Law school has ruined watching Bollywood movies for me. After doing 2 History and Sociology courses, I just cannot stand period dramas anymore. I need accuracy to detail, in costumes, gadgets, language, everything. I even demand accuracy in my villains. After Lagaan, this is the second movie where I wanted the Evil White GuyTM to win. (Is it a coincidence that both starred Aamir Khan in the lead role?) I don’t know whether this is because I can no longer stand moral absolutism in fictional narratives or simply because that’s just how annoying the script was. It could also be because Lord Clive aka Lloyd Owen is a SNAAAACK. I haven’t crushed this hard on a British villain since Captain Andrew Russell in Lagaan. He’s played the Magnificent Bastard (1) to perfection.
Thugs of Hindostan, to give a Megha summary, is a story of how Aamir Khan grapples with his disorder of pathological lying. This is an exercise that I wish straight men would undertake more often-half of the problems of law school women would be solved. Unfortunately, it has little value as a storytelling exercise. In fact, the film has little in the way of a story, which is the basic minimum I demand from a Bollywood film, no matter how trashy it is in other respects. It could be argued there is a skeletal plot hanging in there somewhere like the threads of my sanity every time Shahid Kapoor uttered ‘Rajput’ during Padmaavat but it’s just too…flat to be taken seriously. Kind of like Katrina’s face in the movie.
Speaking of Katrina, the makers of the movie picked a very intelligent strategy in releasing one-minute teasers of both her item songs dance numbers so that hormonal lads can come flocking to the theaters and spend their parents’ hard earned money on the opportunity to objectify her for a sum total of 10 minutes. However, to give her credit, it is visible that she really did work extremely hard on both her item songs dance numbers. I have been attending Zumba + dance classes for 2 months but I will probably require 2 spinal surgeries and die an excruciatingly painful death before pulling off the jumps and twists she has done in the film.
The makers did another extremely intelligent thing by making sure that she only had 5 minutes of speaking time in the movie, but at crucial plot points, thus avoiding any criticism with respect to her acting abilities, while also ensuring that the film very narrowly passes the Lamp Test and the Bechdel Test. Unless she was just a special species of Magical Dancing Lamp who can flirt with men and harbor feelings of anti-colonialism. I mean you never know, Magical Dancing Lamps can do everything that women can you know. They also want equality.
The other female lead in the movie, apart from Katrina Kaif’s Abs, is Fatima Sheikh, the cutie from Chachi 420. She plays a Bollywood Warrior PrincessTM in the film. She is mentored in her journey from annoying 8-year-old tomboy with anger issues to annoying 18-year-old tomboy with anger issues by Amitabh Bachchan’s character who is the Worst Therapist Ever. He literally tells her at one point of the film, hey don’t let go of your anger babez, keep it inside you and nurse it forever so you can use its power to defeat the evil gora log. Mental illness crippling you in achieving life goals is such a 2018 millennial snowflake thing. Our Rajput ancestors knew better.
Anyway, Aamir Khan’s character keeps flirting with her throughout the film and in the end, one character even suggests that she has fallen in love with him. Thankfully they refrain from showing any physical intimacy between the two but seriously…she literally played your daughter in the last film you all did together. Katrina’s character pretends to be blissfully unaware of this and the film avoids any complicated love triangle BS. I suppose that’s unfair on my part though, how could Abs possibly be jealous of anyone, they’re just muscles after all.
Before I delve too much into Abs and Angry Princess’ love triangle, here’s what was promised in the title:
- Watch Dhoom 3. I watched it before I watched The Prestige so I still enjoyed it. Besides c’mon I know everybody secretly enjoys Uday Chopra being a goof, that’s what the franchise runs on amirite?
- Just kidding, watch The Prestige. You probably won’t enjoy movies again because every plot twist will look lame in comparison, but whatever Hugh Jackman heylooo
- Also watch Baahubali, both films, back-to-back while you’re at it. The film has tried too hard, and too evidently, to copy the Baahubali Not that the latter doesn’t have its problems but seriously-Amitabh Bacchan’s Khudabaksh=Katappa. Aamir Khan=Mahendra Baahubali. Zaphira=Warrior Princess Avanthika. Even some of the choreography in Vashmalle was copied from Manohari. If all of this is sounding Greek and Latin to you, good. There is hope. The Maahishmati kingdom will come for you.
- Ruminate on whether the Lamp Test and the Bechdel Test are real guarantees of how well-written a female character is if all you need is some intelligent writing to bypass both while objectifying the said female character at the same time.
(Somewhere in a script narration in a suburban Bombay film studio: Director-But Suraiyya cracks dick jokes! In 1806, mind you! I mean if that isn’t liberated, I really don’t know what these feminists want)
- Watch Game of Thrones or Hunger Games or idk Cardcaptor Sakura or any show/movie about a Strong Female Lead with Anger IssuesTM which is relatively less annoying. Though to be honest, the entire trope has become annoying at this point.
