[Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar

[Meera Pillai]

hi, throwing my hat in the ring for what it's worth! i
haven't seen the movie either, but i think enough has
been said on the list to get a sense of the issues.

i think sudesh has some legitimate concerns.

once a cultural object has been produced and it is in
the public domain, then why and in what manner it is
censored becomes a tricky issue. this is true of
books, newspaper articles, porn...whatever.  If the
film-maker did state that the indian audience was
incapable of the sensitivity necessary to appreciate
such a film, or take it in the right spirit, and so
would not be shown it (how big brotherly!) perhaps it
was regrettable and immature.  perhaps if she had said
"sections of the indian audience..."  

a much more participatory approach may have been to
determine viewing/distributorship rights in
collaboration with representatives of the women in
sonagachi.  as sudesh suggested at some point during
his debate, there is a section of the commercial sex
workers in sonagachi which is extremely empowered,
articulate and capable of advocating for itself, and
also, with a greater degree of authenticity than
perhaps any of us, for the larger community of sex
workers in sonagachi. 

also, the concept of "member checking" which ethical
qualitative research emphasizes, may have been a good
principle to follow in the making of a documentary on
such a sensitive subject.  this way the participants
in the documentary would have had a significant
(deciding?) part in determining exactly how much they
wanted to reveal of their lives and how. and if
someone wanted her identity concealed, there is surely
no dearth of cinematic techniques to achieve this. 
this could have been negotiated during the rough cuts
of the film.  and the creativity and skill of the
film-maker would have been to tell/show the story to
maximum effect while respecting the wishes of the
participants about confidentiality.

i think another issue that sudesh is raising is that
of what ethical qualitative research calls
"reciprocity." you get your story and you get out, and
you also get whatever goodies come your way courtesy
the story (whether it's a ph.d., a sarai grant, or the
oscar). what do the people who are the story and who
gave you the story get?  it's always a good idea to
worry about this and negotiate with those whose story
it really is or those who are authentically involved
in their lives, before rather than after the artefact
has been made.

that said, it's also a good idea to critically look at
who is protesting and WHY these folks are protesting. 
sudesh's language in the initial mails seemed a little
extra-emotional, but as i mentioned earlier, i
personally think he has some legitimate concerns. 
however, when we hear that "protests were audible in
kolkata", it's a good idea to look into what kind of
protests and what triggered them. all too often we
feel threatened and defensive when we're forced to
face up to the not-so-nice aspects of our society, and
this is perhaps especially so of "high-profile"
sections like the bengali/kokatan intellectual or
middle-class community, which is more used to having
aspects of the culture feted.

if there's someone in this e-community who can contact
someone in Sanlaap or one of the other organizations
which has been working in Sonagachi for a long time
and has credibility with the community there, and who
can share this debate with the community and get their
feedback, i wonder if it would be eye-opening and/or
humbling.  would they see us as completely out of tune
with the realities of their lives, carrying on our
debates in this sanitized, bloodless forum, tilting at
windmills on their behalf while they wring out what
they can of value from their harsh lives?

best,
meera pillai.
 
--- Amit Basu <amitrbasu50 at yahoo.co.in> wrote:

> Sudesh,
> I agree with you that visual anthropologists who
> visit India for their documentaries are not
> self-conscious of their "orientalist" attitude and
> it is a part of their 'professional' activity to
> adopt local customs. Regarding the Oscar winning
> film on Sonagachhi, protests were audible in Kolkata
> and Partha Bandopadhyay (who worked in the film)
> wrote a critical letter in a leading Bengali daily
> before it had own the award. 
> If the film only changes the life of the director
> and the characters remain as 'object of research'
> then it needs to be reviewed critically.
> Regards,
> Amit  
> 
> sudhesh <sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Reading danny's letter, reminds me of the explorers
> and
> archeologists from Europe who would go to
> "investigate" and "study"
> ancient civilizations – Egypt and the Silk Route
> are two places where
> they went. They took away huge number of scrolls,
> books, artifacts,
> coins and even scrapped off paintings off the walls
> all the while
> pretending that they are civilized scientific
> secular people who are
> just studying ancient communities.
> 
> Like the filmmakers, they spent many years exploring
> these regions in
> some cases even adopting local attire, cuisine and
> customs. However
> the funny thing is that they never bothered to keep
> the artifacts in a
> museum in Asia or Africa. The natives could not see
> the artifacts
> created by their own civilization. The natives
> called it – "taking our
> soul away" and many people especially in China
> resisted. Of course
> some natives prospered due to these expeditions but
> for a large
> majority nothing changed. The explorers themselves
> were given awards
> and knighthoods back home.
> 
> These explorers were not deliberately cruel and
> never killed many
> people but they were product of a civilization that
> treated Asians and
> Africans as different. In not releasing the film in
> India the
> filmmakers are treating us the same way. Their claim
> is that the
> majority of the Indians do not have the
> sensibilities to understand
> the subject or something like that. Else if you
> think about it how
> could the film being seen in select places (as
> documentaries are) in
> India have a negative impact on the kids' lives?
> 
> aarti i am not comfortable with the subject or the
> film
> in any case the people at sonagachi are far more
> aware and organised
> and therefore they must have taken a concious
> decision to allow the
> project.
> 
> my arguement is only with an attitude which says- 
> "Oh we cannot release the film there, you know those
> people will never
> understand the issues involved"
> 
> But we will have a 100 screen release in america
> and DVDs will be sold on the net
> 
> sudhesh
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