On the Bechdecast, the questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and Beast start changing it with the Bechdelcast.
Oh it was worth it, thank you? Oh oh oh. It's the big day, Caitlin.
It's the Big Days, it's the.
Big show, and it's Caitlin's birthday episode. We come to this place, We come to this podcast to celebrate Caitlyn Duranta's birthday, and on their birthday, we of course cover one of their favorite movies. But first, this is the Bechdel Cast. It is which means that, yeah, what does it mean? I'm Jamie Loftus.
It doesn't mean that you're Jamie loftas, it means I'm Caitlin Derante, And it means that we talk about movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point. Jamie, what is that?
Sorry, my mouth's full of biscuit.
That's what you are, the baiscuit gobbler, as we've established five minutes ago.
Yeah, I proudly self identify there's a biscuit. It's complicated. Listeners, there's a really gentrified biscuit place that opened down the street and I've been I've been gobbling it up. I don't feel good about it.
Gobbled those biscuits, Jamie, but.
I do get so hungry. Here's what the Bechdel test is.
That passed. The Bechdel to us talking about gobbling biscuits, that passes.
It's true because biscuits are famously genderless. So the Bechel test is a media metric created by queer cartoon as Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. Lots of versions of this test was originally made as a bit as a joke for Alice Bechtel's Amazing comic collection Likes to watch out for a lot of versions of the test.
Here's the one we use. We require that therapy two characters of a marginalized gender with names speaking to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue. And sometimes and I'm just like spitballing here. There's movies that could be three hours long and not past this test. It's true, but yeah, that's the one we use. And then we also use a more important metric, which is the one that we made up called the nipple.
Scale, perfect, flawless.
I don't know what I would want the nipple scale to be called if we started the podcast today. I feel like we could a bunch.
Of disagree if we had to do it all over again. That's the one thing.
No regrets, no regrets that I keep. Well, Happy birthday, Caitlin, it's your birthday, it.
Is my birthday, and as such I have selected one of my a recent favorite, but one of my favorite movies are R R, which is a Telugu language movie from India, so it's Tollywood, not a Bollywood film that I saw last year. So it was released in March twenty twenty two. It had a release in the US and kind of by word of mouth, it grew in popularity. I saw it in July or maybe June or July of twenty twenty two. A friend of mine was like, what you haven't seen rr You'd love it? So I went to the theater.
I mean, it is a ramp.
It is it is a romp. Yeah, romp.
It's a round ron ramp.
And I was in not a super full theater because it was just sort of like a regae the screening, but it was a rowdy crowd. The best way to experience this movie is in a theater with a crowd who is cheering and clapping. And that's how I saw it the first time. And then I've since seen it six times in theaters total.
Often in Q and A settings, right, yeah, the.
Director with the director in like huge theaters, you know. I think the biggest one was a like a fifteen hundred seat theater in downtown Los Angeles. I saw it at the Chinese Theater a few months before that.
We saw it on the West Side at some point.
Yeah, we saw it in Santa Monica.
Because Caitlin did. And I enjoyed the movie. But you dragged every single person in your expanded universe to this movie, to a screening at one point or another's, and it's not to a screening, then to your personal home where yes, it is true, and Sammy would show it you were you were working full time, unpaid You're in a full time, unpaid intern for the movie. R r R.
This movie really spoke to me because and we'll talk about its many issues later on, but there's also I think a lot to love about this movie. I think probably most people are at least familiar with it if they haven't yet seen it. It is on Netflix. The version on Netflix is the Hindi dub, so it's not in its original language. And then it won a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Best Original Song. Yeah, so I think it's like on people's radars for the most part.
If you're if I think even if you're like a casual movie fan, this has probably come across your desk at some point, right, But yeah, it did feel like kind of a rare And we talk about this with our guests in a bit, and I guess we're formatting our episode a little bit different today where most of the discussion will be with Caitlin and myself and we have an amazing guest coming in later to give us
more historical context. And the reason I say that is because there are very few Indian movies that cross over into the West in the way our r R has right. And I think honestly, like in preparing for this episode and watching this movie through the Bechdel test lens and Rebctel cast lens, rather it's just recurring. I mean, it's I know so little about Indian film, and yeah, I mean, I don't know it. It made me, It made me think,
made me think. And also RR is such a fun movie, and if you don't know any historical context for it, maybe watch it once without knowing and then listen to the second half of the episode and then go back and watch it again and watch responsibly. But it was really like because you insisted making it so like I was under duress, but I did. It was a it was a car load of Bechdel cast luminaries because it was you and me went and we're the hosts of the show.
It's true, there's no doubt about it.
There's never been any others. And then also guest Sammy Junio and Catherine Leon were also with us. Katherine and I had not seen it before you and Sammy had seen it maybe fifty billion times at that point.
Yeah, that sounds right.
And so it was exciting, I mean, like watching people react to the movie in real time, and like, I mean, it was a bit scary at times, sure, but you know, it was very we come to this place vibes. I really liked it.
It's a movie that feels like a movie.
Yes, I truly. I'd never seen a I mean, I'd seen Indian movies before, but never like a big epic the way that this is. And it's I think it's kind of interesting for Western audiences because we're just like not used to it to have a movie that changes genres several times when like it's almost it's like a really pleasant creative jump scare where you're like, oh, I guess you could just start singing too, like And I know that that is like pretty commonplace in a lot
of Indian movies. And also there's such a huge diverse film community because there's so many languages, there's all of these different industries. But I know in the East that that is a more common sort of film filmic language. But for a crowd full of people in Santa Monica, they're like, oh my god, it's a rom com Oh my god, it's an action movie. Oh my god, it's.
Like buddy comedy.
Yeah, it's like there's so much happening. I looked up the budget for this movie. What would you guess the budget for this movie was.
I don't have to guess, I already know.
Oh shit, Well, it's the highest budget movie I believe ever made in India.
I think that's true, Yes, but it made.
Me laugh at Hollywood movies because there there can be such slops where it's like the last Star Wars movie costs like two hundred and seventy five million dollars, is like running on absolute fumes. Babu Frick truly the only shock of life that exists in that movie. Meanwhile, this movie is on all cylinders whole fucking time, and it was seventy two million dollars. Yeah, USD.
It really makes you wonder what Hollywood is spending money on with these wildly inflated budgets.
I hope they paid Babu Freak one hundred million the poppit.
Yeah, and it's the third highest grossing Indian film worldwide and the second highest grossing Telugu film worldwide, the highest grossing one being another of this director's movies, Bahu Bali. Oh shoot. I don't know if it's part one or two because there's like the beginning and then the conclusion. All this to say that this is a huge movie globally, Like you said, Jamie, one of the few movies from India that crossed over and had and has like a huge following in audience in the US. It also has
a huge following in Japan. And I'm kind of speculating here, but I think something that might account for that is that and I'm not super familiar with a lot of anime, but everyone I know who does know a lot about anime and who has also seen RRR, They're like, yeah, RRR is just an anime feel like a live action anime. Oh interesting, So I think that might account for at least partly why it was so successful in Japan. And yeah, so it's like this global phenomenon.
I mean, this is the kind of movie where it's like there's fucking something for truly everyone. It's like, if you're not loving this movie, just like, wait twenty minutes, like and yeah, probably something totally different that you might like a lot better will probably be happening at that point. It's pretty like, it's pretty amazing. I really hope that. I mean I know that there are there are well, actually I don't, I don't know. I don't know what.
I don't know, but I am very pro and now we're doing this, but it still feels like it's all cohesive enough. There are sometimes where we were like hmm, that guy just changed rather quickly. They're like, I think right there. I do think that there is a moment in them. And this isn't even a criticism, but there's a moment in the movie where Beam goes from being such a dufus to like the most bloodthirsty man in
the world. He has a good half hour of just full on dufus and then he's like, actually, now I'm hard as fuck for the rest of the movie, and you're.
Like, yeah, all right. His love for Jenny made him doofy.
He's kind of like Hillary duffing a little bit. I not, He's kind of just like, oh, like, you know, yeah.
Then he's like, wait a minute, I remember the mission that I'm on I have to save a little girl, and then yeah, he does that.
I mean, I would love to see Hillary Duff on a rescue mission movie. It's just not what. It's just not yet. At the time of this recording, Hillary Duff has not headlined a blockbuster action franchise. But but never say never.
Well, that's because we have yet to write it.
She uh, I mean, my unproblematic queen. I think hard to say. I think, as far as we know, haven't heard a bad word about her. I just know she's like married a lot of hockey players, which I think is just like a fun habit.
Good for her.
It's not the sort of thing you would think would happen more than once anyway. True.
Okay, so let's take a quick break and then I'm back and do the recap.
Yeah, let's do it.
Okay, we'll be right back, and we are back a little context before I even begin the recap. So this movie is loosely based on two Indian freedom fighters who I don't think ever collaborated in real life. But basically this movie like re envisions history and is like what if they did collaborate and what if they were best friends?
And also is a very it's funny. I don't again, I don't think I've ever seen a movie framed this way precisely where there is a lot of and we talk about this a little bit with our guest as well, but there's a lot at the beginning of like, hey, this is these are real people, but the story is not real. So like you cannot get upset and you can't be mad, and you can't see me and you can't yell at me because it's not it's not real.
It's made I made it up. It's real people, but I made it up, right, Okay, And you're like it almost like I don't know not to keep I just love to compare things because I'm judgmental, but it almost reminded me. But this like doesn't happen in inglorious bastards, but it almost feels like an inglorious bastard's level of like, for sure none of this shit happened. Yeah, I didn't.
I honestly didn't look in to see if these two people had ever collaborated and Raju, but I also know that it's like a very like overly simplistic, almost like a mythic view of these figures versus being super based in their actual politics or critical of any of their political legacies, which we'll talk about later in the episode. But yeah, it's like I was honestly surprised to see that they were using actual historical figures for this because it feels so like mythic.
I don't know, right, Yeah, because it takes again these two real life Indian revolutionaries Aluri Sita Rama Raju and comoram Beim and envisions them as superheroes.
Basically, right so, and especially after doing some research and speaking with our guest, this movie is also very centered on Hindu figures and is pretty exclusionary of Muslim figures, which is something that we talk about in our interview because I think that a lot of Westerners who just like who went to this movie and got fucking pumped, like, we don't all have that context. So if you don't have that context, don't feel bad.
But you know, I certainly didn't the first time I watched it, and had to do a lot of my own just sort of research and digging to learn about just a lot of things regarding Indian history, the current political climate of India, and how this movie fits into all of that. And that's something, yeah, we'll get into.
Later, yet another way that the American schooling system failed us. I don't think I learned anything about India in school for the most part, honestly, sight of British colonization that's all I knew about.
I mean, when I was a kid, my major frame of reference for India and Indian culture came from watching movies, and many of those movies, yeah, were horribly racists, such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, or they were told from a colonizer's perspective, like I watched The Little Princess a lot, and.
