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I watched RRR last night, a 2022 Telugu-language film directed by S. S. Rajamouli, starring two revolutionary Indian heroes of old, but re-imagined to make them meet and have cool adventures together.
It was a very fun movie. The dance numbers were quite impressive, I liked the "bromance", and the action scenes were pretty funny. Everything was pretty over-the-top, especially the British, which is why I'm writing this right now.
The British were not kind to India. I don't really know any specifics on what all horrible things they did, though I am familiar with the "Blowing from Guns in British India" painting that depicted the punishment they gave for some rebellion or other. However, even so, it is kind of odd how they portrayed the British in the movie. The movie opens with a British governor paying a few coins to purchase a child from a village because he liked how she painted and sang, and when the mother tearfully tries to stop the British convoy from leaving, a soldier is about to shoot her, but is stopped because the British governor considers Indians to not be worth the cost of the bullet. Other scenes of similar callous viciousness are common: an Indian man is brutally beaten by a British soldier because the soldier felt embarrassed and wanted to save face, the heroic sepoy who carried out the governor's orders is not promoted because only three white dudes were chosen to be promoted, or a man being flogged is made to be flogged much more than usual because the wife of the governor didn't consider him submissive enough.
The movie is really fun, but interspersed with this kind of atrocity porn, with Englishmen commonly saying that Indians are totally worthless subhuman trash, considering any Indian in the governor's palace a servant, or warning the nice British woman that cavorting with one is dangerous. It came across as an ethnic caricature. I don't think there are any British men favorably portrayed. The only British people favorably portrayed are the beautiful British women at the dance party, and the beautiful British woman who takes a liking to the protagonist. This sends the message to me "all you evil Brits, get out of India, except for your women, we'll definitely be taking those." Which, fair! That's definitely a natural inclination of many people throughout history, but it isn't really brave enough to come out and say it like that.
I was left wondering what other ethnic groups it would be appropriate to give this treatment to. I feel like if you swapped the British caricature with a caricature of any other (non-white) group of people, this movie would never have gotten so popular. People would be afraid to even mention it. I liked the movie, but I wish it didn't have this ugly portrayal in it. It made it less good. Also it was 3 hours long, what the hell.
I dislike white as an umbrella term, because Indian distaste is clearly towards a specific type of upper-class British oppressor. They are white. But more importantly, they are:
All 5 together, create a caricatured evil. Make a small change, and the resulting individual isn't considered evil anymore. As you observed, gender is easiest to change, and a 'white 18th century upper-class British woman' becomes a protagonist.
Hollywood does this all the time. White isn't inherently evil.
1970s white Slavic USSR communist is evil. 19th century southern low-class slaver ? Shoot away. You have to tick all the check boxes. Even the Nazis are always in uniform. Among black people, the quintessential African warlord with a child army is obviously evil. The mountain dwelling bearded Islamist in traditional garb with ak-47s ? evil. Wrinkled old cougar with small dog and leopard print jacket ? Evil. In India, old & fat god man turned politician rings all types of alarm bells.
As bad as British atrocities were (the famines aren't talked about enough), the Catholics (Portuguese inquisition) and Mughals (specifically Aurangzeb) were leaders on cruelty. However, given that India has a large catholic & muslim population, it is difficult to portray them as explicitly evil without ruffling a few feathers. Not a lot of protestant whites in India. The British are an easy consensus target.
Depends on the era. Take Rambo III, where Rambo fights with the brave and gallant Mujaheddin against the evil Soviets in Afghanistan.
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