Course M.A.
sem 02
Roll no. 21
Paper 08:
(Cultural Studies)
Batch:
2015-17)
Topic:
Explain Blood Diamond and Lagaan Movies are related to postcolonialism
Submitted
to: Department of English M.K.B.U. University, Bhavnagar.
Introduction
Post-colonialism is a period of time after
colonialism, and post-colonial literature is typically characterized by its
opposition to the colonial postcolonial literature often focuses on race
relations and the effects of racism.
Postcolonial studies is concerned, as the chapter on
theories explores, the oppression of the non-European races by European ones,
Cultural studies in a globalized age also needs to be conscious of the racial
zed nature of globalized/globalizing culture. That is the theme of race and
unequal relations has to be worked into any analysis of global cultures. For
instance, we need to ask how Hollywood films circulate globally. Does the fact
that audiences in Asia or Africa will be viewing these films influence the film
maker? How does a Hollywood film appear to poorer nations in these areas of the
world? Think of films like Romancing the Stone, Indian Jones and Blood Diamond
which explore other cultures how are these conceived by Americans and received
by other parts of the world?
Let’s discuss Hollywood film Blood Diamond related to
postcolonialism.
Blood Diamond
Director: Edward Zwick
Produced by: Marshall Herskovitz
Written by: Charles Leavitt
Blood Diamond is a 2006 American- German
political war thriller film co produced and directed by Edward Zwick. The title
refers to blood diamonds, which are diamonds mined in war Zones and sold to
finance conflicts, and thereby profit warlords and diamond companies across the
world.
This film is powerful film, and the best
picture. It combines action, drama and romance with a heart wrenching look at
violence in Africa. The story is captivating and builds to an emotional ending.
There is a lot of violence and “Blood Diamond” is certainly not for children.
This film instead to paint a realistic picture of the horrors of civil war.
Blood Diamond a thriller that promises and delivers in great style. This story
centres around two men –one black, one white.
Set during the Sierra Leone Civil war in
1996-2001, the film depicts a country torn apart by the struggle between
government loyalists and insurgent forces. It also portrays many of the
atrocities of that war, including the rebel’s amputation of people’s hands to
discourage them from voting in upcoming elections.
The film’s ending, in which a conference is
held concerning blood diamonds, refers to a historic meeting that took place in
Kimberley, South Africa in 2000. The
film received mixed but generally favourable reviews, with praise directed
mainly to the performances of Di Caprio and Hounsou; they were nominated for
the Academy Award for Best Actor and Best supporting Actor, respectively.
Simon During,
noted cultural theorist, outlines a set of reasons for connecting Post
colonialism with globalization studies (2000).
1)
All culture now is linked with the
supply of money.
2)
All cultures now have transnational
subsidiaries, opponents or collaborations.
3)
Cultures are no more territorial
and hence do not cohere or fuse into wholes or ‘traditions’.
Lagaan
Director: Ashutosh
Gowariker
Produced by: Amir
Khan and Mansoor Khan
Written by: K. P.
Saxena
Release dates: 15
June 2001.
Lagaan means “tax” – the tax paid by Indian subjects
to their British overloads; and the film Lagaan, set during the Victorian era,
is about a tax revolt by overburdened villagers. The tax revolt crisis leads to
a cricket match challenge between the villagers, who have never played the game
before- led by Amir Khan, in the role that propelled him to stardom- and the
British. It’s a feel- good movie on a grand scale about national pride made by
the same director as Jodha Akbar, Ashutosh Gowariker, but earlier in his
career. It’s great to watch post-colonial people talking pride in their culture
and history, even if it means playing up stereo types and formulaic plot lines.
Amir Khan is awesome.
An analysis of the use of cricket metaphor in
Ashutosh’s film indicates how cricket, the once proud cultural form of colonial
Britain, is subverted in such a way that it becomes a tool for decolonization. According
to Appadural, “decolonization is a dialogue with the colonial past, and not a
simple dismantling of the colonial habits and modes of life”. This treatment of
cricket, which is more of an appropriation of a reality that is fundamentally
colonial in character than of a rejection of the reality, provides important
insights into the tension between colonialism and post colonialism his appropriation
problematizes the conception of a dichotomous relationship between colonialism
and post colonialism and introduce a sense of historical continuity to the
broader picture of which the phases of colonialism and post colonialism are
part. It introduces a perspective that recognizes certain possibilities for
post colonialism in colonialism and an element of colonialism in post
colonialism.