Right, yeah, I mean, we're we're exposed to so much colonizer perspective in media. And then also even with I feel like I keep foreshadowing this interview because this is in our normal format, right, but also with r r R, it's like r R is very anti colonial and anti imperial on its face, but also excludes a lot of contexts that it's like not quite as radical as it appears.
And so it's so I don't know, I think we've been we also listeners, you'll know that we recently covered The Woman King, and so we've just been like covering a lot of like loosely historical epics recently that are obviously going to influence people's views of the time and
the people that are being discussed in the movie. I mean, and even for us watching r R for the first time last year, it gave us kind of a skewed view of of I mean a lot of different issues, and so I just I don't know, I don't know what to say. I just it's it's a very tricky problem because it's like it shouldn't be the job of
movies to educate you. But it's also like willfully kind of ignorant to say like, well, I don't know, I don't I'm I'm just I'm just a creative goofy goof messing around, and you're.
Like, well, but but you also kind of have a responsibility to represent things responsibly.
Right, And it doesn't mean that every movie has to be a documentary like but I don't know, uh, complicated, ongoing discussion. I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of it and the changes will be permanent.
Yeah, and we will fix society because of it.
Surely, this isn't an unknowable question anyways, So let's talk. Okay, So for this first chunk we are going to be talking about the movie and the story, and then we will return to the historical context because otherwise my brain will explode.
Yes, so here's the recap. The movie is very long. It's not as long as Titanic, No, it's ten minutes shorter.
But they and at the theater, they give you a they give you an intermission, which I think is so fun. I love that. Yes, oh felt good.
So the movie is very long, and I'm going to leave out some details and characters, but this is the gist of it. We open on a village in the Adela bad forest in India. It's the nineteen twenties. The GND people who live in the village are playing reluctant host to Governor Scott and his wife, Lady Buxton, whose.
Name is Kathy Too.
Yeah.
I was like, wow, I'm sensitive to Kathy slander, but this Kathy is the worst Kathy in the world.
She's really bad. So Governor Scott makes it seem like his last name is Scott, but it's Scott Buxton, so Scott is his first name. So that would be if people were like, oh, Governor Jamie, that's.
So her president Joe, Yeah what, But.
Everyone calls him Governor Scott, so that's great his name. So they are British imperialist colonizers. A young girl, Malay, is painting skin art on Lady Buxton. She's singing a song and Lady Buxton decides that she wants to keep Malay, so they abduct her from the village. Her mother is obviously crying and devastated.
That first, I mean, yeah, it's absolutely brutal. She's kidnapped, She's kidnapped right in front of her, and then her mom. I thought the first time I saw the movie that her mother was killed, but fortunately she's not killed, but she was her I mean a yeah. In the opening sequence, there is a young girl who is abducted and another woman who is beat brutally. Yes, so right out the gate, it's very intense. Also, I just wanted to shout out the young actor who plays Molly's name is Twinkle Sharma,
which is my favorite name I've ever heard. Love that like Twinkle. I love it. I love it, I love her. Will continue to follow this young star's career, We.
Sure will, so we see this devastating opening sequence. Then we cut to the outskirts of Delhi, where we meet Rama Raju played by Ramcharan, a police officer working for the British government who is tasked with arresting a protester. We then see a long sequence of him beating his way through a crowd of hundreds of protesters and eventually reaching and arresting the guy.
And it's like, it is, it is why, it's it's wild, it is really you. It's hard to describe how many things happen, because so many things happen.
Yeah, if we didn't make this clear yet, this movie is like everything is dialed up to an eleven. Yes, the action sequences, the there's also almost constant music happening and like.
And it's big music.
Yeah, big epic music.
As musicians, the music big.
The music is big. We are scholars. It's one of my favorite scores of all time. It's such a beautiful arrangement of music. But yeah, everything is just like cranked all the way up in this movie. There's no subtlety whatsoever. Everything is just like.
There's no boom boom boom, there's no rest. So if something sounds really intense.
It is. That's what it's like.
But yeah, huge, huge fight scene to establish the strength and will of ram Right and also that he is working for the British at the beginning of the movie.
Yes, and we will come to understand Rom's particular motivation for being an officer later on. And even though he like accomplishes this like Banana's feat of like beating his way through this crowd and arresting this person, he is still not promoted to special officer, which upsets him so much that he punches a hole in a punching bag. Oh, because he really wants to be special Officer for again,
reasons we will understand later. Then we see a meeting where this guy Edward, who is Governor Scott's right hand man. He is being advised to return Malay, the girl who was taken from the village, because there is a man from her tribe who will stop at nothing to hunt down her captors and find her.
Oh. And then there's a really thrilling intro shot unlike anything you've ever seen.
Just oh.
Shot, it's really good.
Yes, we meet camaraan Beam played by Nti rama Ro Junior aka NTR Junior, while he's chasing wolves and tigers in the jungle to capture them for reasons that will also become clear later. And then Beam heads to Delhi where he and his brother Lachu and a couple of their friends are trying to figure out how to get into the palace to rescue Maley. They notice this woman Jenny, who lives in the palace, and she seems nice.
So Jenny's whole thing is every I mean. And again it's like part of this really broad storytelling of like she is the one British nice she's the nice colonizer. Yeah you like her? Okay, I guess no, we like her. She's Governor Scott's niece. But sometimes she's like, hey stop that.
Yeah.
That's literally the extent of her allyship is hey cut that out, don't do it. Yeah, that's how we meet her. She's saying, hey, cut that out.
Yeah.
When an officer is beating a man for no reason, she says, hey cut that out.
Yes, And then so Beam is like a woga who's that. She's pretty and she's nice, and they figure that if they can befriend her, she could be their ticket into the palace. Meanwhile, Edward and Lady Buxton are like, hm, I guess we should be worried about this guy who is going to come for the girl, but we also know nothing about him, his name, what he looks like, anything like that. But whoever is able to capture this man will be promoted to special officer. So Rom is like,
I'll do it. I want to be special officer. So he and his uncle figure that this guy will probably be going to revolutionary meetings, So they go to one such meeting, and sure enough they meet Beam's brother Lachu, and so Rom and his uncle pretend to be Lachu's ally, but Lachu figures out that Rom is an undercover police officer, so he runs. There's a chase and Lachu escapes into a huge crowd nearby. A train is like leaking oil everywhere. It explodes and derails.
And there's a little boy in the middle of the waters. It's like the steaks are always like a million guy high. This little kid is going to explode if Rom and Beam don't become friends right now, right.
So what happens is there's this little boy who's about to die. No one seems to want to risk their life to save him, except for Beam and Rom. So they team up, not realizing that the other one is their enemy. They save the boy, and this is the beginning of them becoming best friends, because we get this montage of something.
That's usually reserved for like falling in love, like falling in love, you know, but it's just like them having a fun time together. They're eating, they're going on little day trips.
Oh, they're riding horses and motorcycles. Oh they're frolicking through field. Oh they're playing tug of war.
Pretty nice. Oh.
Beam is doing squats with Rom on his shoulders. Also, while this is happening, there's a song playing called Dosti and the lyrics are like, Wow, it's pretty wild that these two guys have become friends and that they don't know that they're actually enemies. This is probably gonna end in bloodshed and betrayal. Huh.
And we're like, hold on, what I'm kidding? I do I do love and I know that this isn't this happened, but it's just like the exposition montage was really delivering for me. I loved it.
Yeah, it's like a Greek chorus kind of thing. Because also this movie is like a Greek tragedy. It's just it's everything. So one day Ram helps Beam meet Jenny. We will talk about this meet cute later. There's no time.
It's egregious. Yeah, this movie is a lot of things, particularly interested in women. Nope, it is not.
But basically the movie becomes a rom com for a while.
And a half hour.
So yeah, Beam meets Jenny and spends the afternoon with her, and even though they don't speak the same language, they hit it off and she invites him to an upc party So Beam and rom get all dressed up and go to this big fancy party in a scene that was giving me because there are some Titanic parallels. But there's a scene where like Rom is giving Beam a little makeover and like putting him in a suit because he's like, what are you gonna wear to the party?
And Beam is like this and he's like, no, you have to wear a suit. And it's very much like Molly Brown being like Jack, what are you gonna wear to dinner?
And you shine up like a new penny y. Yeah, that was that was very sweet. And then they got to the party and they look great.
Oh, they look so great.
And now they're at the big Colonizer party and yeah, we're about to have a dance off. This is the iconic Oscar winning song.
Yes, because there's this British guy at the party who's super racist and he's like, you don't know anything about art or finesse or dance, and they're like, have you ever heard of natu? And then they do the na to na to song and dance and they win an Oscar about it, or rather, mm Kiravani does because he's the one who composed the music. For Flim.
That scene is so just exciting, it's so good and also especially like I don't know seeing it for the first time, you don't see it coming, like you're like, oh, this is going to be like a rom com, comedy of manners, more stuff with like Beam and Jenny. But then it's like, no, it's a huge dance number. It's it's gigantic. It's just like so terrible. It's my favorite scene, no contest. It rocks the best.
Jenny also loves it and she's like, wow, Beam, it was so cool when you danced. Do you want to come to the palace with me? So he goes to the palace where he finds Molly and she's locked up behind bars. She's treated as a prisoner and Beam is like, I can't rescue you now, but don't worry, I'll come back for you. So he and his friends plan their siege of the palace, but oh no, Ram has captured Lachu and he's like, where's your brother, still not realizing that the man who Ram is looking for is his
own best friend Beam. Then we cut to Ram's home village where we meet his lady love Cita, and all of the people are like when is rom coming back? He's been gone for years and she's a flaw. He's a flop and he doesn't even remember you. And she's like, I don't know.
But Cita is like she's like Christ like in her faith and patience in her fiance. And I mean, I know, like everyone in this movie is a huge star, but I think she in particular. I want to make sure that I'm saying her name right Alia Bot. She's like a huge, huge star, and I feel like she gets like the star reveal shot when she's because you turn around and then there's like a pause for applause and she's great. I just I would just wish that we had more. I mean, I don't know, I don't know.
I just I was like, Wow, she's so virtuous, awesome.
Yeah, she's really just sort of passively waiting around for her fiance.
Yeah. I was like, Wow. If I was Cita, I would be getting a nosebleed fucking daily, being like probably like walking around being like he's probably dead, Like.
I'm gonna move on and kiss someone else. Oh god, that's what that would be me.
That's see, we're different. I would be walking around having a panic attack.
But she'd be like, oh, you've been gone for three days, Well it's time to move on find another.
Lover, I feel like, but she's doing neither of those things. She's just like, no, I believe everything is great because he's the greatest and and I'd be like, he's probably cheating on me. Wow, I'm stuck back here in Floptown there.
