Thuggee - Fact & Fiction

Dig Site 1138

New member
WillKill4Food said:
The Indian fellow I keep quoting had two problems with the villagers:
1. They did not even bare a superficial resemble to actual Himalayan villagers, in appearance or tongue.
2. They were helpless and survived only thanks to the "great White hero."
And as you should recall, the villagers ate bugs. Are those the Hindus you know?

1. Granted. The filmakers are geographically challenged. Of course, when you set a film in Himalayan India and then film it in Sri Lanka...

2. They were served moldy fruit. Willie says "I had bugs for lunch" to beg off eating the beetles she is being served. Bear in mind, their dinner at Pankot isn't even the same day.

But it was not a Saturday Morning Serial. It was not in black and white. It was two hours for a single sitting, not several hours for many sittings. It was a modern "fairytale" or sorts, in Lucas' own words. Why, then, should the portrayals not have modern or at the very least even slightly accurate.


Granted. BUT it was still the flavor they were trying to capture. I'm not really trying to defend this movie's inaccuracies, I just think it's awkward to try and recapture certain genres of film in, shall we say, more enlightened times. Imagine a remake of "Mask of Fu Manchu", for example.

And as I pointed out in my previous post,


And yet, Hindus revere monkeys (perhaps they should, or at least treat them with some respect, being that they're our evolutionary cousins).
Meanwhile, the eating of monkey brains is practiced by some Chinese, so why did they not include this unsettling dinner scene in China? They researched the Sivalinga, Nurhaci, and thirties musicals, so why not this?
And, quoted for truth:

Again, the dinner scene is stupid.


Of course, I agree, but does that justify the racist attitudes and caricatures in this movie?

Just as no one should take The Birth of a Nation seriously, they should not take Temple seriously. But ignorant people do.
I almost brought up "Birth of a Nation" myself. The most frightening person (IMO)to feel it was factual in it's depiction of history was Calvin Coolidge.

Make no mistake, ignorance is a potentially dangerous thing. And those who use it to fuel the fires of hate and aggression are terrifying. Perhaps an argument could be made to find TOD analogous to the "Yellow menace" trend of the real 1930's (Cut short by our alliance with China against Japan), but unlike the Hearst-funded smear campaign against all Asians, TOD is really mostly guilty of giving people the wrong idea about 1) Indian food and 2) the particulars of a 19th Century murder cult.
 

WillKill4Food

New member
Dig Site 1138 said:
1. Granted. The filmakers are geographically challenged. Of course, when you set a film in Himalayan India and then film it in Sri Lanka...
And why did they film in Sri Lanka? The Indian government was offended by the screenplay and demanded changes. It was later banned. Should've taken the hint; they would have even made more money if the film had played in a country with so many people.

Dig Site 1138 said:
2. They were served moldy fruit. Willie says "I had bugs for lunch" to beg off eating the beetles she is being served. Bear in mind, their dinner at Pankot isn't even the same day.
I don't understand what you're saying. Unless my memory has completely failed, they were served bugs (insects, actually, I suppose). Like you just said, "Willie says 'I had bugs for lunch' to beg off eating the beetles she is being served." Regardless of whether Indy and Willie ate bugs, the villagers did.

Dig Site 1138 said:
Granted. BUT it was still the flavor they were trying to capture. I'm not really trying to defend this movie's inaccuracies, I just think it's awkward to try and recapture certain genres of film in, shall we say, more enlightened times. Imagine a remake of "Mask of Fu Manchu", for example.
But Sax Rohmer's character of Fu Manchu originally came from less "enlightened" times (1913). Temple of Doom is from 1984 (more enlightened times, outside of the Orwellian world). If Temple was based on a story from 1935, it would be more excusable.

Dig Site 1138 said:
Perhaps an argument could be made to find TOD analogous to the "Yellow menace" trend of the real 1930's (Cut short by our alliance with China against Japan)...
Well, there are Chinese gangsters, but Wu Han and Short Round more than make up for their presence.

Dig Site 1138 said:
...but unlike the Hearst-funded smear campaign against all Asians, TOD is really mostly guilty of giving people the wrong idea about 1) Indian food and 2) the particulars of a 19th Century murder cult.
1. A people's culinary practices are intrinsically connected to their culture, and our perceptions of their practices even more so. A people's cuisine can indicate a lot about their culture. And as for perception, many people would hold the cheese-eating, wine-drinking Romans in the coliseum in higher regard than today's McDonald's-loving beer-guzzling NASCAR fans. That's a stretch, I admit, but can you think of anyone who doesn't look down on cannibalism? What is actually wrong with eating a dead human? Killing a human is certainly wrong, but to eat someone who is already dead is merely recycling. And yet all civilized cultures (that I know of) oppose cannibalism and dismiss cannibalistic cultures as primitive.There are certainly other root causes to the opposition to cannibalism, but ultimately, that is a good example of how a people's diet reflects their culture. Before you start questioning me on the above paragraph, just focus on this: I said all of that to say that the way to a nation's heart is through its stomach, so to speak. And when you see Indians eating bugs, eyeballs, and Simian brains (or even moldy fruit), you're going to think less of them. It's ingrained into your mind, as a human and as a Westerner.