- Read up on the history of colonialism in India. Think about whether colonialism really brought our doom or were we doomed from the beginning. The film at various points hints at how Indians are Indians’ worst enemies but then chooses to return to the same old Hindustan v. Gora dynamic.
- What is Hindustan really? Read up on nationalism(s) and the building of the nation-state. I mean heck, the characters in the film aren’t even fighting for Indian independence or the Indian flag, they’re fighting for some fictional principality. The movie should be called Thugs of Raunakpur. I was sniggering throughout the climax thinking wait for 1947 babes. They’re going to force you to join the Indian union, take away your privy purse, and then the fort whose azaadi you keep blabbing about is going to become a 5-star hotel to host destination weddings for the descendants of the goras you threw out 200 years earlier.
- Read up on casteism in Hindu mythology. Thugs has a very interesting scene where the gora villain calls the freedom fighters personifications of Raavan, and sets an effigy of Raavan on fire with an arrow, metaphorically standing in for Ram. No, the movie is still lame as hell, still wouldn’t recommend watching it. Read Anand Neelakantan’s Asura. Read the story of Mahabali. Read about Persian mythology and how it’s the inverse of Hindu mythology. Read up on Eklavya and Karna. Burn a copy of the *beep* Smriti (not Irani) while you’re at it.
- Basically, read. Just read and make your children read too so that when they grow up they don’t hoist the flag of Raunakpur and pronounce the glory of Akhand Raunakpur everywhere because like a certain Mr. Bhagat has commented who needs history when our countrymen have shitty Bollywood movies to teach them about it.
- As a reward for the above, treat yourself to a viewing of Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander or Andaz Apna Apna when both Aamir Khan and movie plots were cuter.
If you were already convinced the movie was tatti and had decided not to watch it, congratulations. For those of you whose parents are determined to make you waste your time in the post-Diwali weekend, show this review to them. There is still hope.
*Quirk regrets to inform that the author of this article has mysteriously disappeared. An unfinished draft of the article was found on her computer. While the circumstances of her disappearance are unknown, her friends and family suspect it is on account of State authorities having tapped her Whatsapp messages to her friends about the movie, where she very energetically discussed the thoughts of Aamir Khan’s character on Azaadi. According to Firangi Mullah, Azaad is not one person, but a soch, a thought, which can enable one to free themselves from the gulaami of their colonizers. She was also discussing how it is curious how the main characters of the film are Muslim and in that context the allegory of the villain Clive as Lord Ram perhaps makes sense. Ms. Mehta’s friend vociferously denied any knowledge of what she was babbling about and when asked for a quote simply said ‘The reason he keeps saying Azaad Azaad is because that’s his son’s name. It’s advance promotion because he’s already feeling insecure about how his son will compete with Taimur when both of them are launched, hence he wants to create an impression in audience’s minds already.’ We at Quirk wholeheartedly agree with this explanation and wish Ms. Mehta the best, wherever she is.*
References
- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard
NLS Inmates Review journalists had conducted a famous sting operation in the Cauvery Bunker in 1942. They managed to catch on tape the popular mooter Adolf Hitler (ID no: 0273) bursting into a furious monologue following the release of his first year Reval results.
In light of the growing resentment against the structural problem of Reval, we are now declassifying the video from our archives.
Original video from: Der Untergang
]]>“She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl”.
The words of Gillian Flynn often disturbed me. Maybe because it was the most blunt, honest characterization of millions of women, echoed by a psychotic yet genius woman (watch Gone Girl). Primarily because to my absolute horror, it was like a checklist I had ticked several points off for a couple of years after coming to NLS.
It’s difficult to clarify these things in your head. To my mind, I had always been a feminist. There was no question that I was not okay with sandwich jokes, but maybe I didn’t have to make a big deal out of it every time and give everyone “BT”. Maybe it was fine for me to simply give a small smile, but no encouragement. After all, these were my friends and I knew they weren’t sexist. What’s the harm?
The harm is what the Cool Girl does to you, internally and outwardly. Outwardly, you take convenient stances when it comes to your friends. You emphasize on context and shift focus from the issue to technicalities. Which is the problem in the way that so many of us reacted to the Vedica controversy last year – we caught up on the technicalities on how they had gone wrong, ignoring the subtle but important point that AoW tried to make. The Cool Girl unquestionably takes away from the fight that needs to be fought.
