Last weekend my twitter feed was going non stop, and most of those tweets were #chennaiexpress, the new Shahrukh Khan movie.
Most of these tweets were taking offense to how south Indians were stereotyped in this movie and how the Tamil spoken by the heroine and hero were offensive because no one who speaks Tamil actually talks like that.
Think Apu of Simpsons. Indian's don't speak like that. Apu stood for all Indians which was a higher level of sterotyping. My grad student friends would say hello to me in the Apu accent! Initially it was annoying, but then again, I leant do come back with some pretty good comments on my own.
The world hasnt moved much in 20 years of my staying in the US. Twenty years ago someone asked me "so you speak Indian?" and as late as three months ago, someone asked me the same question. One would assume that in a place where 1 in 5 people is Indian and Samosa and Tea are as staple as Pizza and Soda at any birthday party, folks would know that there is no language called "Indian"... but one assumes wrong!
Was very busy with work and that meant waiting to watch Chennai Express. Finally got to see it and thoroughly enjoyed it. There are some prerequisites to enjoying this movie.
1. You should be an SRK fan.
2. You should have watched all his previous films (or some of the jokes are lost on you). I was laughing out so loud when he says "I have done this earlier too" while pulling the heroine into a moving train..
3. You should not be easily offended by stereotype jokes. Watching a lot of Russell Peters, Maz Jobrani, Ahmed Ahmed etc. helps.
4. You should get the jokes!
All that said, I had no issues with SRK who was his usual self which is what I go to watch in an SRK movie. A goofy ham of a performance. The movie was abmling along nicely till they decided on a 10 minute fight scene at the end. Why?
In the hands of a better director, this storyline would have made a better movie.. and maybe he/she would have dubbed the heoines Tamil dialogues and it would have been a bigger hit with South Indian folks as well!
Just when I was telling San that the movie was fun, the little one says "I have an episode of our favorite serial called The Littlest Pet Shop and you are going to love it!"
So they play me this on Netflix online and it was a laugh riot. SRK being spoofed on a kid's serial!
Hopefully you clicked on all those links and immunized yourself from getting angry at language sterotypes and then watch Chennai Express.
You might enjoy it!