Keeping abreast of
America By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - Such is the nature of media that the
Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake event (rather,
non-event) at the Super Bowl MTV half-time show where
Timberlake yanked on Jackson’s top to expose her breast
on US national television creates as much of a
reverberation here in India as it does in the United
States. It is featured on TV, Internet, editorials, and
front-page news, in vernacular as well as English. One
comment mentioned it as the most eye-popping news to hit
the subcontinent for some time.
In the history
of Internet search engines, queries pertaining to
Jackson have reached record highs, astonishingly even
bigger than that of September 11, 2001. But as in most
countries, India is indignant at the prospect of a
foreign culture polluting our young minds. There should
be limits to marketing gimmicks offending a family
outing, many have remarked. But the bigger question is
about culture. In a world where the nature of seamless
media makes every little happening in any corner just a
switch of the television or a click of the Internet
away, are we also looking at a world where cultural
borders are broken? If so, can they be resisted? Should
they be?
One is not arguing that the
Janet-Justin (J-J) act is in any way a reflection of the
way American people behave or think, as reflected by the
sense of anger in the United States, given that there
were children and families at the Super Bowl. A federal
inquiry is in place. Of course, things are more
civilized in the US. If Timberlake were in India, an
inquiry would have translated into police interrogation,
not the most comforting thought. India's Bhagra pop star
Daler Mehendi, who has been exonerated of charges of
promoting illegal human trafficking, was reportedly
stripped and ordered to belt out his popular numbers by
investigators inside a dingy police post.
A
couple of years back, pop star Ricky Martin was here for
a concert and was given similar treatment by Indian
income-tax officials. He hasn't returned since.
But back to J-J. It was a marketing stunt that
crossed the Rubicon and has ruffled the feathers of the
cultural Cassandras here and elsewhere. Could such
marketing principles be applied by Indian marketers as
well? The temptation can always be there. Would an
Indian Bollywood actor be made to do something similar
(and then deny it was planned)? Doubtful, considering
that by Indian standards, kissing a co-actress on stage
would cause as much of a furor and escalated TV ratings
(see What kissing James Bond means to
India, January 9).
Facets of American
popular culture are regularly covered by tabloid media
here (there is exclusive tabloid TV too). There's
Britney Spears' virginity enigma - and it can get no
weirder with Michael Jackson. Or, how can 42-year-old
Demi Moore and 25-year-old Ashton Kutcher attend an
event with her three daughters (Ashton technically could
be the stepfather) with ex-husband Bruce Willis in tow
accompanied by his current girlfriend? Indians are known
to be a tolerant civilization, but such levels of
understanding between an ex- and current flame are quite
rare. Then there is the mother of all pop-ups, Madonna,
who frequently appears in the media because of, one
could call them, non-motherly stunts. Or what about
Justin and his Kylie Minogue derriere grab? Most
recently, it was A-list actress Nicole Kidman who stood
exposed in front of cameras where usually such gaffes
seem to occur with alarming regularity and alacrity.
It is not as if the Indian establishment has not
tried to snip off elements that are considered, in their
view, to be inappropriate for "vulnerable" Indian minds.
Former information and broadcasting minister Sushma
Swaraj took umbrage to Fashion Television's
breast-popping models sashaying down the aisle. FTV
producers flew down to India to assuage the ruffled
Swaraj. The models were buffered for a few days, but
reappeared in true glory a few days later. There was no
further word from Swaraj.
One institution cinema
producers here hate the most is the censor board that
clears the huge output of movies being released by the
film industry. The board considers itself to be the
moral police of Indian society, snipping and cutting
portions considered inadequate. For example, cigarette
smoking is sometimes not allowed, but shooting with a
gun is. Then there have been attempts by the Indian
government to monitor the Internet to check access to
porn in cyber-cafes, such as by urging cafe owners to
keep a record of URLs that every user visits, which any
surfer knows can easily be trashed. Union Minister Arun
Jaitly took particular umbrage to Internet porn and went
to town about the deleterious impact on Indian society.
A few years ago, budding actress Mamta Kulkarni appeared
topless, with her arms wrapped around her for cover, on
a film glossy. She spent quite a bit of her career doing
the rounds of courts where several litigations were
filed against her for public indecency. Nobody has
followed Mamta's path, but Bollywood movies have gotten
bolder, with crossover films such as Kamasutra
pretty much matching anything hot doled out by
Hollywood.
But sometimes it is difficult to
judge the impact of an image. Just last week, a young
boy jumped out of the window with a noose around his
neck, expecting Shaktimaan, a Hindi version of Superman
who plays on television, to rescue him. The boy died.
Indeed, whatever form may be the influence, most
endeavors to check any global multimedia onslaughts have
failed. Given the rapid advance of technology and
various media platforms, it is impossible to control the
flow of information, whether text or visual, good or
bad. And herein lies the problem.
There is also
an unwritten consensus that there is no middle path of
exercising the right kind of safeguard. The decision is
too subjective and against the liberal principles that
this nation is striving to attain. The other path is to
go the way of a country such as Saudi Arabia, wherein
the subjects get to hear or see what is decided, not
others such as CNN or BBC. A scary thought,
notwithstanding J-J in the current scenario.
All
is not good about America: drug abuse, AIDS, high
divorce rates. But all is not good about Indian culture,
either: self-righteousness, violence against women,
child labor, lack of human rights and dignity. But,
there are good elements in both. India can offer yoga,
meditation, software, professionalism and vegetarianism,
while the US is witness to the best and worst of
pragmatism, capitalism and commercialism. It is wise to
pick the best elements of both subcultures, as mores are
enmeshed. This should be the direction, but ultimately
the choice is individual. That's liberty, and that's
keeping a-breast of America.
Siddharth
Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.
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Feb 7, 2004
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