What can I say about this movie?  First I have to say that I wanted to break down and cry so many times throughout it.  I literally could not deal with it.  But I was in class so I had to control myself.  But I didn’t want to.  Just to make that clear.  However, my first impressions of this movie were a little biased.  I was judging it as any other Bollywood film.  But I was very wrong.  It was so beautiful is so many ways.  One of those ways was Khan’s character.  I think if I tried to analyze his entire character it would take me forever, so I’m just going to talk about how adorable he was.

When I say adorable, what I mean is how sweet, gentle, and caring he was.  Like when Mandira kissed him on the cheek and he ran away.  So adorable.  Or when he told her that she sucked at singing, but she couldn’t get mad because he was so damn adorable.

After doing some research on the director of the film, Karan Johar, I learned that this film is very different to other films that he has directed.  Usually his films follow the same Bollywood style of romance, singing and dancing, with elaborate clothes.  This movie however, is meant to portray a message.  He purposefully portrayed it in the mainstream format, and I think he did this so that it could break out of the Bollywood audience and reach other audiences as well.

I think that the reason the director made Khan’s character disabled was because sometimes it’s the innocent people in the world that make the most difference, and have to most affect on us.  And I believe that Khan’s character was innocent because of his disability.  He loved his family without question, and determinedly set out to do what Mandira had told him to do because he loved her and Sam so much.  There was a quote at the end of the movie that Mandira said that made me understand this more.  ”Sam..Our Khan has managed to achieve, with his love and humanity..what my hatred could never achieve.”  I think that this is one of the major themes in this film.  Every action that Khan took was done in love and loyalty.

sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karan_Johar

http://www.subzin.com/search.php?title=My+Name+Is+Khan&imdb=&q=sam+&search_sort=Popularity&genre=-1&type=All

My initial reading I didn’t really enjoy the voice of Nao and it was for me personally, a boring read, especially Ruth’s section. However towards the end of the reading in regards to her interaction of the funeral and the kitchen knife I had to find out what happened next.

A lot of Nao’s pretentiousness gets annoying throughout the reading. I understand that given the context of her situation and the age Nao is it makes more sense that she is judgmental and feels the way she does. The occasional “OMGs” really shows the age that Nao represents. Some of her views don’t make sense to me however such as on page 75 “I didn’t pray to Lord Buddha because back then I used to think he was like God, and I don’t believe in God, which isn’t surprising given the patheticness of the male authority figures in my life.” I feel like if she doesn’t finding praying to a God effective or doesn’t make sense to her then how is praying to her grandma or her Shaka-sama make her feel better.

In other news, I can’t believe how horrible she is treated by everyone at her school. I can remember in my childhood the “weird kid” or some one no one really liked. But it turned into an obsession for her school and even her damned teachers. Which is insane to me given how teachers should be held to a higher standard and should be able to be a safe haven for a student. Instead she has no real sanctuary given how she feels bad for her pathetic father at home. On the flip side even though they’re a side character I enjoy Oliver’s relaxed state and calm nonchalant dialogue.

The genre of gangsta rap was key for L.A. ghetto youth and was used as an inspiration and as a way for the hip hop industry to be able to relate to the youth in urban areas. The ability for hip hop artists to speak upon their struggles was easily relatable to the youth because they were able to relate to what artists were rapping about. More specifically, the struggles of being black in America and growing up especially as a black male with all these stereotypes. Moreover, during the 80′s the rap group N.W.A.  spoke to  L.A. youth and rapped about the realities of being black in America. They were a larger representation of blacks and were a key group that was an inspiration towards the black power movement.

The seminar we had delved into a few really cool comparisons between the kung fu movement and the hip hop spread in America to the rest of world.They both followed they same formula of spreading from one region to the next until it became a global culture. When we watch those movie clips even more than just the hip hop music mixing of Arabian chants and local sounds the artists still wore styles from hip hop artists in America big t-shirts, long gold-chains, baggy jeans, etc. Kato reused a few key words throughout the reading which showed the connection he was trying to make. Such usage such as “groove” and “flow” showed how connected these two big movements really are. Bruce Lee also uses flow to describe mastery over kung fu, the unconsciously conscious way of thinking while performing some task, the groove, the zone, “He’s on fire!” etc.

On a slight detour the graffiti relation to Tsang Tsou Choi’s street calligraphy demonstrated how language and writing are so critical in one’s culture. Both are being used in a way to demonstrate their individuality, skill, or message for the public to see and absorb. Kato strengthens this idea with similar views “The uniqueness of style and individuality was of utmost importance to a writer’s signature, for it was at one time, the only significant vehicle to represent one’s ‘existence.’”

I enjoyed the philosophical analysis Kato does with Bruce Lee and Game of Death. One example being from Bruce himself “To express yourself in freedom, you must die to everything of yesterday. From ‘old’ you derive security, from the ‘new’ you gain the flow.” This was relevant to Game of Death which attempted to set up new ideas and standards to the kung fu movement.  Kato asserts “With the absence of dialectical constraint, the combat choreography, albeit its deadly performance, becomes an arena of artistic contestation much like the street aesthetics of hip hop, in which a new concept is produced through a competitive exchange of styles.” The new “styleless” style of Jeet Kune Do from Kareem Abdul-Jabbal made for a worthy opponent for Bruce Lee.

