'Allegedly Problematic' is a monthly column by Kuzhali Manickavel, which takes a cheeky look at literary/cultural offerings from the past that would now be considered, well, problematic — and asks, 'But are they really?'.
Read more from the series here.
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We are back! In our last column, for some unfathomable reason, I shared some of the problematic movies that I actually enjoy watching. Why? I don’t know! Maybe it’s the pandemic. Anyway, I must now proceed with the rest of my embarrassing list and I feel like the sooner we start, the sooner we can get this over with. So here we go.
The Amazing White Dude Movie
Many people like the Wise Old Person of Colour character in movies. Personally, I like the Amazing White Dude. Unlike the WOPOC, who usually just pops in for a few minutes and disappears, entire movies are often dedicated to the Amazing White Dude. You know why? Because he is amazing. He lives in far-flung places. He is not friends with the natives; he is RESPECTED by the natives. He speaks many languages, thus forming an important bridge between the natives and normal people. One of his most important functions is to show us that natives are just like you and me, except they are not the white dude, who is amazing. He’s smart. He has money, even though he often pretends he doesn’t. He is a rebel, an outsider, a renegade, and a maverick. Not really, but he dresses like one and that’s practically the same thing. This dude can do anything and be anything. And he gets the girl, usually the white one. See? AMAZING.
Problematic Rating: Yeah it’s problematic fam. White dude going into “unknown” lands to live among “strange” people, so he can decipher these lands and people for everyone else is exactly what we do not need. We need more of the “strange” people telling us their own stories. Like about that white dude that keeps bothering them, for example.
The White Saviour Movies
While the Amazing White Dude is generally just amazing and that’s it, the white saviour is a person that boldly goes into those terrible, usually non-white places, and fixes things. They bring drinking water. They cure diseases. They save children from temple prostitution (a personal fav of mine). They pull worms out of people. Usually they travel to other countries to do their good work but sometimes, they just head over to the poor side of town where all the non-white people are. In most cases, it feels like this white person comes to a hole of a place, barges right in, demands things be rectified and that just fixes everything. How is it possible fam? How does one white person manage to fix something that a whole bunch of native fellows couldn’t manage? I mean, imagine if real life was like that. Like, your toilet breaks and the only hope of it ever being fixed is if a white person just barges into your house one day and demands that it be fixed. That actually sounds like an awesome movie, I would totally watch that.
Problematic Rating: How can a movie showing someone helping people be problematic?? Why do you hate white people? Why do you hate America? All good questions. But it does not change the fact that it is stupendously gross to keep making movies where non-white people have to rely on a white person to come and fix things for them. Why are we still making movies like this?? I’d watch the one about fixing toilets though.
Poor People Work Hard and Get Rich Over the Course of One Song Movies
I LOVE these kinds of movies. Sometimes it features a poor young man, but it is most effective when the protagonist is a poor young orphan saddled with an even younger sibling. This child does all sorts of jobs while managing to feed, clothe and educate the younger sibling. He works hard. He sweats. He feels sad. He sings a song about feeling sad. By the end of the song, he has managed to become an auto driver or something and the sibling is now in college. And it is so, so cute to think that all that can be achieved if you just work hard enough. Which means that we have so many poor people in our country because…they have no work ethic? I guess?
Problematic Rating: Fam, I feel like we have a really weird relationship with poverty in our country. We are totally into romanticising it. But we are not so keen on actually understanding it or doing anything about it. Maybe because that wouldn’t fit into a song? Idk.
Unfortunately, I haven’t completed my list. There are still some problematic movie genres left to cover but I might not do that in the next column because I finally found a copy of The Stranglers of Bombay! I am really excite to watch that. Or I might not watch it, I don’t know. Life is uncertain fam. Bai!
Kuzhali Manickavel is the author of the short story collections 'Insects Are Just like You and Me except Some of Them Have Wings' and 'Things We Found During the Autopsy', both available from Blaft Publications
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