Category Archives: paper

Mississippi Masala

Someone in the class said that this movie was powerful because of the mixed relationships between African American and Indian American. I have to agree. In a lot of movies relationships contain same race relationships or a mixed relationship with a white woman/man. Throughout the movie it made us think about how these two race groups of brown skin should stick together but easily gave up on each other.

It was also said in class that their really wasn’t any violence. We often see in movies with minorities that I was sure that something bad was  going to happen. I thought something was going to happen to the brother because it seemed like he was caught in with the wrong groups, “always on the street corner.” It was actually relieving to see that violence didn’t have to take place to have a powerful movie.

A lot of points were talked about when we talked about the film. We talked about the dysfunctional relationships between same race couples to mixed race couples. Of course their was dysfunction between Demetrius and Mina because of their families not wanting them to be together but it wasn’t because of them not loving each other. It was shown that just because you are the same race doesn’t mean that you won’t have problems in your marriage.

Hybridity and Home in Mississippi Masala

Mississippi Masala is unique for centering non-white hybridity. Usually media portrays hybridity as mixed raced people with white ancestry. While a hybrid Indian-African identity may at one point have been possible, Idi Amin’s verdict that all Asians must leave Uganda shuts down the potential for hybrid African identity. Okelo’s remark that “Africa is for Africans. Black Africans” seems to only cement this sentiment. Jay and his family must flee Uganda, eventually ending up in America. Indian Ugandan diaspora in some ways reflects African American disapora, and Mira Nair draws on this analogy in the scene where Mina is eating with Demetrius’s family. Someone asks how Indians ended up in Uganda and Mina replies, “The British brought them there to build the railway”, a family member chimes in “like slaves!”. A transhistorical connection is made between slavery and indentured servitude, between American slavery, and British colonialism.

The film interrogates notions of home and homeland. “You just like us. We from Africa, but we never been there before either”. Where is home for people experiencing diaspora and displacement? Mississippi Masala doesn’t offer any easy answers, rather it presents the viewer with even more questions. Jay insists that Africa is his home, yet when he returns to Uganda it becomes clear that this is no longer true. His old house is in ruins, his best friend is dead. I think Okelo was much of what represented “home” to Jay and with that connection gone he realizes that his family are all that he has left.

Week 8, Tuesday. Ozeki, pages 111 – 203

Sight. 

When I first learned what foreshadowing was I looked for it everywhere. Anytime something peaked my interest in a story I immediately deemed it as foreshadowing and claimed I knew what was going to happen. Most of the time, I was wrong. (But to be fair, it was an eleven-year-old me up against an old, dead white guy hailed as Great. Funny… when considering my lifestyle interest of feminism, that sort of seems like foreshadowing in itself.)

The first time I was assigned to read Oedipus at Colonus, my teacher introduced it with a grin and said, “Keep your eyes open and really look for the themes.” I missed it. Later, when he assigned us The Crying of Lot 49 I frantically underlined any mention of sight or visibility with hopes to understand Oedipa’s connection to Oedipus. I think I concluded that she was looking for herself; searching for identity through possible global conspiracy.

When I began A Tale for the Time Being I fell into usual habits; looking for themes and trying to make connections. As Ruth looked for hints about what would happen I looked with her. I distrusted Nao’s writing and in doing so, connected it to post modern methods. (My final senior year paper in high school was on post modern themes: merry tricksters, intertextuality, nontraditional forms, distortion in time, fiction about fiction [meta-fiction], untrustworthy narrators, contains many POVs, kaleidoscopic narratives. I appropriately titled the paper M.I.N.D.F.U.C.K..) I understood Jiko’s lack of physical sight but clarity and wisdom though spirituality to be similar to Oedipus’ shift of lens. Nao’s writing as super power led me to believe that she was rewriting parts of her history so we would only know her as she hoped we would, hence the distrust. I connected so quickly to the post modern-themes that when I found something similar I connected the two. But in doing this, I began to miss things. My distrust of narrative seeped into my distrust of fantasy and I almost lost my own sight of the book.

Jiko shares spiritual vision similarities to post-gouge-Oedipus and Ruth may be like Oedipa, searching for answers through conspiracy, but they are no more than similarities. They are themselves their own contribution to the reader’s vision. Just as Nao finds importance during her summer with Jiko, her sight and might changing, I too find importance in allowing my sight to be changed.

 

 

Ozeki p. 305-403 (and appendices); Theme of Reality

“In the superimposed photograph, the tiger would appear to be a blur or smear. In a microscopic quantum universe, governed by the principle of superposition, the tiger is the smear” p. 414.

Like the tiger, reality is smeared in A Tale for the Time Being. What causes all of the characters reality’s to smear together? Is it because they are all somehow connected through fate, time travel, Ruth/Ruth’s world doesn’t exist, Harry’s Q-Mu, or maybe quantum mechanics? Well, let’s check out the evidence for each theory.

1. Fate:

Ruth finds Nao’s journal.  When Nao’s journal goes blank Ruth is in charge of Nao’s ending.