So back in the city, Lachu throws a poisonous snake onto Rom and he gets bitten, and so Rom is like stumbling around and dying. Beam finds him and saves his life and then reveals his true identity to Rom, and Rom is still like actively dying, so he can't do anything about it. But he's like, oh my god, my best friend is the guy who I've been hunting down this whole time. What do I do? And then he recovers because Beam has saved him, and he's punching
his punching bag some more and he's upset. Then it's the night of this big celebration to honor Governor Scott, which is when Beam and his friends unleash an attack so they can rescue Malay. They crash into the party and let a bunch of animals loose, including that tiger from the beginning. There's just like utter chaos as all these animals are running around.
It is another I was like, because we like Hollywood movies have so many badly cgied animals, these are well cgied animals.
They look good. They look pretty good. I would say it's not the best I've seen.
I mean, no, cgi animal looks amazing, but like it's certainly for Paddington, it's I don't know, we can't get into this today. I think Paddington's looks a little scary sometimes, but but I mean it's certainly doing don'nuts around like the Lion King reboot and shit like that. But you're like, oh, like you can't look at.
It horrifying looking so all this chaos is happening. But before Beam can reach Malay Rom shows up to arrest him, and Beam is like, what the fuck, you're a cop, you're my enemy, And then they fight each other for a long time. They're beating each other up, and then it culminates in Beam being captured, which is where we get the intermission or the interval. Then Ram gets promoted to special officer because he captured Beam, just like he
always wanted, And then we see a flashback with Ram's backstory. So, when Ram was a child, his father was training their whole village to fight back against the British, but they don't have real weapons. So the reason that Ram wanted to be a special officer so badly is that it would give him access to a lot of guns, which he would basically steal and distribute among his village. And he had made this promise to his father that he
would supply everyone in the village with a gun. Because one day, while Ram is still a child, the British Army raids their village and kills Ram's whole family. So he sees like his mother and his little brother and his father killed in front of him.
It's horrible and it's also very mythic in the way it's presented as.
Well, for sure. Yeah. Back to the present, Rom is feeling very conflicted because he wants to help his people and his village, but he realizes he's hurting people along
the way, including his new best friend. Then there's a scene where Rom has to flog Beam publicly, and Governor Scott makes everyone come to watch because he wants to make an example of Beam, and during this beating, Beam sings a song that empowers the crowd to riot and revolt against all the British soldiers, after which Rom realizes he needs to help Beam escape, especially after Beam is
sentenced to death by hanging. So Rom orchestrates this rescue mission for Beam and Malay and they successfully get away. Though Beam doesn't know that Ram helped him, he still
thinks that Ram is his enemy. So then Beam and Malay go into hiding because the entire British military is out looking for them, and they happen to cross paths with Sita, Ram's lady Love, who tells Beam about Ram's grand plan to become a special officer so that he can supply his village with weapons so they can revolt against British colonialism, but that he kind of lost his way and betrayed his best friend, but then he got caught and now he's going to be executed, and Baim
is like, damn okay, he was helping me. I have to go save him. So Bam goes to the barracks where Ram is being held prisoner breaks him out. There's another like extended fight sequence where they're fighting their way through the British soldiers with Ram on Beam's shoulders because his legs were badly beaten. They escape the barracks and go into the woods. More British soldiers come. There's another long fight sequence where Rom and Beam kill all of them.
Beam is throwing a motorcycle around, Ram is firing arrows with grenades attached to them.
Yeah, and at this point, as we'll talk about in a bit, Ram looks like the mythic way that Ram is presented and like they're start or no, this is a little bit before that happens, right.
So after they escape the barracks, Beam yes, because he knows medicine, he treats Ram's wounds. And then there's like these like orange flags nearby this place of warship. So he like takes the flags and the bow and arrow from this like Rama god statue and then basically styles Ram to look like this and do God. And then they fight the people in the woods, and then they are like, all right, bitch, it's time to kill Scott. So they head to Governor Scott's palace. They steal a
bunch of guns for Rom's village. They destroy the palace and kill Lady Buxton and Governor Scott.
And they kill And it's a great plant and payoff moment when they kill Governor Scott, because there was this whole long, evil speech that he seems to make all the.
Time, all the time about the value of a bullet.
Yes, which you can imagine. I thought that that was kind of a fun touch of like most fucking evil colonial blowhards like that have like one speech they know how to give, but then they're always like hot, like god. So anyways, they give the speech to him and then they fucking yeah kill him. Boing boying.
It's very cathartic.
It is very very exciting, and if you have no context for the rest of the movie, you're like, wow, this is a radical movie, right, and then you read a book and then you're like, oh, oh wait, no it's not. But it's still a good moment. It's a good moment, yes, indeed.
So then, having defeated the villain, Beam and Rom return home. Rom is reunited with Tita, Jenny is there for some reason, Malay is returned to her mother, and the movie ends with a big song and dance number that pays tribute to a bunch of Indian Revolutionaries, although.
Specifics there's a lot of omissions. Yes, and the director as as Russian movie, is in the conclusion like he is in the final scene, and so it's like this fourth wall break that is sort of like stating with the thesis of the movie was, which is I guess when you think about it, a little bit pretty nationalistic. And then it's like, not only is that there's like the big thesis song, but also the director of the movie like joins in which again I wouldn't like, I
wouldn't hate that if Martin Scorsese started doing that. At the end he comes out, he's like, what'd you think, Yeah, awesome.
And then we'd be like, yes, clap, clap, cheer, cheer, I love it.
It's like those awkward I feel like it's only happened since movie theaters have been opened, but every once in a while you'll go see a movie and then it's just like Margot Robbie being like, Hi, thanks for coming to Babylon at the movie theater. Enjoy the movie, and you're like, what the fuck was that? I do? Do that?
Just yeah, So it's like we know, I mean in the same way that why is Nicole Kidman doing an advertisement for the theater that you're already in and about to see.
For the culture.
It's for the culture, and we come to this place for that culture.
But those little flips that are like barely produced and clearly in the middle of a press junk at day and they look like they want to die. I'm like, this is not getting me excited for the movie. I forget. There was like a director too that was like welcome back to them, and you're like, oh my god, just start the movie enough.
Yes, So let's say, well that's our yes, and let's take another break and we'll come back to discuss. And we are back and we are about to include our segment that we did with our special guest, who will introduce in a moment. But we just wanted to kind of give a little bit more context for the production of the movie. So it was written and directed by ss Raja Mouley aka SSR. So screenplay by SSR, Story by vj Andre Presad who is sa are his dad dad. They collaborate a lot.
With Okay, fathers and sons. Yeah, and so SSR look hot topic these days. He's an Eppo baby, Folks, His dad is a very well regarded screenwriter in India who's been working since the eighties, I believe, and now they very often will collaborate together, including on this. So sometimes movies are about fathers and sons, including this one. Other times movies are made by fathers and sons.
And often they are made for fathers and sons.
Those are kind of those tend to be who movies are made for. So you know, good for you guys, you fuckos. But no, very very famous, not just director, but from a famous movie family.
Yes, the two main stars, Ramcharan and Antir Junior are also from like acting dynasties.
Yes, well, as is the actor who plays Sita. Right, Like, there's so much I mean, it's this is just entertainment in general. But and how power works, right but yeah, we just because we talk about it in the guest segment. As if you already know who made the movie, what you need to know is that S. S. Roja Movie is a very successful film director who collaborates frequently with
his father. His politics. He doesn't like to talk about politics, which usually means something and and he makes these I mean, especially in this phase of his career. It seems like he makes big, big blockbuster movies for sure.
And with that, let's bring on our guest, who is a writer critic. You've seen their byelines in Vox, Panel by Panel, Polygon, among others, and they were the author of a particular piece in Vox that we found and really loved entitled R R R is an incredible action movie with seriously troubling politics. It's reveish Babu. Hello, Hello, Hello, thank you so much for being here.
Happy to be here, Thank you for having me.
Oh, it's our pleasure, so pleasure.
Oh sorry, okay, I feel like I'm contributing.
Yes, tell us, you're just kind of general thoughts on the film? Are are are? What's your relationship with it?
Yeah? So the film is, you know, the latest entry by the filmmaker South Indian filmmaker from Natalia wood industry, which is, you know, the Deli wood language speaking cinema industry of India. It's the latest film by the biggest filmmaker of that industry who is now also India's film naker.
And I grew up with his films, like I think I remember watching his first movie as a kid, and I've kind of always known his films like I watched everyone as it came out because like my father would make me watch them, and so they were like a thing that I always pretty much knew. And so it's been a weird, interesting experience to watch, like the guy your dad talks about at your home suddenly become like the guy everybody and their mom talks about, you know, globally.
That it's kind of a weird experience, but it's been interesting. So this is the latest film he's made, and it's kind of like the biggest explosive porsion of what he does, and my relationship to it is it's complicated, is definitely the word I would use, because it's a film that is a great, big spectacle that works as a big action spectacle, but is also reflective of all the flaws and like the limitations of the filmmaker and the kind
of space that remoiches from end. So there's a weird sit there that is kind of like, yeah, this is fun. But like I remember walking out of theater, I had a great time at the theater. I went to watch my dad and it was like it was a blast to watch, but I sat there with it not in my chest. Throughout, Like even as I walked that, I was like, there was that not until I actually sat down a road it read about it. It was kind of like it was a weird experience where I just untangled
that not and kind of like think about it. So that's kind of where even wedding but it came from, right.
I think that that's so because this was very much
my entry point to his catalog. Reading your work and others work on just their relationship with this director in addition to this movie and sort of all of the baggage that comes with it is so interesting because I think, like, as you have witnessed, it's sort of like in Western movie culture, it's like, oh, you know, it's like a secret, like, oh, you've seen this movie that is one of the hugest movies in the world, But here it's sort of relegated
to like really enthusiastic letterboxed users filling a movie theater on the West Side. And so honestly, when I first saw this movie, I did not know that the story was rooted in any sort of political ideology at all until I read your.
Work and just to speak to your kind of complicated relationship with the movie, that's also, like so many of the movies we cover on this podcast, especially ones that we grew up with or have some kind of nostalgic attachment to or love in any way, we sort of have to reconcile that, like, oh yeah, it was a really entertaining movie to watch, but oh no, there's all these things that you have to unravel.
Art isn't always once, and that's internal struggle for sure.
So we've been kind of hinting at this sort of political and cultural context that again if you're not pretty intimately familiar with already, which like Jamie, I was not either I only I mean, I of course know of the caste system in India, but I don't know or I didn't know really any of the nuances of it. I didn't There's just a lot of things about it
that I didn't fully comprehend. And also it was only very recently that I learned about the far right like Hindu centric government that exists in India right now, and how that informs quite a bit of media and like there's a lot of like propaganda and a lot of people are calling RRR like Hindu castist propaganda. So and this is what your piece. The writing that you've done about this movie is largely about that. So we're just curious kind of your thoughts on all that.