Lagaan is a massive film and it has a lot of relevance
to my literary studies, so I have an inclination to talk of it like a work of
literature within the realm of British colonialism- Indian nationalism and
postcolonial discourse. Lagaan’s engagement in themes of nationalism,
colonialism and reverse colonialism came out than was healthy. Aamir himself
says, is always entertainment at its heart. Lagaan is an intellectual interest
in colonial British India and subsequently postcolonialism. Lagaan is, perhaps
above all other things, a story of Indian nationalism in rejection of British
colonial control. In order to save their village, which is being taxed to the
point of starvation, a group of men band together to fight against the odds and
play a game they don’t understand against their English overlords. It isn’t
necessarily nationalism in the strictest sense because it is limited mostly to
one village with some other characters, like the Sikh Deva, joining from
elsewhere- but I consider it a representative microcosm at the very least as
Indians come together across class boundaries in the united defence of their
land.
If you want to understand cricket- and even more, if
you want to understand some of the attachment of Indians to cricket- Lagaan is
a good place to start. Talking about cricket is also a good place to start with
Lagaan. Coming into the film with knowledge of cricket isn’t necessary but if
you don’t like cricket, you may want to beware. There is much more to the film
than cricket- in fact, cricket is just the vehicle of the film’s greater
colonial themes.
Lagaan also points to the dichotomy of cricket with
reference to colonialism. It is both a rejection of and a lingering attachment
to the British Raj. It offers both the chance to beat the colonizer at his own
game and the chance to join the colonizer’s game, playing by his rules. This is
what I consider one of the most fascinating lingering effects of colonialism on
India: the fervent, fanatical, almost religious attachment that Indians have to
a game given to them by colonialism.
Lagaan
perhaps seeks to point out a reason for this fanatical attachment that seems to
defy logic. It began as a way to best the colonial. The men become so familiar
and obsessed with the game in their intense desire to beat the British. The
film also contains several Indian characters who at first play along with the
British colonials for various reasons, most of whom are not faulted for their
association with the British. All, however, ultimately find that their
allegiance is to their countrymen, and the expression of their shifted
loyalties all comes out within the heat of the cricket match. Three such
characters fill this “wavering Indian” role: Lakha, who spies on the Indian
team for the British because of his personal hatred for Bhuvan; Ram Singh, who acts as an aide and
translator until he is struck at the match by Russell; and the provincial Raja,
who throughout occupies a precarious position that straddles the two worlds. If
themes of colonialism pervade and consume even the sports match in Lagaan, the
film’s love story is also able to evade the trappings of reverse colonial
discourse. The religious story is added perhaps as an attempt to distance the
Bhuvan Elizabeth relationship from its actual basis in racialized revererse-
colonial politics. It is an attempt to make sense of a relationship that is
about colonialism without using colonialism; in other words, it’s trying to
disguise the fact that it is about race and colonialism by using religion as an
alternate framework.
Lagaan creates a real character facing pressure from
overhead to collect more taxes and increase a grip on the peasants- a pressure
he in turn takes out on those beneath him. Russell also has a real family in
Elizabeth, a sister who runs off to teach his enemies how to beat him in the
cricket match that his career rides on. Irony for Russell and his singleminded
colonialism comes at the film’s end, when he is shipped off to central Africa.
There, of course, Russell will continue to participate in colonialism, but
among peoples even darker-skinned and more violent than the Indians.
1) Hindi films being financed by non-resident Indians.
2) Hindi films and
their popularity in other countries where both non-resident Indians and others
watch them.
3) The stage shows
performed by Hindi film stars abroad, extending Bollywood culture in other
ways.
Conclusion
The Lagaan film is set in the Victorian
period of India’s colonial British Raj. Blood Diamond film is rarity these days
that we see films that are set in Africa, which show the poverty, dictatorship,
conscription, war and pain of a nation. Thus, we can say that
Lagaan and Blood Diamond these two movies are related to postcolonialism and
cultural studies
.
.
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