Global capitalism transitioning into the battle from colonial and imperial subjugation can be directly translated to the messages intended by the Kung Fu movement specifically movies like Enter the Dragon. There was natural strain and conflict with American and Chinese workers involved in film production. One being the language barrier and the animosity/degrading view the American had on the Chinese and vise versa. One example being on page 116 where the Chinese workers hated the American workers and thought they were incompetent but the Americans couldn’t understand and assumed they were getting along great.

There was an additional struggle with cultural traditions and values as stated on page 117 “The scripwriter’s singular act of resistance represented the collective resentment of Hong Kong workers at the denigration of their being in the film production of their own cultural heritage.” This being further pushed by the “kung fu dialect” in association with Bruce Lee performing martial arts. There is a disconnect between language and art.

In addition there was the relationship of how the Asiananic people were being portrayed in the cinema as antagonists in which Bruce Lee felt the same discomfort as the low-end Chinese workers. There is a form of resistance from the Chinese, Vietnamese and any other “foreigner” in association with forced change by a higher power. On page 144 Kato asserts “The antagonism against the “foreign power,” an essential narrative ingredient of the kung fu genre, is thus made inconceivable by the transnationalization of the narrative structure.” He later goes on to show how the personification of the villain can no longer be a foreigner but instead becomes the protagonist.

Enter the Dragon has a lot of super cool fighting scenes in the movie. I was really bummed that Williams was killed off so quickly. I noticed that there was a few stereotypes that we’ve discussed previously. One being the sexuality of the white guy, the black guy and the Asian guy.

This film had a very powerful message to me about ignorance. I had a similar feeling last quarter reading about the war veterans from WWII and getting treated like outsiders. Just the general state of mind on logic goes out the window when any crisis occurs and the majority will quickly shun anything that “might” have the traits of the thing that presented the danger. In this case it was the Muslim people, or really anyone that looked Middle Eastern or spoke some Arabic language. It just baffles me that public schools actually taught that Islam was the most violet kind of religion, even in the context of the movie it was really hard to watch such blatant misunderstandings and disregard for treating people as individuals versus lumping them in with extremists which aren’t members of any specific religion.

I’m just reminded of how the mass public will always try to find a non-reason to be scared of a group. You didn’t see a mass panic towards Russians when the Boston Bombers origins were revealed. It comes down to the power of those in control and what they can get away with. It just makes it clear that ethics and morals are this constant changing thing based on the needs of those with power in order to justify their actions.

Ranting aside the movie was enjoyable but I felt the MC was too smart/perfect and felt extremely familiar to Forrest Gump but with a twist. It was interesting seeing the hatred and disdain the Hindus had for the Muslims. How they “ruined” their lives in America because a few crazy people that could of been any race/religion/sex went and crashed some planes. People seem to find a reason blame other people for their misfortunes rather than adapting. Being mad at others will only add fuel to the fire instead of accepting the situation and improving it. Of course I understand why they’re mad but I supposed I’m biased in the sense that I’m not living in their shoes exactly. I’m in the safety of calm thought and rationality only due to the privilege of my environment.

I moved to Bellingham when I was 12 years old with my mom after she got into Western Washington University for graduate school. We lived in a two bedroom, one bath apartment that was down the street from the college and probably designed for younger college students. You know, it was meant to be someone’s ‘first’ apartment. It wasn’t meant for a mom and a daughter. But I loved it there. It was home and I loved it.

Reading Nao and her situation after moving back to Japan it was hard not to remember being the new kid. Honestly, my first days there were kind of a blur but I remember being like, one of ten black kids in the whole school. And I remember kids calling me Denzel because my last name was Washington. And I remember a kid (who would later become one of my close friends) asked me to tell him what a 50 cent song was saying. Because he was white. And he couldn’t possibly know what they were talking about. Because he was white. At the time it was all kind of funny to me because I liked the same things the white kids liked. We were only 12! We all liked the same things because we were kids! But I took it in stride and to this day I’m pretty sure that the only reason I was remotely known throughout middle and high school was because I was ‘that black girl with the dreads’. Which I’m okay with because reading Nao’s perspective I’m aware that my grade school days could have been a hell of a lot worse.

I could relate to her though. I spent a lot of nights alone, making my own dinner and putting myself to sleep because my mom worked at night. Or sometimes she was just studying at the library. And that’s get lonely.Or being the kid at school that doesn’t have the latest fashion because you can’t afford it. Or hanging out with friends when they go out to lunch and not being able to get any. But the difference between Nao and me is that I had friends.

I once heard somewhere that if you have one friend, just one friend, then you’re good. I believe that. Anyone that has been through middle and school school knows that. I don’t know how I would’ve survived without my friends. I commend Nao though, she still has this sarcastic and sometimes hopeful tone in her voice. I think its because she knows its only for a time being. You knows something that a lot of kids in high school don’t. That one day, this will all be over and none of it will matter. Take it how you will, whether high school won’t matter or if in the grand scheme of THE WORLD your actions make little to no impact. When times get hard that notion can be a double edge sword. Do you just give up because it won’t matter anyways? Or do you decide to make the most of it while you can?