Regarding the cast thing, you know, the guy and get at the white guy, and get at who's like I would have voted for Obama a third time or whatever. Yeah, like that kind of vibes where people are like Obama won, Racism is defeated, it's over, and like people act like that, but like reality is, it's like absolutely not. Castism is kind of life everywhere, and castism is built into a little sect of like the white things work. So that's
kind of how that works. But regarding the movie itself, it's genesis is in the very specific who speaking region
in South India weren't there was one state. It was called entrepredaesh Andra is the place Brebace essentially means place or state andreprebaish And what happened was a few years back in the mid twenty tens, they divided the state into you know, a state called Andra and like you had under the state formed called Langhana, which was a long thought, you know struggle like that state being formed was a long movement and one of the he figures
out that sort of movement was comer Empin, who's you know, one of the figures in the movie, and the other figure in the movie, Sidramaraju, is like the under figure. So essentially, the movie, as Roger Mole tells, it, began with the idea of watching this one state become two states boats speaking essentially the same language but like the same language but like in different dialects for the most part, and trying to make a movie to kind of like
showcase their unity essentially. And so Flangana's symbol being pen and like under symbol being ram and they're sort of like imagined constructive brotherhood on screen as a way of like symbolizing that sort of imagined friendship and unity of
the states. And this is right through sort of like you know, Roger Molly's big sort of mythic influences, where like he grew up reading you know, some directors, like if you're in America, you grew up reading I don't know, some Spider Man comics, Orman comics or stuff like that, right because those are American pop culture. But like for someone like Roger Mole, he up on comics which are like essentially Amara means immortal ship, Throm means you know,
picture Kata means stories, so immortal picture stories. He grew up on those comics, which are largely about retellings of like Hindu mythology and like stories about gods and like demi gods and figures like that. So those kind of informed his work and so and that's you see that evidently as prior film. Most evidently they're inbopability, which is two parts and it was a huge thing a few
years back. But you've also see here where like his mythic influences and like all of those films are into the film where you know, Ram is framed at the end of the movie, like the mythic Ram god, right, you know, and Pim is like almost framed in the context of like the films like Pen from the Mahavaratha. So there's a lot of stuff like that where and it's like you see his influences and the way the film works is essentially it's a big rallying cry. It's
like celebratory and nationalistic. But the problem is in the way it is. See this is interesting because like when you see a movie like this, like you when the West first discovered RRR, A response was largely kind of like almost built in, like a sort of hyperbolic reaction like, oh my god, this is the greatest nope I've ever seen. I've never seen anything like this. There's a tiger and like, you know, it's kind of like over the top response, right.
And also there's the kind of like and I think that there's a certain I understand that on a certain level because like when you look at Call of You, what what all of these movies are made in is a sort of like white Western hegemony, and so everything kind of exists and comes out through that mechanism, and that machine means certain kinds of films just don't get made. There are films that do sometimes get made are kind
of exceptions. So when you see something where like you know, the bridish of like the white people are kind of largely twitted, like the way you know, I say, Indiana Jones, Sweet's the Nazis, they're like, oh my god, this is so cool. This is kind of like radical and like all of that because like this is anti colonialness, anti imperialists. But the reality is when you look at post colonials
sieties and push bolomul nations. What happens is like when they're taken over and inflicted with all of that they're inflicted with across time, and when the oppressor is kind of like left and there's the independence, what's left is the sense of like there's a kind of whole of like what we were, what we became and we aren't, and what we are going to be, and so the sense of a lost past, but a lost what we
could have been that is sought and seen. And so a lot of the times it's with stuff like that that nationalism is built. And when there's when you're a colony and when you're oppressed, that sort of nationalism is a very powerful revolutionary radical act to like you know,
fight against the oppressor. But after the oppressor's gone in like decades have passed on and like it's almost been a century, right, that nationalism can sort of take on a different sort of flavor or fervor, and like it can feel of a different because like at that point it's kind of all internal mechanicians and politics, and so
that's kind of what you're dealing with. Because like the Hindu nationalism and hindusw it animates a lot of the stuff that you see now about India and rooted in India. It goes back to the early nineteenth century when India was still occupied by the British, where in like you know, the Hindu right wing figures like literally went over to like Mussolini's Ghetaly and like toured all of that fascist nonsense and we're like, yeah, you know, this is pretty
fucking cool. We should like we should get into this. And so it's kind of like taken from that and like combining it with like the worst aspects of like old school Hinduism and you get this very right wing ideology which forms the RSS, which is a stupid death cult of like fascist idiots. And that cult is what the members of that cult is the person that killed and shot Gandhi and so that cult got banned very
early on for ages. But later on in the twentieth century, what happened is essentially you have figures like I think it was exactly the nineteen eighties when like the RSS kind of came back and like you know, made a kind of big thing, and they made a party called the BJP, and then the BGP would slowly grow and you know, now it's kind of it kind of runs the country much like the RSS ones everything. It's they're
bigger than ever, and it's kind of a distressing affair. Yeah, back to the movie, it's kind of is it's very much a status pro movie in the sense of like the most average you know MCU or like an American
blockbuster is kind of like it. You don't go to these movies for radical politics, right because, like in the context of a film like this, even though for a Western audience this might seem radical because it's like, you know, all the white people are not kind of great, and you know, it's kind of like anti colonial, anti imperialist, the reality in the context of post colonial societies is like when you look at a film like this, being anti imperialist and anti colonialist can still very much be
a conservative position as opposed to a radical position when you're dealing with liasis, where like naturalism and all of that is used to your writing purses.
Right because again, like on the surface, just for like a you know, average American viewer watching this movie, it's like, Wow, here's a big, fun spectacle with music and dancing and over the top action and it's got these themes of anti imperialism and anti colonialism and also friendship and the British people are.
The bad guys. Friends defeat imperialism together, right, Yeah.
Yeah, so it's just like again, the first time I saw it, I was just like, woohoo, I'm cheering in the theater. I'm having so much fun. And then, you know, I started to do some digging about the like context from which this movie comes out, and as you outline in your vox piece and there's another piece you wrote.
Yeah, one of the words that you use in your vox face that really stuck with me is that this movie decontextualizes a lot of history, which I mean seems absolutely true, and also does it under sort of false pretenses, because if you don't know the history, it does seem like either this is made up if you're not familiar with the figures, or you're receiving some sort of grand
historical epic context. Because we were. We just covered the Woman King as well, and there's a not a similar issue, but a historical figure who is represented as being abolitionist who absolutely was not, but that's how it's presented in the movie. And unfortunately, you know, and this is like an issue with historical epics across everything, but that's often about as far as people will, you know, take an interest. And so this movie breaking through with this specific viewpoint.
It's a bit scary.
Because you talk in your piece about how there's a lot of Indian media that again it's coming out in this pro Hindu is it pronounced? Which is this political ideology that is like reinforced by militant groups that's just like pro Hindu anti Islam.
That it is the idea that it is the idea that India is essentially a Hindu state and should always be a Hindu state.
And it's kind of just it's repellent, right which and it's and it's leading to, you know, extreme oppression and violence toward Muslim people who live in India. And then it's also reinforcing the caste system, which is, you know, a very elitist and oppressive system.
Idea of a hierarchy, which is kind of always there. And it's interesting. It's like you look at this film and because we're you know, we're we are on the Bechtel cast So let's talk about that aspect of it.
I'm not sure this movie actually past the adult test because like this movie is rife with a male centrism that is like very indicative of Roger Mally's work, and like, in fairness to him, I think it's also just like the kind of space humor just from so it's not just specific to his work, but definitely the movie is a glaring display of like limitations in that sense, because you look at them female characters in the movie and it's like it's Jenny and you know, it's Seetha, and
both of them are kind of just framed in relation to these man and kind of all they do is kind of in service of the great Man's story. Like I remember recently there was a great interview with The New Yorker, you know, conducted by Simon Abrams with Roger Moully, the director, and Roger Moull completely imprompted, brings up the fact that he loves Iron Rand and like the fountain Head and shit like that. Yeah, and suddenly everything kind
of makes perfect sense. It's like it fits, and like I think that kind of helps contextualize for Western audience in some regards.
Yeah, So I've been to multiple screenings of this movie where SSR was is like there to do a Q and A. It's when he he was coming to the US a lot to campaign for like awards, to like try to get nominated for oscars and stuff like that worked. And so I've seen him in the flesh four times brag and people would always ask, like they would try to like get him to say that this was like a political film making political statements, and he would always
refuse to say that. And and at one point he was like, oh, some of my influences in like American cinema are Mel Gibson. And I was like, no, yeah, funny.
Oh I was so fun there for that one. You're like, oh, okay, we're having like a nice time.
No Ill that interview, that very same New Rope interview, he talked like, Okay, So his dad is a screenwriter, right, and that's kind of how he broke him. His dad was a screenwriter. Establish screenwriter he got him working, like that's where he broke into the industry and and all that. His dad is a seasoned screenwriter and he's currently working on a big RSS movie for this fascist stupid death cult you know runs every He so the dad who wrote Coro, you know, worked on RR with me because
like Roger Old. Every movie Roger Mullien makes mostly with his dad, that dad and his writer and closest collaborator is working on this RSS movie for the RSS is hired by them, and having done the research and work on that movie, he came out of it with a
very favorable view towards this organization. And when asked about this, Roger Mulli in that interview is like, well, I don't really know what the RSS is, but I read the script and I cried, and it's an amazing script and it's so emotional and it's it would be a beautiful movie. And it's kind of like, that's what the exact moment of Like okay, one, saying he does not know much about the RSS is like total bullshit in the context in the modern India he lives in, that's kind of just disingenuous.
It was, that sounds like a lie.
And like two, it's kind of like it lays there, the bullshit, like I'm a political filmmaker, Like no, what even your supposed quote un a political stance is a clearly political stance because his stance is essentially a bare minimum basic statistical forming stance. And the thing about the status real forming stances is that like it largely affirms the systems and the way things are as opposed to any actual radical change. It doesn't actually have an imagination
imagine beyond what it is. They can only see what.
Has been right.
That's something I've read that New Yorker interview as well, and it's really interesting, and that you mentioned that about seeing as SR speak in person, Caitlin, where it does seem like any time he is confronted with a political question, there's this tendency to be like, well, I'm just an entertainer, which is definitely a pattern that I recognize, and people who are clearly making political stuff but don't want to necessarily label themselves as such, because that even that I
rand question. He says, I understand parts of her philosophy, but that goes over my head when she gets into it. I'm not such a deep thinker. I'm more of a dramatic thinker. So I like the drama part of it, and it's like yeah, but.
