Frankly, Bollywood Beats Coldplay Hollow at the Clichés Game

Here’s why we should worry more about our own stereotyping of the west, rather than Coldplay’s exotic dig at India.

Beyonce in Coldplay’s Hymn For The Weekend music video (Photo: Youtube/Coldplay Official)

Are we really crying ourselves hoarse over a ‘cultural appropriation’ debate, despite the fact that Bollywood has a much more clichéd perspective of the west? That’s a joke in itself. Now, one can say that poor old Coldplay doesn’t know India any better, and that’s really okay. At least India is consistently exotic in the band’s latest offering Hymn For The Weekend. But what about most of our films and songs that blatantly mock the west and its culture ? In fact, in our habit to stereotype, we have actually been mocking our own culture and not theirs, for a long long time. They don’t seem to have taken offence yet, I wonder why.

Here are just a handful of examples of the innumerable times that our pop culture has used western clichés, not only as props but also to blatantly depict that we are a better culture, all thanks to our sanskars.

Remember Akshay Kumar’s patriotic ‘I’ll tell you what the real India is like’ monologue in Namaste London? Maybe it’s worth taking a poll to find out how many Americans still think that India is the land of snake charmers. My guess is that they’re more curious about the number of engineering colleges we have, that are exporting qualified IT professionals to run their companies and businesses.

Stars breaking into weird choreographies in the middle of super clean foreign streets, against the backdrop of stunned locals, is a thing of the past. They aren’t stunned anymore. In fact, Bollywood numbers like this one from Heyy Babyy have a firangi dance troupe joining in. Now, they might not be able to pull off very Indian moves, but they surely can stir up a Latin-American carnival absolutely anywhere, for no reason at all.

How can we forget that neighbourhood brawl with Sylvester Stallone jumping in himself to save Kareena Kapoor, in Kambakkht Ishq! If you’ve never seen the ‘dangerous’ ghettos and the mean streets of NYC, you needn’t go all the way!

Karan Johar takes the cake no doubt. Kajol, the oh so Indian, sari clad housewife living abroad, has one and only one agenda in life. That’s to teach her son some bhartiya sanskars and to protect him from the evil that is the western culture. I mean, c’mon! Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham is full of scenes where she mocks her pretentious British neighbour and even makes fun of her accent, to say the least.

Karan Johar’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is an eternal reminder of the fact that if you’re a true bhajan singing Indian, western influence can never ‘corrupt’ you. As if that’s all that the west really wishes to achieve. 

Short skirts, outspoken oomph, cleavage revealing dresses and alcohol are what seem to have been corrupting NRI women in Bollywood films for decades. But what our film industry hasn’t been very creative with is juxtaposing the bhartiya nari with the American ‘bad’ Indian girl. We could only love Aishwarya Rai in Aa Ab Laut Chalein because the film made it so easy to trash Suman Ranganathan. A bit harsh, don’t you think?

Another common Indian belief is that westerners in general indulge in a public display of affection wherever they please. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam had a whole scene cleverly crafted around this.

Even the oh-so liberating Queen had moments of stereotypical mediocrity. Remember Kangana Ranaut’s video chat sessions with her family, where all that her kid brother and father wish to see/meet is the skimpily dressed French Lisa Haydon.

I could go on, but this cultural appropriation debate definitely needs to stop. Agreed that Sonam Kapoor and references to Indian culture seem wasted in Coldplay’s music video. But the point remains that we love stereotyping the west, just as much as it finds comfort in our exotic clichés.

Now, can we move on please?