plot for 2,000 words, that’d be great. Now, this wasn’t particularly in respect to Kabir Singh, but a general sentiment about most English-language Indian film reviews and how films are assessed by the Twitterati in general. Like, except for the top drawer critics, you will find the mid-range and young reviewers usually drone on and on about the plot and about the rest, they write vague sentences like “cinematography was good”, “editing could have been tighter”, etc. So, that was my issue.
(The reason for this, of course, is that most film reviewers/writers here are not coming from a place of film literacy, like, say, institutional Film Studies in UG or PG levels, and are learning on the job or winging it. Also, in the day of social media, when reviewers are simply awarded for writing the wokest takes, the zeal to make yourself film literate disappears. You are content with the posh attention and go back to gorging on Netflix… but okay, coming back to the point… Kabir Singh.)
Now, the wokes who were frothing at their mouth because of the existence of Kabir Singh got hold of my tweet, and took to me to the cleaners, for daring to make the suggestion that a film is more than its plot when with Kabir Singh (and hereon, I quote a friend), “the plot is so problematic that it is impossible to talk about the aesthetics”. To this friend, I wrote back, “Boss, it is your professional requirement to talk about aesthetics. Are you telling me, a film paralysed enough to not do your job?”
Anyway, so, that tweet was incessantly quote tweeted by a pocket of wokes to paint me as some toxic, chauvnist chap who “doesn’t get” that the “form” is “enabling” the narrative (the patronising, I know, right? Like, there’s an inability to accept that people can choose to have a different opinion). And I had a volley of abuses in my mentions. I have been trolled by patriots online. That’s benign for me. But this was a new vicious level of attacks I had never faced.
So, going back to my original comment, what I mean is that this film revealed the extent of intolerance that wokes and liberals are capable of. They are just flummoxed, their entire being is rocked off their fulcrum, when they see someone in their trade or in their line of work has an opinion that is not the same as theirs.
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Rahul
July 2, 2019
Devarshi Ghosh, I see where you are coming from about aesthetics of a movie. I felt the same thing about Haramkhor , when some reviewers were apparently so offended by the language used that they did not take the film seriously.
Anyhow, a counterpoint to your observation about wokes\ liberals etc . There have been I don’t know , about a dozen articles defending Kabir Singh on this blog, but I don’t think any of the writers have been abused. People are responding with lots of words to get their points across. Also there is a good post by Easwar about the inherent dangers of trying to paint a group based on one’s experience. You can read it here.
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brangan
July 2, 2019
Rahul: The “dozen” posts “defending” the film happened not by design but because the people who wrote them felt that way. 😀 I would be most happy to publish posts that flay the film 😀
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Rahul
July 2, 2019
BR, yes of course, The figure of dozen was mentioned in jest anyway. Btw, I was thinking of writing something about how AR is problematic but it is different from other movies of the toxic tradition. Since I am never going to write it. here is a thought.
Normally the hero kissing the heroine without consent comes under the sexist trope of taming of the shrew. Here the director has gone out of the way to make sure there is no shrew to be tamed, hence that trope is subverted. But even if the intent is to satirize \subvert the toxic hero tropes, thanks to Poe’s law , the social impact is probably the same.
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Devarsi Ghosh
July 2, 2019
Rahul: Please spell my name correctly, thanks.
BR’s comments section has historically been mostly civil (I mean, no abusive words or snide remarks of the kind you see on Twitter), and additionally, he moderates it, so it stays civil, more or less. Twitter is a different beast.
Eswar is right.
I think, sadly, the circumstances now are that if a person chooses to have an opinion other than what a large group thinks, the person is immediately painted as “not one of ours”. Then, instead of engaging with the argument head-on, the group moves to singling out the person and become judge, jury and executioner. We have seen this with the “anti-national” witch-hunting, for instance.
What this does to the person is that it colours his/her mind about the very nature of the ideals that keep the group close. For instance, I know very civil and educated supporters of the Narendra Modi government, who approach politics from an economic point of view, and are in no way, bigots or any such thing. Or they just maybe disdainful of the politics liberals preach, or of their methods, but are not particularly fans of the government.
And I also know liberals who, if they encountered such a person, would immediately see him as a Sanghi or what not, because such are times! There’s an alarming disappearance of the intention to intellectually engage, it seems.
In my case, yes, absolutely, the criticism that the film is painting an asshole in a glorious light is absolutely correct. But then if I write that it’s wrong to call for a ban of the film or say that such films shouldn’t exist, I will be seen in certain quarters of the wokes (I added “certain quarters”, because, as I said, Eswar is right) as… a whatever, make it up.
What stunned me was that few people tried to engage with my argument directly. It doesn’t take much to just tell me, “Hey man, I think you are wrong, because… x, y, z”. It’s effortless. What is this rush to collect woke coins to register yourself in the guest list of an invisible social club?