You know, yeah, it's it's the essential like decontextualize. It's the idea of decontextualizing something and making a pure character drama. But you he does not seem to realize, or maybe
he doesn't. He's not, you know, willing to admit it openly that you can't really decontextualize certain ideas in certain fantasies from their nature when you're you know, his essential problem then it's a problem that you'll see acrosss work is that he takes things and you know, presents them, but he never actually critically engages with them or is like, hey, maybe wait a minute, what does this actually mean? What does this choice or what does me packaging or representing
this kind of thing implicate. He does not really think about that.
He's just like, wow, cool, right, there's no interrogation of oppressive structures and systems that he has to be well aware exists, even though he's having deniability about it. So, like, the thing with R r R is that it's not like obviously and outwardly hateful toward marginalized groups in India such as Muslims and people who belong to lower casts, but it is centering and uplifting already privileged groups of people and subtly or maybe not so subtly, promoting this
existing Hindufa ideology. Because as you say, in your vox piece. There's a number of Indian films that have come out just over the decades that frame a Muslim character as like the evil villain or or.
More likely like there's things like the christianir Filds, which are l like vile, evil and kind of like this is. You can't even stand to watch this fucking frame of it. It's like it's so wild and heinous. It's kind of just disgusting and repugnant on site. And that's like a
very clear for right wing extremist film. But like something like rr Is, I think something like it's a much more it's a quote unquote liberal film and that you have you know, Muslims, but like or even when like he is kind of like portrayed as a Muslims, he's kind of like the simpleton, or like it's very much the idea of like it's liberal and then like everybody and everything is subservient to this sort of like the Super Hindu Hero, which is kind of rom like right,
everything is kind of like there's a hierarchical perspective is kind of what it highlights, even as it does not necessarily want to demonize anything, if.
That makes sense, exactly.
Yes, that's that's what I mean, the status pro yeah, right.
And another example is Beam is an indigenous person in real life, and the character is indigenous and comes from the Gond tribe, and the movie kind of like rewrites who that character was. Yeah, calmar On Bim was a well educated person who could read and write, but the movie paints him as this sort of like uncivilized simpleton along with the entire community he comes from.
Yeah, Like at the end the end of the movie, right, the big sort of like climax has him ask Peam, you know this figure for like the gift of education, when like in reality, Pem was an educated man. I think that kind of is illustrative of like the sort of hierarchical view the movie has and presents, which is kind of like the baked and casts of like gragernalized films you'll see again and you know if you watch Baba Belie, which is the big, you know, metaological blockbuster film,
and the castism is kind of also rife there. So that it's the hierarchical perspective idea of why hierarchies and who gets to be on that and the way stereotypes derived from that perspective, that's.
What you see it here, right, it does. And like if we are viewing this as a propaganda film, to some extent, it's very effective because you don't really realize it's happening. It's not good propaganda if it feels like propaganda.
Right, it's kind of like you know a lot of American blockbusters, right, like the politics, you're like you kind of just accept that they're going to kind of be fucked in a lot of words. Like you watch Top Gun and like, I was just gonna it's a fun, cool movie if it's like a fun sports movie, like the first one is a fun sports movie, the second ones but like the dads and sons and stuff, and it's fun. But like if you stop for second to think about it, it's like, yeah, you know, this is
really fucked the American imperiless propaganda absolutely. Yeah.
And it's bought and paid for by the American military. Like Top Gun invented that whole of the system. Yeah, And I mean that's certainly not what everyone I know thought the first time they saw Top Gun, and and the numbers sort of bear that out. There was like a spike in air force after that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Guess this is maybe an extremely oversimpl like overly simplistic question, but for our listeners, what do you feel are kind of the most glaring oversimplifications or changes that really makes two history for the for the sake of this.
Movie, well, definitely the one I mentioned about being and like not being educated, having to ask for the gift of education from a sort of Rom who is presented as like the war tragic. You know, Beam is not afford of the interiority of like Ram. If you watch the movie, Ram is like this complex, tragic figure, burdened and like all of these things, whereas Being kind of isn't a Beam is kind of like the simpleton who's kind of in response and reaction to the great complex
figure of Rom. And so there's definitely that aspect of it.
You also get a long sequence of Rom's backstory, and you get no information about Beam's backstory. The movie doesn't care to contextualize his character.
That's it's the thing of like everything and every everybody kind of becomes subserving into the story of this great figure. And it's kind of very much like that. And it's interesting. It's like I look at this film and there's a lot of it is about like people talk about history and like history isn't just an assembly of facts, right, History is something that is constructed over and over and over again, and how it is presented, how it is
like built and curated. And that's kind of like when you look at the end credits of this film, it is very much a specific curation of history with the historical figures, and he chooses to show like, for instance, it'll on you will not see you know a bit burn and the end of the film, who's a legendary Delta activist and is kind of like a father of the Indian constitution and possibly the greatest Indian figure that like the West probably should know over Gandhi, but somehow
Gandhi is the one people know anyway. But like you don't see figures like that, but you will see I don't know Shivaji and those credits, and like it's baffling because like Shivaji was like had nothing to do with fighting against the British, like that was kind of after his time. The guy is kind of now a figurehead in like the modern kind of HINDUO discourse, so like he's in there. It's very much a kind of like I'm not being political, but I also I totally am by just like.
Just creating things, right, Yeah, yeah, it sounds like a lot of it is by omission versus by explicit rewriting.
He's more a product of like being a very uncritical and unthinking creator and artist. And at some points, like when the guy says, oh, I don't know much about the RSS or anything, that's sort of dishonesty.
Right right, right, because when he's backed into a corner, you just have to start lying at some point.
Yeah.
Also in the end credits, he omits a number of Muslim revolutionaries revolutionaries from casts that are considered to be quote unquote lower it's secular revolutionaries.
Also, to add to another aspect of the film, I think it's interesting, like one of the things that I found people who are really calling too is just the idea of like this film finally portrays like you know, these white Brits is like the total bad guys and like absolute monsters caricatures, or like the Nazis and Indiana Jones are like, you know, these terrible monsters, and that as being about choice and like being something very cool.
But what I found fascinating and telling is that, like the movie's conceptualization and presentation of whiteness is so simplistic, so it's very much all the white people are bad, and then there is this one white person who is good. It's Jenny, as opposed to actually thinking or reckoning with the idea of a complicity and system and like Jenny has complicit and the privileges for being who she is and her relation to that. It's kind of never really
the movie has no conception of that. It's just simple, there's good, there's bad. It's a simple idea, so there's not much actually radical or interesting things. It doesn't actually think of complete in terms of systems or complicity. It just thinks in terms of like these sole individual figures doing things. And it's kind of it's the limitation both Roger Willi and the film.
Right yeah.
I at the end when like Beam reunites with Jenny and everyone claps in the theater every time, I'm just like, what are we clapping for? This woman is so complicit, Like her family are literally the governor's she lives in the palace with these imperialist colonizers, Like, what what are we celebrating here?
It's the case of like a film not really having capacity to think or like really do anything. It's kind of just a very simplistic piece of work in that sense. Now that every you know, big super action blockbuster needs to you know, really reckoned with complicity and avoidance of all of that income. But like, if you're actually saying this is radical, I think it has to actually be radical as opposed to like being you know, really simplicity.
Right.
Yes, I wanted to ask about because this stuck with me the first time I saw this movie. That disclaimer at the beginning of the movie is really intense and in pretty long, and it's i mean, like going in with little to no context. You're like, ooh, what is this? Like this feels defensive. I wonder what like this is kind of going up against. But you know, like this film, apart from showcasing the culture and geography of India, doesn't imitate or imply any person, whether living or dead, doesn't
indicate any race, cast, creed, or tribe. Any resemblance whatsoever is purely coincidental. The producer, the director, or the technicians of the movie have no intention whatsoever of hurting anyone's sentiments or disrespecting any traditions or maligning the beliefs of any individual or group. What do you make of that?
I just think it's kind of like it's indicative like a film rather, isn't it. It's kind of like this, don't think of this as anything except cool character drama. Guys, don't think of this as anything meaning anything. It's like, it's not political. I'm just a cool dramatist, right.
Like, don't yell at me. I'm not doing anything bad. And it's like, yeah, well you are, though, And I still I can't not love this movie. Like it's it's a fun time.
It's a fun movie, and like I think that's okay. It's just a case of like you can like like I love hop and I love hopkuin Maverick and like the key is knowing, Hey, these are fun movies about like fathers and sons and like tool sports, action ship, but also like it's kind of fucked and like you kind of have like look with that complexity.
That's our the I mean, the whole ethos of our show is you're allowed to love whatever you love, just be critical of the media you consume.
Yeah, interesting, and that's.
What we're doing which you think, but uh, you know, most people don't do it. And this makes this I've been thinking so much about just historical epics in general. It makes me want to go back and revisit more of them because no, I'm kidding, Oh.
My god, that's actually a big influence on the guy, is it?
That makes sense?
I mean, because they're whatever they historical genre and I think I would put this movie in that category for at least big chunks of the movie, and almost every single time they have a very loose grasp on history and are often sort of the only interaction that a lot of people have with the with the history at all.
Yeah. And it's interesting because like you look at art, right, art is Art's purpose isn't exactly, you know, to recreate history necessarily, But it's a case of you judge art on the merit of like, Okay, what is this trying to say? And what is this constructing? And what is this construct for and what does it mean? So even if it isn't necessarily historically accurate, you look at Okay,
what is this trying to tell me? Yeah, and you judge it on bat merit, And like I think a lot of the films kind of when they do construct history, they kind of struggle with not thinking certain things through, and that's kind of where the pitfall is. But if you actually think things through, like can do something with it, I think you're kind of like more okay with that.
Yeah, absolutely, this is my last question, but I I guess yeah, with any historical epic, it's like, well, why are we choosing this story to produce on such a large scale at this moment? Do you have an opinion on that of why SSR would choose this story in this moment?
Yeah, I definitely like to go back to the original point. He talked about the genesis of the film being, you know, the separation of those two states, and like so I kind of understand why because like in Andre Ram is kind of a big figure who's known, like you'll see if you go around a street, you will see like big you know, statues of the guy around the streets and stuff like that, and so, and he was a
huge figure for that film and kind of movement. So there's a kind of sense of like, oh, he would of course he would make that movie, And that kind of makes sense, especially because there was a tradition of like having made films on you know, Ram before. There's a big classic movie based on Ram two before like eight years ago, was starting a big iconic star back
in the day. So it's not new essentially, So he's just kind of part of that tradition and making films that no, and like even the interesting thing is like you look at a lot of the lugucinema and like there is a lot of it that draws on mythology and constructions frames its heroes or figures through that divine lens or like frames and Makinder goods and stuff like that.
So he is part of that lineage and tradition. So I think there's a sense of oh, of course he would make this movie, Like it makes sense to me in that sense. But then you hear something like yeah, we're working on our r R two now, and like we're like we're working on a script and they're like but why though, why it's kind of baffling.
