Adam Writes:
Our appearance on the podcast Master of None came out yesterday, and there’s another one on the way in spring or summer. (Well… I’m in Bangalore now, where it’s currently summer. And Erika is in Florida where it’s pretty much always spring or summer. But you get the idea. Details to follow.) I haven’t listened to the Master of None recording, yet. This weekend I will. But we had a fantastic time recording it.
Sir (Bollywood Movie)
I did watch an excellent movie the other day, which is rare. I usually can’t sit through an entire movie, leastwise not since the pandemic started. But the other night, Anuja and I were feeling worried because my Mom and stepdad were about to join us. It will be their first trip to India. So we took some time to watch the movie Sir, written and directed by Rohena Gera. It’s a movie about a rich man and his maid, each of whom develops feelings for the other.
Cinderella Movie tropes
Sir is a movie that should not work. Or it’s the sort of movie we should have seen a thousand times before. So why does it, or why haven’t we? Well, there are a lot of cliches when it comes to movies about relationships between social classes. There’s the obvious “happily ever after” expectation, for one. Then there’s the tragic West Side Story type. Then there’s the “she’s really pretty so let’s pretend there are no obstacles because writing a story with complex characters is hard” Love Actually type. Sir avoids all of those paths. Of greatest interest is that it avoids the Ever After direction.
What these Tropes really Mean
Typically, when Cinderella meets her Prince (yay gender-binaries!) that’s it. She is going to be taken out of a bad, poor life and into a good, rich life (yay economic binaries!). But in Sir, many of the wealthy characters are depicted as assholes. Then again, many of the poor characters are, as well. So the arc of the film isn’t rags-to-riches. I’m not sure it’s about the main character, Ratna, earning anyone’s respect, either, including her own. She begins the movie knowing who she is and knowing what she values. The other characters change as a result of her influence. And yet she is indisputably the main character; the film is shot from her perspective.
Transcending Tropes
I think the reason the film works is that it’s not a rags-to-riches story. Or a woman-making-it-in-a-man’s-world story. Or a fish-out-of-water story. Though it has elements of all of those. It works because it’s just a story. The characters are well-drawn. You know who they are and yet you don’t always know how they will react to a given situation.
Tropes and Writing
We can all learn a lot about writing characters and about adapting tropes from this movie. I find I’m really enjoying the understated school of Bollywood filmmaking. But that’s not to say I will not enjoy a fun action movie or a whodunit. Tropes can be important. I am prone to make fun of them. But when they’re well-done, they make me smile. For instance, it is a trope universally acknowledged that no melodramatic Bollywood film can be complete without the female lead (yay gender binaries!) wearing some flowing silk dress whose ends are blowing in the wind. So of course in the excellent movie Drishyam, we first see Tabu wearing a police uniform with her hair pinned up and her collared shirt tucked into a pair of trousers.
Then abruptly, in the second half of the movie, she’s wearing a flowing black dress, with her hair, unpinned, blowing in the wind. Why? Don’t ask me. I don’t make the tropes. I mean the rules.
What else?
Music and Solitude
I haven’t been listening to music much lately. But the lack of that has been really instructive. It’s given me time to think about what makes me turn on a piece of music. Or not. About why I listen to music. Or not. It turns out that I mostly listen to music by myself. I’m sure part of me was aware of that fact. But I never thought directly about it. I’ve been singing a bit. I’ve been telling stories a lot.
Why is music mostly a solitary affair (for me)? Well, I’ve been away from Anuja for 2 years. It turns out that when we’re together, we spend a lot of time together. And when we’re not… I have a lot of extra time.
The Value of Tropes is Rooted in the Comfort of the Familiar
But it’s also true that Anuja and I have different taste in music. Each of us likes the music the other likes. But learning your way around a genre of music takes a lifetime. She has turned on a Bach Suite for Unaccompanied Cello. But does she have five or six favorite recordings? Similarly, I really like the song “Maa” from the Bollywood movie Taare Zameen Par. I mean I really like it. It makes me cry basically every time I listen. But is it in my top twenty? It had better be, given that I don’t know the names of 20 Indian pop-songs.
Anuja has also introduced me to classical Hindustani music. Everything I’ve heard of the genre so far has been lovely. But more than that: intense and engaging, as well. So why don’t I listen to it all the time? Because when I’m in a foul mood, or even when I’m looking for background music for my writing, I’m more likely to turn to something familiar. The problem is that a lot of the world’s wealth is in the hands of people who look and think more like me than like Anuja. And that’s why many of the greatest European-style classical musicians get paid millions of dollars. And musicians from other traditions get a poke in the eye.
Erika Writes:
My last few Watch/Listen/Read posts have used words like “weary” to describe my state of mind. I’m fighting some real darkness right now, dealing with things both physically and emotionally. I’m seeing it in my writing, in the thing I’m choosing to read and watch and listen to. It’s wearing me down.