The Jungle Crow leads Oliver and Ruth to discover Pesto alive. If it weren’t for the Jungle Crow they would have never found Pesto and he would have died.

2. Time Travel:

Ruth travels through a dream to convince Harry not to kill himself and that Nao needs him. Ruth also inserts #1 Haruki’s letters into his box with the intention of Harry and Nao to read. All of this becomes true and really happens; according to Nao’s once again filled in and changed ending.

3. Ruth/ Ruth’s world doesn’t exist:

“I mean if she stops writing to us, then maybe we stop being too” p. 344

“His voice seemed farther away now. Was it her ears or the storm?” p. 344

4.  Harry’s Q-Mu:

“Maybe it’s possible that in one of those worlds, Haruki #2 figured out how to build his Q-Mu and get objects in that world to interact with this one. Maybe he’s figured out how to use quantum entanglement to make parallel worlds talk to one another and exchange information” p. 395 -Oliver to Ruth

5. Quantum mechanics:

Was pesto meant to die? Was there another world created/already existing world where Pesto died?

“(For one crazy moment, I thought that monograph I found online might even be yours, but it vanished before I could discover who wrote it)” p. 402- Ruth to Nao

“Well maybe that’s the wrong way to put it, but I’m thinking that if everything your looking for disappears maybe you should stop looking. Maybe you should focus on what’s tangible in the here and now” p. 232- Oliver to Ruth about Quantum element.

Conclusion:

So that’s a total of five theories as to why all the characters reality’s are smeared together. Do you think one theory is more arguable than another? Or maybe you’re thinking of another theory that is not listed….Wait, what if…. you’re reading this and then it just disappears? What would you say? What would you do or think? Would you think it has to be quantum mechanics? Or maybe there just simply is no answer at all…Oh, but there is always an answer to everything, even the seemingly impossible, some would say.

Week 8: Mississippi Masala

After watching Mississippi Masala and reading Lee’s analysis of the film I wanted to go look into interviews done by those in the film, I thought this would be a successful way to achieve a wider spectrum on the movie, since it would add the view of those involved to my own opinions and the opinions of Lee’s theory. But when I looked for interviews by either of the film’s stars, Sarita Choudhury and Denzel Washington, I found nothing for Mississippi Masala. The most relevant result I got was an interview with director Mira Nair. Below is an excerpt from the interview and the full transcript can be found here.

BG: In Masala there is an issue that I’ve never seen dealt with before, the issue of black and brown – the conflicts and situation. That is very fresh, and goes with you saying you wanted to make cinema that puts black and brown people at the centre.

MN: Well, Mississippi Masala grew out of being an Indian student at Harvard. When I arrived I was accessible to both white and black communities – a third-world sister to the black community and Kosher to the others – yet there were always these invisible lines. I felt that there was an interesting hierarchy where brown was between black and white. Even before Salaam Bombay!, I had wanted to tell this tale. That, along with the irony of Indian racism and the separatist nature of the Indian community in America … I began to read about the weird phenomenon of every southern motel being owned by an Indian, and many of them were exiles from East Africa after Amin had thrown them out.

There is this very cerebral concept: what was it like to be an African, but of Indian skin who believed India to be a spiritual home without ever having been there and to be living in Mississippi? An what if this world collided with that of black American who believed Africa to be their spiritual home, but had also never been there? It must collide through love, because we must sell tickets!

But where are the other interviews? How does a movie that deals with identity, racial and shade issues, and an interracial relationship with both people being people of color not have more press? I can find YouTube appreciation posts of the music, interviews by both Choudhury and Washington for other movies, and even the full movie but no review videos. I want to be surprised, but I’m not. Even though this film pushes the boundary of how racial identities are perceived by oneself and others while redefining the the portrayal of interracial/ cross-cultural couples it remains hidden under a multitude of other results. After this realization my spectrum did grow; the lack of exposure for alternative representation of this film makes the film itself even more important and necessary.

Islands

Click here to view the embedded video.

Words and film by Jude Wasserman

The words are a wave crashing over me. Riptides pulling us apart until we are two separate islands. In a year we will be almost strangers, and even now it is a struggle to imagine the softness of your lips, or the tug of our fingers entwined. Secrets crumble like fragile flowers pressed between pages of a book long ago discarded. Funny how the tide can sneak up on you, rising until it covers your ankles, your belly button, your throat. Saltwater burns, and eyes cloud until you can no longer recognize the space between particles.

“I’m going to go home tonight and this is it. It’ll be over”. 
This moment is captured crystalline in sickly sweet amber.

In my dreams you are still enchanted with me. I hold you while you shiver with cold sweat and fever. 
We met in a now outside of time, and so much of our love was islands colliding. When you are sick, you miss me, you miss your mother. And i understand how our connection is within and outside of now, and this too will be swept into the circuits and flows of cold seawater.

(Song is “Medicine” from A Stick and A Stone (astickandastone.com/)

Passages and Carceral Archipelagos

It felt fitting to me that Chico would mention carceral studies on Friday. I’ve been turning two ideas around in my head lately: Islands, and passages.