Yeah, who's that gonna be about?
Right? Yeah, I mean I wasn't able to find a lot of information on it outside of just like anytime something is successful, they're like, do it seven more times? But it's like, though, this is these are these were people like, what are you what are you intending to add?
Everything is IP now truly?
Do you have any final thoughts anything else you'd like to share.
On the film itself? The way I think about it is just like it's a fun movie and I think people can like have whatever feelings they have about it. But it's just a case of like I would like people just think through and like kind of like understand what they're watching and kind of if anything, see's the
saddest thing about the movie. For me, it was just like watching people watch this and kind of watching the response, going, Man, people really know nothing about Indian cinema at all, huh, because like we're India is a huge country with like hundreds of languages, and each state is almost into a nation of itself in the sense of like each state
has its own language, it's its own like whole thing. Yeah, And it's kind of like it's it's comparable more to Europe in the sense of like it's a big thing, where as I as opposed to just one you know thing that's like it's a hugely diverse place and there's like almost twenty industries that are separate for each language. To make separate movies in those languages, and there's a rich,
long tradition of movies all of them. And I was really strufy the idea of, like, wow, people know nothing about this, and it was kind of like, so, if I have any last thing, it's I guess just like I would like people to explore Indian cinema more, and just like, rather than going, okay, I watched this, and it kind of I would like people to like engage with and like see more movies in general, and kind of like, I don't know, develop a taste a sense for it as opposed to just kind of like making
this one hit thing, right, I would like people to watch more movies period.
Do you have any recommendations of films to check out that don't like uphold a troubling status quo the way that R R R does well.
So the interesting thing is, I've really been liking the sort of recent tunnel movement in the tunnel in film industry has recently, in the few years, seen a movement of like delict filmmakers and like artists who have been making their own art, and so I would really recommend people check out stuff like that. So, like prune it and folks like that. I've been doing some interesting work.
I would say, definitely check that out. That's interesting perspective and like that's a lot of like I think, where a lot of future stuff is going. But yeah, mostly I would say I want people to understand and like
engage with film across the work. There's so much cool history to film beyond just the sort of like okay, there's like America, and then in dialogue with America because of monster movies and samurai movies, there's Japan and then there's Hong Kong as opposed to just kind of that's kind of like, let's kind of fully grasp with that.
Cool. Yeah, I'm going I have a subscription to Z five, which is a streaming service for anyone who doesn't know, is I think dedicated specifically and primarily to Indian film and TV. So I have access to a lot. Yeah, well real, thank you so much for joining us. This has been such a delight, and thank.
You for your work too. I yeah, it was incredibly useful and I'm very glad doing it.
Appreciate it. Thank you of.
Course, Where can people check out more of your work and follow you online? All that good stuff.
Yeah. So I'm at writer pretty much everywhere and you can find me there and I'm a newsletter. I guess you can subscribe to that, though I haven't written more since my r or piece com is my website, So if you want to hit me up, that's where you do it. And that's kind of it.
Amazing cool.
Thank you again so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me. This was fun. Yay.
Once again, we wanted to thank Ravesh Babu for coming on the show giving us some context and giving us better insight into the movie. That was so awesome, very helpful. I like to, I mean, we like to at least try to be honest about our biases in watching movies and what we you know, you don't know, what you
don't know. And even after I saw R R R with you, I read his work like that night and it was so so helpful and I don't know, it was really cool for him to come on the show, look at us praising a man sickos okay, and and now return to business, which is with that historical context in mind, let's talk about the characters. Let's talk about the relationships in the movie.
Yes, shall we start with the representation of women. Ever heard of it? It's bad, It's bad. Here's what I'll say.
It's not good, not good oil. Honestly it was. It was pissing me off, but in at least different flavors of not good. But I did. There was repeat it. Anytime man was talking to or about a woman. It was stuff like wait, I would cover writing it down. Anytime Rom talks to Sita, he says one thing and he's like, you're you're my strength, baby, Like like I am fighting for freedom and you are my strength, and
like that is how men view women. Sita, my courage has always been my strength, but your courage will help me succeed. It's just very it's very reductive of Cita.
But we also see Ram's father discuss Ram's mother in that way, exactly, saying that, oh, she is my courage, she is my strength, which you know, I think's interesting because it's like that sounds good, but it also inherently implies in action and implies like you hold down the fort while I go to man stuff exactly truly what it is where he is just asking her to and not to say that that is unimportant or valueless. Work. It's not, but it's very I think, very gender essential
to be like, all right, you were my strength. If you weren't my my fucking wife, like I couldn't kill all these guys or whatever. You know, it's just very traditional view of gender, right, And.
I know that that happened historically because of gender roles and patriarchical nothing.
In this movie happened, so you could. As we just talked about for an hour, this movie doesn't have much of an interest in being historically accurate. So it does feel like a modern decision like that that was a twenty whatever, twenty twenty whatever decision to sideline women in this way.
Yeah, women don't exist to be men's inspiration and sorts of strength.
Exactly, I mean, but there are like slightly different flav I mean, honestly, the only women that we get to know are Sita, Kathy, and Jenny, so three very different women, which and let's sideline Kathy for a second. The two women we are supposed to like are Sita and Jenny. Right, Sita, for the most part, like we were just saying, she is waiting, she's waiting, she's waiting, she's waiting around come home past reassuring everyone Mom's got this. Towards the end,
she does get some stuff to do. I've noticed that Sita and Jenny both iconically do one thing. Yes. Uh, Sita's one thing is that she thinks really quickly when police raid the space where she has just met Beam and Molly. Yeah, and she says that someone has what the disease smallpox? Small pox? Yes, so she says that someone has smallpox, and then the police get the fuck out of there, and that is like her active, her one thing to protect someone else, which is great, for sure,
It's one thing in three hours, but it's great. And then Jenny's one thing happens in montage from what I could tell. But the one thing Jenny does is she gives Beam a map likeware to rest, which is I think the only time we see her be like explicitly rebellious.
Towards yeah, her family.
We'll get to her in a second, but yeah, Like, they both do.
One thing, and the thing that Sita does is accompanied by some violence, And so I wanted to bring up the kind of use of violence in this movie, which there is a lot of. This is a violent action movie, yes, but violence is used to brutalize women in this movie in a way that it's generally not used to brutalize men, with a few exceptions that I'll get to, But there's the scene where Cita like does this quick thinking and she's like, oh, someone has smallpox, and then she is
violently kicked by a British officer. There's another scene early on where Maley's mother is struck on the head. We
mentioned that one already. Both are moments of brutal violence that sort of seem to imply like, look how weak and helpless these women are, while when men do violence in this movie it's like exciting action sequences, with a few exceptions that I can think of, all involving Beam, such as the scene where Beam is brutally beaten by that one officer who brings his motorcycle to the mechanic shop, as well as the scene where Beam is flogged publicly
by Ram, which, as we've discussed, Beam is treated differently from Ram, where unlike Ram, Beam is not elevated to this godlike status, He's not given a backstory. All these different things that like create this like imbalance between these two characters who we are supposed to like who are supposed to be equally important, but Ram is like elevated in this particular way, probably because Beam is Indigenous and indigenous people in India at this time. I'm not sure
if this is still true today. Again, I only have a pretty peripheral understanding of the caste system, but this was definitely true at the time, that indigenous people exist outside of the caste system because they are considered to be below brah monoical supremacy, which is the ideology that dictates the hierarchy and elitism of the caste system. So I think because Beam is Indigenous, and I know we're talking about the women, and I am sidetracking and talking no, no, no,
this is important to Beam. But I just wanted to like point out the ways in which marginalized people such as women and indigenous people, the way violence is handled with them versus when like Ram is doing violence. It's like, look at this fucking awesome superhero and like all of his cool action.
Well yeah, that takes it takes you to what we were talking about in our interview, where it was presented that Beam was not an educated man and he was serves the purpose of this story to downplay that and an exchange that I didn't remember to bring up was at the end one of the last interactions, maybe the last interaction that Rom and Beam have clearly establishes like Rom is the guy, which the political implications of that is Beam at the end is like, I want you
to teach me Like that is so he like they don't really end as equals, which is so weird because the whole thing is that they're holding each other's hands and it looks like that fucking meme where it's like yeah, but it's like the power dynamic between them is actually always a little uneven because it's implied that Rom has an education and Beam does not. Rom is bilin well, Beam is not. Like there's all of these things that always give Ram like quote unquote the edge over Beam,
and it doesn't nullify their friendship, but it does. But the movie still sort of ends with that being the case, where Beam is like, I want to be your student, Ram, and it's like.
And the movie ends with yeah, Beam saying like teach me to read and write, and then Ram writes a phrase on a flag that real life historical figure Comoran Beam that was his saying, like that was his like ah, but instead it has Ram Raju, like this movie attributes that phrase to him. The phrase is jall jangle zamin. I'm sure I'm not pronouncing that correctly, but it translates in English to water, forest land, and it makes sense that an indigenous person would value those things and have
that be their slogan for freedom. But instead this movie tribute ttes like the coining of that phrase or that slogan to Rom. Also, there's a scene in the movie where Sita is explaining to Beam why Rom went into the police force, and Beam responds by basically saying, like, oh, my vision has been so narrow here. I am only trying to save one person, but Ram is trying to start this whole big revolution, like his scale is so much grander than mine. And then Beam says the tribal
that I am, I did not understand. So again it's positioning Beam, this indigenous person as being simple minded and not able to see the bigger picture, which is just so insulting and reductive to characterize an indigenous person in that way.
Do not like all right, back back to back to the gaps. Yes, yes, so Tita, Yes, I think that Tita is presented as kind of your classically virtuous It's it almost it is like a you know, woman waiting for her man to come home from war kind of character. She does get to do one thing, she is subjected to violence immediately, And I totally agree with what you're saying there is like the violence is to demonstrate that they that like.
They need men to protect them kind of thing.
They cannot protect themselves. And then we have Jenny, who has a whole different set of issues. I mean, I just like, I don't know, I mean, Jenny and Tita are written very differently. Jenny, as we discussed. I think it is a big weird problem that like she is so I don't even know. It's like whatever the level above complicity is, Like it feels like too simple to
say that she's complicit. Her aunt Kathy is on the other hand, like a full on fucking tyrant and is actively I mean, there's that whole sequence when Beam is being beat by rom It's such a hard scene to watch where she keeps suggesting like more and more brutal weapons to hurt him, when.
She just has a spiky whip in her dress question Mark, and she's like here, use this, Yeah, I forgot.