But the internal cost of being a Cool Girl at NLS is so much more. It is constantly second guessing yourself, and how interesting you are. It’s telling yourself that you must adopt the loud Delhi boy humour, as opposed to the quiet sardonic humour you possess right now. It is nudging yourself into situations and interests and activities that are not you, but they’re the understanding of cool.
It is circumventing your feelings and wishes in any relationship, tailoring your interests to the boy-man so that he likes you and enjoys spending time with you – after all, he has to if you’re one of the boys right? His friends MUST think you’re cool, never mind the personal discomfort you’re in by stifling your opinion and reactions. Creating a scene at Chetta, confronting your boyfriend and then becoming the talk of the entire college? Nah, the Cool Girl is a secure, hot woman, who quietly drinks her beer.
So should we stop drinking beer and devouring pizzas and wearing the clothes we think we like? I think it would be trivializing the issue to say that these traits should all be abandoned with immediate gusto. Mainly because they shouldn’t be allowed to be “masculine traits” to begin with. I, along with dozens of women I know, love beer and burping. That’s not something women should be apologizing for.
But then how does one even begin to break out of this trend?
I started by speaking. And speaking unashamedly. Phrases I often found myself adopting before were “I don’t entirely agree with you, but you are entitled to your opinion” or “I don’t think the way to change people’s minds is to shame them”. The latter I’ve found is the key to entrenching sexism in law school. And it’s a statement that every Cool Girl makes, because remember, you cannot be angry — you must smile in a chagrined manner. You will be congratulated for being rational and reasonable and calm. God forbid that you nag or boss or scold or do anything that isn’t chill.
Which brings me to “CHILL”. The eternal comeback given to every woman in law school who raises her voice, especially on matters of equality, but even on anything at all. If you are conscientious about your work, if you don’t want to spend your night lazing with contraband on the field, if you just don’t get Rick and Morty, if you don’t grin at pussy or sandwich jokes – congratulations, you’re no longer chill. This isn’t to say that I have a problem with the women who choose to engage in these things (well, except the last) but the issue is that it has become a way to limit and classify people. And yes, this constrains guys too. But I’ve found it to be a massive driving force in the way that especially women behave on campus. We already function in a competitive environment where the community is so close knit that gossip travels faster than through the Internet. This exacerbates the issues that so many women on campus face in the way they see themselves. You’re a slut, or you’re boring. You’re an irrational Vedica, or you’re an apologist Cool Girl. We’ve devised our own set of stultifying labels and roles for women on campus, and if you leave law school with your self confidence intact after 5 years, it’s a genuine miracle.
The Cool Girl has internalized these labels, adopted them as a part of her personality, thereby creating a vogue of being chill, and ergo, being quiet. In many ways, the Cool Girl is a modern variant of the age-old gender role of requiring women to be meek-mannered and wordless. Today, her voice is constrained not by a requirement to be quiet, but to be chill.
From someone who’s recently started breaking away, to the dozens I know are unsure of themselves. I can give you a sermon like I’ve had an epiphany and could write a self-help book (typical law schoolite obviously). But I’d rather just end by saying that maybe you won’t overhaul the patriarchy in law school, but you’ll definitely end up happier once you dump the Cool Girl.
Love,
A Proud Non-Cool Girl
On a dark BU highway, CLAT rank in my hand
Giant library tower , rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I hear of submission deadlines
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to look for lifelines.
There it hung on the noticeboard;
The list of placements was swell.
And I was thinking to myself,
“This could be Heaven or this could be Hell”
Then he kicked open the door and he showed me my cube
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say…
Welcome to the Laa School Life, macha.
Such a BT place (Such a BT place)
But there’s a saving grace.
Plenty of fun at the Hostel Himalaya
Any time of year (Any time of year)
It’s lit af here.
The system is fully twisted, it’s got some crazy demands.
It’s got a lot of shitty, shitty ploys, to bring you despair.
How they dance in the Acad quad, Trying to forget.
But they’ll always remember, and they’ll always regret.
So I called up the alumnus,
“This place is breaking my spine.”
He said, “Be the monster it wants you to be, then the rest will all be fine.”
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of Torts class
Just to hear them say…
Welcome to the Laa School life, macha.
Such a BT place (Such a BT place)
Until you match its pace.
Then you’ll be livin’ it up at the Hostel Himalaya
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Can I live this life?
Results on the website,
That F by my name looks so nice.
I thought, “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device”
And in my roommate’s chambers,
They gathered for some scenes.
They had won it with skills and belief
But I just couldn’t take this grief.
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the gate
I had to get that Uber fast
But the app just won’t book it.
“Relax, ” said the night man,
“We have blocked all these sites.
You can drop-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! ”
Welcome to the Laa School life, macha.
Such a BT place (Such a BT place)
Until you match its pace.
Then you’ll be livin’ it up at the Hostel Himalaya
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Can I live this life?