Foucault coined the term “carceral archipelago” to describe the expansive reach of state control over many aspects of people’s lives. After reading Ozeki, I’m seeing islands everywhere in my own life. Just like there are many kinds of incarceration, there are also many kinds of islands. Ruth and Nao are both geographically isolated on their individual islands, in many ways displaced from “home” (wherever/whatever that is). The diary acts as a bridge or passage between islands, physical and temporal. Passage as in text, as in rite of passage (Nao and Ruth’s), as in the passage of time, as in passing from one place to the next. The diary is also a passage to the reader, both Ruth and the person reading A Tale For The Time Being.

Hauntings

I’m having a hard time doing the writing for this week. A Tale For The Time Being was extremely emotional for me, and I’m afraid that none of my writing will do justice to the connections I’ve been making. Suicide is a raw spot for me, a person who holds great significance in my life killed themself in January of last year. This was someone who was at one point my partner, and also someone who was extremely violent. Suicide humanized this person to me, and completely changed the ways that I think about our actions within structures of violence. I spend a lot of time wondering about ghosts. About hauntings. They’re contagious. Aokigahra, the suicide forest that is mentioned in A Tale For The Time Being used to be a regular forest. It wasn’t until the 1960s that Seicho Matsumoto wrote a novel where the main characters killed themselves in Aokigahra, and ever since it’s been a popular spot for suicide. Once the thought got into peoples’ heads it just spread and spread. Nao gets the chance to speak to the spirit of Haruki #1, but i believe that it’s not only ghosts of humans that can haunt you. A phrase, a painting, a video, an idea can haunt you. It gets in you, and changes you. How do you think Seicho Matsumoto felt after realizing that his book haunted so many people? His idea dispersed until it changed the narrative, even the name of the forest. I can already tell that A Tale For the Time Being is going to haunt me for awhile, and I think i’m ok with that.

Mississippi Masala

I’m surprised I never saw this movie, but I found it to be very enjoyable especially after My Name is Khan which I didn’t really like at all. Mississippi Masala just felt more endearing and I enjoyed the message of the film. I like the pairing of African American and Indian American at the center of the film as it’s a romance hardly seen on the silver screen. Setting it in Mississippi as well, considering the history of racial tension, was a good choice for setting because it contrasts greatly with story of the film, creating conflict. Mississippi Masala shares a ton of similarities with other films we’ve watched and the themes it conveys are what we talk about often – identity crisis, generational conflict, etc. It seems to me that the conflict between parent and child is perhaps the strongest theme throughout all the films we watched. Both Demetrius and Mina are held back by their rigid family values, but ultimately decide to say “screw it” and make a life for themselves.

I also thought it was interesting how the film portrays racism but in a way you never see very often, in terms of it not being white/black or American/Japanese. The division between Mina’s father and Demetrius only emphasizes this aspect, which is why I like when Demetrius confronts Mina’s father about the color of his skin, basically saying that there’s really little difference between us, and that this categorization of skin color is superficial at best. His past history in Uganda and getting expelled from his home country gives him reason to feel as he does, but I’m glad that Demetrius and Mina decide to stay together despite the pasts of their families. Someone in our class said that they kept expecting something crazy to happen, and I have to agree considering some of the other films we’ve watched (Better Luck Tomorrow for example) have dipped into the darkness, so the fact that this did not happen in this film makes it more unique in my opinion – this is about other things.

A Tale for the Time Being: Communication

At the crux of the novel, it’s the communication between Nao and Ruth which carry the spirit of the story and, of course, give us something to read. Communication, or lack of, is a HUGE component of A Tale for the Time Being. There are many forms of communication throughout the story, such as the diary, talking or texting, but also more abstract forms of communication. For example, diaries are typically very personal things, but Nao’s is different – it’s inviting, mysterious and yearns to tell a story in itself. She is directly talking to whoever or whatever is in contact with her diary, be it the reader or the dustbin on the street. Nao is very determined to share her tragic point of view with anyone who is willing to read. It’s in my experience that depression or sadness often results in a “cry for help” even if it’s not apparent. It seems to me that due to the lack of communication between Nao and her parents, this diary is exactly that – a cry for help, a way to make sense of bad circumstances.

I view it almost as a psychological case-study, looking at an individual who suffers from bullying and neglect. I also find the visions Nao seems to have – such as Haruki #1′s ghost – to perhaps be extensions of this? Viewing it from another angle, Haruki’s ghost could be an extension of her feelings for her father considering she goes to great lengths to compare the two Harukis. And if it’s a real ghost, than perhaps communication from the afterlife is a valid answer. Ruth’s own memoir also serves a form of communication, as I interpret it as a much more “official” form Nao’s diary, albeit unfinished. Ruth’s dreams of Jiko, like Haruki’s ghost, serve as an otherworldly form of communication – perhaps it’s Ruth’s subconscious communicating with her. Maybe it’s Nao’s spirit making connection with Ruth? I mean if Nao’s fate is left unanswered, than we could theorize that perhaps Nao did die and maybe this is her way to reaching out to Ruth? I have no idea, but I like to speculate on these kinds of things.