She had it on her. So she is obviously not the top colonizer, that's Governor Scott. But she is actively perpetuating violence against Indian people the entire movie and is often suggesting to her husband to turn it up to
and eleven and make the violence even more brutal. So she is a very active character in the worst way, which, as we were talking about, that is sort of one of the things this movie gets really right is like and I think is very striking to I mean all audiences, but I think Western audiences in particular, where we're i think kind of used to being asked to empathize with the colonizer or to see that, like even in modern movies,
to be like, okay, so colonization's obviously wrong. But the way that the tone of this movie makes it completely possible for all of the colonizers to just be like cartoonishly like as cartoonishly evil as colonizers are. Yeah, so it's like fun and cathartic totally.
Though the movie, she's the one exception of like white colonizer woman who doesn't get let off the hook, because the movie lets all the other ones off the hook, and the only other one we really get to know is Jenny. But like Jenny, there's that whole party Jenny's friends.
Yeah that's exactly yeah, like which recontextualizes the party in a way. You're like, it's such a good dance scene, but like what are we doing?
And yeah, like all the all the white women are like, let's dance along to the not too not too song and these men are boyfriends. They feel threatened by these brown men, and they're trying to compete against them.
Right, like every white woman is an ally.
Yeah, and it's like, well, no, that's not how that happened. So yeah, I appreciate Lady Buxton being in the movie and like depicted the way she was in a weird way. Because the racism and other prejudices that a lot of white women perpetuate should not be ignored or let off the hook, although they are too often, So I appreciate that this movie shows like, yes, like white women can be complicit and or actively perpetuating.
Yes, Like, just because you are not the most powerful person in the world right, does not mean that you do not hold a lot of privilege and cannot weaponize it against other people.
Also, fun fact, lady Buxton is played by Alison Duty, who is the Nazi woman from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. So she is very good at playing evil white women.
What an interesting life of typecasting like wild Yes, okay, so back to Jenny, Back to Jenny. Okay, So like point while taken with Lady Buxton, I agree, but then also like Jenny undercuts that same thing right where Jenny is their niece and it's I'm not saying that, like it's within Jenny's power to dismantle colonialism, Like that's an
unreasonable expectation. However, I feel like she's presented because she is nice and because she is not actively individually perpetuating harm against individuals and has I think there's like two different instances. One is when Beam first sees her, she tells off a police officer for beating someone for no reason, and that is like her technically using her privilege for good because she has more clout than he does and so he stops good.
Yeah.
And then the other time that we see Jenny likely likely push against a system of oppression is when she brings Beam back to the palace or the hat whatever, the big the big man, the big old place colonial manner and an officer or a guard or a soldier, what's the difference some guy, you know, some guy assumes that Beam is the help, and Jenny says fuck off and then apologizes to Beam and they kind of move on.
So it's like, individually, sure, you know, she does the right thing in those moments, but I feel like those moments are illustrated of like therefore she is totally good, and like, I don't know, I just thought that like her level complicity was not examined in any meaningful way, in a way that there was room in this movie to happen, like and it seems like I know that Beam, you know, loves her, but it seems like he is the sort of person because he is so smart and
because he is so motivated to dismantle the colonialism that's affecting everyone he knows, it seems like the sort of thing that he would want to talk about. So it's kind of like it feels like it suggests that, like women are so wayfish and powerless that it's like not even worth the discussion to examine their complicity or like I don't really know what that decision was. It felt a little out of step with who we know Beam
to be. But the whole like Beam rom Com section of the movie feels a little out of step with who Beam is for the rest of the movie.
Right, It's just like, I don't know if it's suggesting like the attention of a woman softens him up a little bit for a while or something. I don't know, because see.
The at one point when the when the tiger is attacking everybody, he like puts Jenny in a.
Car, who is dressed exactly like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. In that moment, me.
Is and she she is very bell I mean, she looks like Belle too, But he I don't. Every time I see that scene and he puts her in the car, and it's supposed to be like I will protect you, You're my GF, now whatever, But he puts her in a car, I'm like, that could be that could be a kiss of death. That could be so bad for her. Yeah, that car can explode Like this, I wouldn't want to be locked in a car in the middle of a war zone. It just feels like you're almost more more
vulnerable than if you could move. But what do I know.
It's hard to say.
In any case. With the three main women that we get to know, they are different enough. I think Sa and Jenny have certain qualities in commons, such as passivity and only being able to do one thing.
Oh that's what I was gonna say. There's that scene when Beam is beating Oh yeah, there's another moment where like an indigenous character is being brutalized. When Rom beats Lachu, Beam's brother. He's like flailing his web his like stick around and his bacelet flies off. Men be flailing their sticks around and his and Rom's bracelet flies off, and we get a flashback where we see like the significance of this bracelet because like Cita has the other half of it, and it's sort of like, oh, they.
Literally have like Claire's necklaces on that are like best friends.
And he's like, wait a minute, I'm reminded that I have a girlfriend and maybe I should be conflicted about how I'm beating my fellow Indian. You know, Like it's just such a weird, like the way the function of women in this movie is, yeah, just like to be passive, to be the.
Like also to represent purity and goodness and nonviolence and like, can't we just stop fighting? And you're like, and even with I mean MOLLI is I feel like Mali represents something similar to what the women of the story, or at least Tita and Jenny represent, which is like, this is what we're fighting for, that kind of like nationalistic and I guess Jenny doesn't actually really factor in there, but like Tita and Mali, I feel like definitely represent like this is why we do what we do for
the women, which is in any nationalistic narrative. I feel like that always comes up. I mean, it certainly comes up in American media all the time. It comes up in Mulan. They all want a girl worth fighting for, and it's a very common and this movie doesn't challenge that. This movie, I mean, honestly, once you can get past the thrill of it, this movie doesn't challenge very much outside of imperialism and colonialism, which is very important to challenge obviously, But.
Yeah, as we've discussed, it upholds the status quo in many other ways. The other thing I wanted to say about Jenny is the see the meet cute. Yes, so there's a really wild scene where so Ram is like I'll be your wingman. Beam, Oh, you want to talk to Jenny? Okay? So Rom grabs a handful of nails and throws them in front of Jenny's car to flatten her tires so that Beam will have an excuse to talk to her Jenny.
The scene has played so goody.
It's an extremely goofy scene. Jenny is completely oblivious as to what is happening because she's driving her car, but she is not looking at the road She's seen just like staring off at the distance, being like do do doo. And then when Beam realizes what Rom did, like you would expect that reaction, his reaction to be something like what the fuck, dude, you can't just like throw nails in front of a woman's car to get her attention.
But instead Beam is like, thanks, bro, it was awesome that you did that, and Rom is like, yeah, it was pretty awesome that I did that, and Jenny is like, what happened? My tires are flat for some reason? Hahah.
Literally, it is so like it it is it seems like it's almost like Vaudevillian in the way that it plays out, because you're like, yeah, I mean, it is very weird that Beam is like, oh cool, thank you. And also it doesn't seem like Beam really notices that Rob, like why can no one see that this is happening?
And it also presents Jenny as being like not very smart and completely oblivious to the world around her, because you could, like, as an audience member, you can feel you can hear the nails fall to the ground, and the way she's driving is like she's not looking at the road, She's like looking at the yeads. Here's like they're just they make her look like, oh, like she
has like two brain cells. Yeah, yeah, like it which is again, which is like doesn't feel like a very Again it's I know it's a different film industry than we cover, but it's like it felt weird to me of like twenty twenty two really.
Right, Yeah, a movie like I have no doubt that men did things like this throughout history, because men are famous for doing scary things to get the attention of women. But because this movie came out in twenty twenty two, you would think that there would be a more modern version of that where at the very least, like if rom Is gonna throw the nails, Beam would be like what you can't just be flattening women's tires.
Bro, Like, yeah, yeah, this movie is takes so many creative liberties that in moments where it's like, no, I think that that is I'm not saying that this is something that SSR has ever spoken to or as far as I can tell, Ben asked about, because it is like this is very much our wheelhouse of like what
we what we would talk to him about. But like I feel like in big movies like this, this is a very broad statement and feel free to disagree, but like it seems like it's only in moments like that that creatives will like who maybe are not very interested in telling women's stories or anyone, but men's stories will be like, well that was the history. That's that would that's historically accurate, Like yeah, you also had a guy
like beat a tiger, Like why is your stickler? Yeah, Like why is this the place that you are sticking to? Like well, this is how it would have gone in this state, and you're just like all right, man, sure fucking sure.
And speaking of not being interested in telling women's stories, there are a number of women who fought for Indian independence, though as per usual, their stories are usually not told history tends to erase them, and media about Indian freedom fighters, like RRR tends to focus on men and ignore women's contributions. I'm pulling from scholarly journal Wikipedia, of course, but just
to just to name a few. Prita Lata Wadidar was a member of an Indian Republican army who died after leading a siege a successful siege on a European club in Chittagong. Sur Genie Nadou was an Indian political activist and poet. She was a proponent of civil rights, women's emancipation, and anti imperialist ideas. Ronnie Lakshmibe was a leading figure of the Indian Rebellion of eighteen fifty seven and became a symbol of resistance to the British Raj for Indian nationalists.
I don't know if that means the same thing as well. I think it means, but maybe I don't know anyway. And then there is Katsturba Gandhi who was a political activist married to Mohandas Gandhi and with her husband and son, she was involved in the independence movement for India. So those are just a handful I'm sure there were many more leaders of the movement. And then also just again, women's contributions to a movement like this in general are
still crucial, but their stories are often never told. Even if they weren't like leaders of the rebellion, women were still doing shit and people often ignore those narratives.
So yes, and I feel like that is something that again it's like, it's so tricky. Again. We just covered the woman King, and it seems like there is just now there is some or more interest in portraying women through history like this, which I think is a really
good thing. And but then the tricky part of that is like, Okay, I don't know, this is kind of a discussion for another day, and this isn't about the women King specifically, but I always worry where it's like, oh, now we're going to show like war heroes who were women, And then it's like, okay, but are we gonna undo any of the really fucked up like narratives that happen in war movies and the glarification and the nationalism or
are we just going to leave that as is? And now it's it's like a I'm so sick of this, right, But like it's like a girl bossy kind of thing of like, well, now we're going to show women perpetuating women can be war law words, right, oppressive war likes, Like, I don't know, that's a broad just gut feeling that I feel like we've seen that happen before in various genres, and now it's seems like it may have become time for this genre. So it's interesting. I don't know, I
don't know. We're all we're you know the world's can explode in like ten years is really hard to say. But yeah, did you have any other thoughts on the women of that?
On the women's But I do want to talk about something that often gets discussed in movies about male friendship or where there are men who are friends, which is everyone is like they're gay. We've talked about this before.
On It's like our Top Gun episode.
We've talked about it. I think Fast and the Furious we talked about it. It's like the Frodo and Sam
from Lord of the Rings thing. Yes, yeah, where close male friend ships are often perceived as having queer undertones because male platonic closeness is so foreign to people that when people see it They often ascribe a romantic or sexual component to it, which might be true for some male friendships, but it's often like the default reaction where so many people who I know who saw this movie were like, oh, Ram and Beam like oh, they're so gay for each other, which like that being the default
reaction is complicated.