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Madan
July 2, 2019
Devarsi Ghosh: While I agree with much of what you say, I want to ask why you are on Twitter at all. I want to ask anybody who complains about the toxicity of Twitter why you are on it anyway. Get away, don’t enable it any further. It has already done a lot of damage. Even FB doesn’t get so toxic as Twitter does. All that the big social media giants have achieved is marginalise spaces like this here blog and herd everyone into spaces where people simply take advantage of the internet to say things they wouldn’t face to face. These giants continue to be unrepentant even as a President who is not aligned with their professed values runs roughshod over American institutions. If we remain cravenly addicted to Twitter, we have ourselves to blame. Everybody get off Twitter and they will get down on both knees and offer solutions instead of feigning helplessness. Instead of this, we are indulging in a game of taking opposing sides and abusing the side we aren’t. And this is exactly what they want as it increased traffic on their platforms. If democracy gets burnt along the way, they are least bothered. They have already made their billions.
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Devarsi Ghosh
July 2, 2019
Madan, trust me. Since I am in journalism, I just have to be on Twitter, because all news breaks there. It’s a great source for news, views and informative stuff on a day-to-day basis, and genuinely, if I wasn’t a professional in the news business, I would deactivate Twitter.
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brangan
July 2, 2019
Devarsi Ghosh: You can do what I do, which is to post or RT or give quick replies, but not actually engage with anyone on the platform. Apart from the negativity etc, it’s a HUGE time sink.
You once asked me how I managed to write so much, plus make so many videos. Well, not engaging with Tweeple is definitely one reason 😀
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Devarsi Ghosh
July 2, 2019
BR: Yes, I need to do that. Some days, I am successful. Most days, I am not.
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Madan
July 2, 2019
“Since I am in journalism, I just have to be on Twitter, because all news breaks there.” – Not buying this. As in not at your level. But the media as an industry has no reason to enable twitter. In fact, twitter gained critical mass when conventional media outlets started having a twitter presence out of FOMO. So, basically, when the media itself enables twitter and then reports on how twitter is used to compromise elections, it screams hypocrisy to me. You don’t have to. It’s not a necessity. It’s greed, the fear of missing out on the eyeballs you would get if you were on twitter.
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Madan
July 2, 2019
At least in India, most people still do not get their news from twitter. All that twitter does is provide a place to post news which can be quickly disseminated. But it can still be done by other means and it is simply the ubiquity of twitter that makes it a habit. I don’t go to twitter to check the news, nor do most people I know. And the people I know are normal people only, not some fringe group that has decided to resist technology etc.
And as BR said, if it was only about the need to be there, why don’t media people simply stick to disseminating news items and moving on? Why do they get into arguments on twitter? Make twitter boring again, isolate the hateful minority. Instead, what we do now only feeds the trolls.
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Devarsi Ghosh
July 2, 2019
You’re probably right, Madan.
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NaamShabana
July 6, 2019
@Baddy, please tell us if your opinion on kabir singh/arjun reddy has changed after having seen the interview its director gave Anupama. Now you certainly know his intent behind various scenes.
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brangan
July 7, 2019
NaamShabana: This is what I wrote on Twitter.
Yet to watch THE interview, but because many of you asked:
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NaamShabana
July 7, 2019
I actually am not outraging. Every attempt to enquire is not outrage. I do not think that the tone and tenor of my question implied anything else either. I would have asked/assaulted you on twitter otherwise. 🙂 I genuinely wanted to know how the knowledge of the director’s intention may change your perception of the film, if at all it does and if it should also. I actually agreed with you that it essentially boils down to whether we want our films to be moral or not. Again, I think it is the job of films to push/question the boundaries of societal constructs such as morality. I did however feel after watching the interview that the director had no such intention of pushing the boundaries of morality- taking us to questionable places. We may be granting the benefit of nuance to someone who does not really deserve it. The film/art certainly might still deserve that benefit.
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brangan
July 7, 2019
NaamShabana: I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that YOU were outraging. I just copy-pasted that tweet because I felt that kind of summed up my answer, that’s all 🙂
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Madan
July 10, 2019
I have now seen that knife point scene. In the limited context of the scene, it works. BECAUSE we don’t know at that point that the director sympathisers heavily with Arjun Reddy. It is also disturbing what you got out of the scene, that he wants to penetrate a woman so bad he threatens her at knife point. Obviously when it is ONLY that, it will provoke outrage and should. But the actual scene is different. It is a one night stand aborted by the unexpected arrival of the girl’s fiancé. They are BOTH transgressing moral norms and while she wants to back out, he is desperate and tries to use force to obtain it. In that scene, there is yet no judgement or taking sides by the director but the movie that develops makes it hard to accept he really shot it in a neutral way. No, he genuinely thinks it’s funny to threaten a woman for sex at knife point. And that is despicable.
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