As anyone who has fought their way through the dark knows, it becomes easy sometimes to allow it to blanket you in its comfort. For me, thankfully, that feeling has eventually always become a feeling of being smothered, and needing to kick that blanket off, but learning to care for myself while I work through and honor each stage is hard for me… and I know it’s not easy for the people who care for me either. If you’re one of those people and you’re reading this, my default is to say: “I’m sorry. I know.” I’m trying to get to a place where I can say: “Thank you.” But the way I’m feeling I lean towards “sorry.”
Art for Depression: A Preference for the Dark or the Familiar
When I’m in those dark places, if I’m going to reach for books or music or movies, what I choose is likely to either be familiar, and therefore not require too much engagement. Or something that allows me to indulge the dark feelings. Or sometimes, a little of both. I won’t fill the post with YouTube links to stories about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, but I have been enjoying the CBC’s Short Docs channel.
There are so many more that I want to watch, but this one about a family-run sushi bar closing is one of my favorites. The one about Madhu Parab “the condom king of Newfoundland” was also interesting.
So I did start watching Human Resources on Netflix, the Big Mouth spinoff. I will probably go back and watch from the beginning again. I enjoyed some of it, but my head just wasn’t in the right place to appreciate all of it. It has a fantastic cast though, and I am still looking forward to it. The new season of Bridgerton is premiering this weekend, and I’ve been looking forward to that as well, although again, I suspect I’m just not in a place where I will enjoy it as much as I could. And on the subject of enjoyment… there’s also the new docu-series Principles of Pleasure which I am very excited about.
Breaking out of the “Sex equals Death” Trope
My work in HIV education meant that I spent a great deal of time talking about the clinical parts of human sexuality and much less time talking about the fun parts–and considering that most of my clients were teenagers or young adults, that makes me even sadder. I have strong feelings about teaching good decision making while only giving half of the information–the scary half at that. “Sex equals death” is a tired trope, too. We’ll see what this documentary contains–it might just pop up right here in a future Watch/Listen/Read. But who knows? It might provide the foundation for one of my Monday columns, too. It might be nice to write about pleasure, for once.
Bach to the Basics (Not Sorry)
In spite of all these new and shiny things, I’m still reaching for the familiar and comfortable. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Netherlands Bach Society released a new recording of the Violin Concerto in E Major. This was one of the first pieces I learned to identify as Bach, to become familiar with the sounds and patterns and themes. It’s music that feels good to me, and I was glad to find it.
And of course it’s not just Bach that I’ve been listening to. Old favorites, good for crying like REM’s “Try Not to Breathe,” have been playing in the background, too.
The best listening this week, however, is a toss up between the newly released episode of Master of None (there’s just something special about hearing my work referred to as “your fucking writing,”) or a recitation of Wordsworth that I shared over the phone.
Favorite Works of YA Lit
The same goes for reading. Familiar. I read a bunch of Laura Antinou’s books this week. They’re books I’ve read so many times that engaging with them doesn’t require tremendous energy from my brain. I think I’ve also mentioned my love for YA and middle-grade fiction before too. So I spent some of this past week’s rainy afternoons with E.L. Koenigsberg’s From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and with Bel Kaufman’s Up the Down Staircase. Laura Antinou is definitely not YA or middle-grade, and yet both have been treats like candy this week.
Poetry, Duh…
Somehow, it seems it wouldn’t be a Watch/Listen/Read without some entry about poetry from me. I almost skipped it this week, too, as I’ve been stewing over what it means to call oneself “poet” and thinking about how much I reject that label–even more than the label “writer.” But then, as I was doing some work on the website earlier, I was listening to Kait Rokowski read some of her work, and I broke down in tears. And in the middle of that, Adam tagged me on a Facebook post which he knew would make me laugh. Which it did. So there I am, a snot covered, bawling and laughing mess and nothing is making sense.
What’s the thought that crosses my mind? “I should write about this moment.” That thought only led to more tears though, because I couldn’t figure out how to put the moment into words. It was poetry. But I couldn’t turn it into a poem. One day I’ll feel worthy of it. I hope. Anyway. Kait Rokowski responded to an awful article in Maxim magazine years ago with this poem, How to Cure a Feminist but I think I will leave you with the poem “New Insults” and suggest that, in addition to adding Hannah Gadsby’s “Dick Biscuit” to your lexicon if you haven’t already done so, that you also add “Dick Nut” as well.
To Better Times Ahead
Here’s hoping that my state of mind improves soon. Along with getting a copy of Hannah Gadsby’s book, which comes out next week. And that the sore spots go back to their normal everyday level of hurting instead of where they’re at now.
And don’t forget to nominate a poem for our National Poetry Month activities. If you don’t, then the choices all fall to me and to Adam… and while I’m sure we can do a competent job, I’m looking to expand beyond that… so help me out.