It's like an onion discussion because you might want to be like no, no, straight, but also it's like they're yeah, It's like I feel like that. I don't know.
It doesn't allow for the normalization of close platonic male friendship.
Exactly with any sexuality, like across the spectrum, like you should be able to have intimacy with your friend without it being implied as romantic, and especially with men again, like across the sexuality spectrum men, I feel the way men are generally socially conditioned globally with few exceptions, it makes it difficult or there is this like implication of you should be ashamed to have an intimate and I mean like emotionally intimate friendship with another man or often
another person at all, because we you know of deep platonic friendships between men and women. Is also always like oh, you guys are in love with each other and it's like.
Not.
And like the shift of.
This reaction I think has gone a bit from like, oh, they're so gay and isn't that gross more to just like, oh, there's two guys and they're gay, and like, did I want to see Beam and rom kiss?
Yeah?
Kind of.
So it's complicated, but also.
But yeah, I think it's like I agree with that you're saying. It's like, just normalizing a strong, deep, platonic friendship is like a worthy thing to do, and I feel like this movie does. It is one of the things that this movie does very successfully. The idea of like loyalty to your friend is an important thing. I think that that's really nice. I think it's good.
Oh.
Also, the last thing I want to say was anytime I think that, like, yeah, in the movies that we grew up with, and this doesn't really happen anymore except if it's like still happening on like network TV or something. But anytime there's you know, two, I'm thinking of like peak jud Appatow movies, where it's like anytime, like men can be friends in those movies, but they have to
constantly qualify that they're straight. Anytime they experience a moment of like if they hug, if they if they touch, they're like what no, like just totally not like kind of god, what a what a distressing time that was? Anyways, not the case for Ram and Beam. They openly express their affection for each other by spending time together, by going on day trips. By I mean, they are like
physically expressive with the way they love each other. And also like, because the tone of this movie is so soap opera, like, these men are certainly emoting, you don't seek I think like a lot of Western movies show like a male protagonist swallowing the pain and it becomes a fucking brick and his stomach and you're like, wow, that's acting. Meanwhile, Rom is like, yeah.
They're they're both crying at different points like this, They're having emotions besides rage, because like rage, especially in like Hollywood movies, is like the only acceptable or like has been considered to be the only acceptable true emotion that men are allowed to express and feel. But guess what, everyone, the full range of emotions is available to people of all genders everyone. But also Rom often expresses his emotions
by punching a punching bag. So there's that. Do you have anything else you want to talk about?
I don't really think so. Yeah. I think that that that We've had a pretty comprehensive discussion. Also, listeners, especially our Indian listeners, we recognize that we've probably gotten some stuff wrong in this episode. We did our best in terms of prep and all of that, but we are very interested in what particularly our Indian listeners have to
say about this. Yes, please, and just in general, because we always want to know what you think and tackling a big historical epic with which you are not familiar with the history can be kind of tricky. So if there's anything that we missed, please let us know and we will, you know, do do what we always do. Indeed, Yeah, I think that's all I've got.
Ah same. Does this movie past the Bechdel test?
No.
There are a few small moments where women interact or female characters interact, such as when Jenny gives Molly a few gifts but Molly doesn't respond. No. There's also a scene at the party where a lady says hey Jenny. Jenny says, hi, Maggie, how's Max. Maggie says goddamn. Oh he's great, and Jenny says wonderful.
I guess that Hi, Jenny, high Maggie. But that's not it doesn't count.
Yeah, because immediately she's like, how's Max, And it's like, who's Max? Who cares?
Like what do you? That's also with Jenny. That's another way that Jenny is shown to be kind. She's the only person who's kind to a child they've kidnapped. You're like, that's not, that's not enough. I don't know. I think I'm pretty frad I our captive address, and you're like, fuck you anyways.
Okay, well, let's move on to the perfect metric our nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on looking at the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. Okay, let me talk through this. So on one hand, Okay, this is a movie about Indian people rising up against British oppression and imperial rule in colonization and obliterating it, which is very
cathartic to see, and it's very exciting. It's a fun movie and the music and the two men are so hot, and well that's.
An intersectional feminist win.
And yes, So those are the good parts of the movie, but as we've discussed, it upholds the status quo of the current scale, very political climate of India, and it's more or less serving as Indian nationalists propaganda. I also want to be clear that our criticism of right wing Hindu centric Indian government is not a criticism of the Hindu religion. I'm sure our listeners understand that, but I just want to make that abundantly clear that we are
criticizing oppressive fasci governments and political ideologies. Yes, so the kind of like upholding of the status quo and which again is a scary status quo, along with the movies treatment of women and indigenous people being very abysmal. I also wanted to point out that again Comaron Beim was an indigenous person of the gand tribe and tr Junior, who plays him is not a Gandhi actor. So there's that.
But then you see Governor Scott's blood splatter over the words the Sun never sets on the British Empire, and.
You're like, WHOA, right, it's I mean it is. I think that like this movie is so unseubtle too its strength and it's detriment. Yes, and its strength is certainly like best shown with its attitudes towards imperialism and British colonialism, and that all plays very well. But yeah, in terms of it having propaganda qualities, right, if not just being propaganda,
it is kind of I don't know. Yeah, it is kind of freaky that like this movie can come to the come to a Western audience and like it didn't register for I think a lot of Western fans of this movie for sure, and so it's scary.
It is scary and it's complicated. With all of that in mind, I think i'll give it like one and a half nipples. Still love this movie. I'm I'm gonna keep revisiting it, knowing its issues and knowing its many problems. But as far as like entertainment value goes, it's a ten out of ten on the Rampo meter.
Oh, I mean, it's like seven movies and one. It's pretty fucking cool.
So there's a lot to love about this movie. But we also, as always, we are going to acknowledge the things that must be criticized about any movie. So one point five nipples. I'll give one to Sita because I just wanted so much more for her.
She could have done two things.
She could have done two, maybe even three. Now, let's but reason, I'll calm down.
That would be one thing per hour. Caitlin, I don't know that's too much. Uh.
And I'll give my half nipple to Malley. What's her name, Twinkle, Twinkle Sharma. Oh my god, what a name, Twinkle?
Incredible?
What say you, Jamie?
I feel like I'm coming down kind of hard. I'm going to give it one in terms again, entertainment value, gigantic. Do I enjoy watching the movie? Yes, the I mean, for kind of our classic spectel cast purposes. Women are in no way centered and they're like you're saying, like in like, there have been many women who have fought for freedom in India, And you know, this movie sort of casts a very wide, very broad, very familiar view of women as docile, domestic waiting for men to get home.
The reason we fight certainly not the people who would be allowed to do anything. So in that way, I thought it was like a very kind of traditional view of gender. The way that Jenny's character is positioned as the one nice colonizer is weird. I don't think that that's an intersectional win of any sort. And also I think that I'm coming down kind of hard on it because we've covered these historical epics recently and in terms of intersectionality, and no movie is going to get history
exactly right. And it's not the duty of fiction movies to be documentaries. I'm not implying that, but there is I think, like our discussion today speaks to like when you get history so wrong or there's a lot of omission like that can perpetuate harm against marginalized communities, which is what our whole contextual discussion was. And so I feel and again I know that it's like I am not well versed in these issues at all. I'm still a ton to learn, and a lot of this is
new information. So if I'm coming down too hard, I apologize, But from the information I have presently, it just seems like this, this movie gets history or willfully emits a lot of important history in a way that doesn't you know, it like erases a lot of marginalized communities and uplifts some harmful status quos, which a lot of movies do. But because again, like we talked about this in The Women King episode two, when you involve actual historical figures.
That's when it gets super super super messy. Yeah, and so that is sort of where I stand on that. It's a super fun movie to watch. It's really exciting. I like, and the live viewing experience. Someone threw a fucking like inflatable tiger at the screen.
It was just like it was a lot people get up and dance along with the not to not too scene. Like, it's just an an electric viewing experience.
It's intense, yeah, I mean, and so for the movie going experience, it's fucking unbelievable. Like Russian movie is an incredibly talented filmmaker, but a lot of the writing is a bit concerning. And so I'm gonna give it one nipple. I apologize if that's too harsh, and I'm gonna give it to Sorry, I guess I'm gonna give it to I'll split it between Molly and her mom because it is such a brutal two punch opening scene and I'm glad that they are reunited. I really thought that they
killed her mom, and I am. The movie is so long that sometimes I forget that she does live between the beginning and the end, because.
You only see her in the opening sequence and then in the credit sequence like yeah, she gets brought back to screen after the movie has ended and they're playing like the big credit song and dance number.
Yeah. I'm just glad that Molly got to reunite with her whole family. I think that that is very It's what she deserved. So yeah, give it, give it one nipple. Sorry, I love you, happy birthday.
I mean I give it only a half nipple more than you, so we're pretty much the same. But thank you. It is my birthday.
Media, it's so complicated. Well, I'm covering Minion's Rise of Group for my birthday and we're gonna have a hell of a time.
Oh wow, Yeah, I can't wait. Yep, listeners, that's our r r r r r r r r r r r or thanks again to our guest with ash Baboo. Make sure to check out there writing and you can follow us. Hey, you know what, because it's my birthday, you can follow me on social media?
Oh such as unfollow me in observiance of Kaitlyn's birthday.
Yeah, take your follow take your follow away from Jamie and give it to me. Just kidding. You can follow anyone you want. But especially me on my special day. I'm trying to be more active on TikTok, which I don't know how to feel about. I'm less active on Twitter than I've ever been before, except to convince people to cast me in Paddington three, which is at the time of this recording, and we're recording pretty far out but so hopefully this doesn't change by the time this
episode comes out. But production on Paddington three is slated to begin in July, so there's still time to cast me, and then Instagram and I'm at all of those places at Caitlin Deronte, please follow me.
You can also follow our Patreon aka Maatreon at patreon dot com slash bachtel cast. Five bucks a month gets you a number of bonus episodes.
And that number is too I don't know why I put it like that, And you also can do per month per month, and yes, you get access to I think close to one hundred and fifty back episode cat logs at this point, and then we'll be covering some of Caitlin's thaves on the Matreon this month, so check that out.
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Cast, and you can buy our merch at teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast. Treat yourself to a little t shirt, a little phone case, a little little pillow, whatever you want. It's my birthday, so you treat yourself in observance of the national holiday. Yes, yes, wonderful.
Okay, well there's the episode We love you so much. Go have a nice springtime day, do it. Oh, also, my book comes out next week. Oh my god, yes, rad Dog May twenty third. We're gonna be covering it in our well, not the book. We're gonna be covering sausage Party next week. Sorry, bye bye