2. Nobody cares that the Thuggee were slandered. Once more I'll quote Tharoor, because he says it so well: "If they had to show Indians, a notoriously vegetarian people, eating yuckily, why on the worst excesses of Chinese carnivorism? If they had to libel a cult, why not invent one, rather than abuse a goddess revered by millions? (The film is set in the 1930s, when Kali worship did not include human sacrifice a century after the elimination of the Thugs, who by comparison with Spielberg's Amrish Puri, seem positively humanitarian.) Where in a Hindu temple would one worship grotesque skulls and skeletons, and find slogans on Kali scrawled on the walls like so much political graffiti? The reason all these feature in this appalling film is, quite simply, that the filmmakers knew they would get away with it." Look on the Wikipedia page for the goddess Kali. The word "Thuggee" is mentioned once, and then it is in reference to a comic book cover (from 1985, no less). In the forties, TIME used Kali as a metaphor for human suffering under British partition. There is, of course, a demon Kali and a "dark age" of Kali Yuga, but these are etymologically unrelated; that is to say, the goddess Kālī is not the evil being portrayed in Temple, and the filmmakers made it clear that Kālī was the object of Mola Ram's worship. I would say that Temple's handling of Kālī is akin to showing the virgin Mary as a whore.
 

Dig Site 1138

New member
Okay,

you obviously feel very strongly about this. I will have to agree to disagree with you on how seriously we should be taking Temple of Doom as a cultural influence. I certainly see your side of it and, when I was younger, would have been right there with you. That last comment was in no way meant to be condescending. I went through a period of angry political correctness somewhere around 1992. These days, I feel that if someone is offended by something then their feelings are legitimate and I will respect them, though I may try to broaden the discussion with alternate takes.

I personally, however have decided I can no longer be offended on behalf of other persons who may or may not have found something offensive.

That said, I have sincerely enjoyed discussing this with you and I hope you have not been angered by our discourse. Now, as to the "bugs":

I don't understand what you're saying. Unless my memory has completely failed, they were served bugs (insects, actually, I suppose). Like you just said, "Willie says 'I had bugs for lunch' to beg off eating the beetles she is being served." Regardless of whether Indy and Willie ate bugs, the villagers did.

Your memory is failing, my friend. At no time in the village does anyone eat bugs. The line 'I had bugs for lunch' comes at the dinner at Pankot when the oversized beetles are passed around.

ztdu9v.jpg



As to the depictions of the ridiculous Thuggee ceremony in TOD (and that really ugly statue which does not look like any Indian depiction of the revered goddess Ma Kali) I am going to quote myself:
As to the other, not all Kali worshippers are Thuggee, but all Thuggee are Kali worshippers.

Except, I guess they weren't, since many of them seem to have also been Sikhs and Muslims, both of whom are monotheists.

Still, the insistence on strangling and drowning, to kill without spilling blood is definitely tied to Kali Ma. It should be reiterated that Kali and Kali worship are not inherently evil. The Thuggee are a murder cult.
 
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WillKill4Food

New member
Dig Site 1138 said:
I went through a period of angry political correctness somewhere around 1992.
I wouldn't call it "politically correct" at all. "Factual" is more accurate...

Dig Site 1138 said:
I personally, however have decided I can no longer be offended on behalf of other persons who may or may not have found something offensive.
I wouldn't say that I am personally offended, though it seems plenty of Indians (a whole government full of 'em, at the very least) were sufficiently offended. If anything, I'm disgusted and annoyed at the filmmakers of a series that I like.

Dig Site 1138 said:
... and I hope you have not been angered by our discourse.
I don't really ever get angry over this sort of thing.

Dig Site 1138 said:
At no time in the village does anyone eat bugs. The line 'I had bugs for lunch' comes at the dinner at Pankot when the oversized beetles are passed around.
ztdu9v.jpg
I don't have the DVD handy, so I'll have to take your word for it. I'll check on it when I get a chance though.

Dig Site 1138 said:
As to the other, not all Kali worshippers are Thuggee, but all Thuggee are Kali worshippers.
I would say that I've already pointed out that that is false, but you have done so yourself:
Dig Site 1138 said:
Except, I guess they weren't, since many of them seem to have also been Sikhs and Muslims, both of whom are monotheists.
And...
Dig Site 1138 said:
Still, the insistence on strangling and drowning, to kill without spilling blood is definitely tied to Kali Ma. It should be reiterated that Kali and Kali worship are not inherently evil. The Thuggee are a murder cult.
But blood was spilled in Temple. The thrashing is the only instance I can think of, because I haven't seen the film in some time, but the cardioectomy was an Aztec practice (and they were big fans of blood-spilling). And the only Kali-worshipers in Temple are evil. Would you defend a film on Islam that only showed terrorists killing in the name of Allah?

At any rate, yeah, agree to disagree. But I can't see any reason you would disagree.
Sharkey said:
Temple of Doom hurts ignorant people. So do knives and forks. Get a helmet.
Sorry Temple hurt you, man.
 

Dig Site 1138

New member
WillKill4Food said:
I wouldn't call it "politically correct" at all. "Factual" is more accurate...
:rolleyes:
I wouldn't say that I am personally offended, though it seems plenty of Indians (a whole government full of 'em, at the very least) were sufficiently offended. If anything, I'm disgusted and annoyed at the filmmakers of a series that I like.

Fair enough, sir. However, it should be noted that the Government of India was also offended by Slumdog Millionaire. They were very touchy about any film showing the disparity of income in cities like Mumbai and Kolkata. Additionally, it is my understanding that the real deal-breaker was not the Indian Government's demand for certain script changes, but their insistence on having right to make the "Final cut" to the film. At that point, Lucas and Spielberg decided to take their toys and leave.

Despite the Indian Government's temporary ban on the film, I have been assured by several Indian co-workers that the movie was a huge hit in India.

I don't really ever get angry over this sort of thing.

Excellent!


I don't have the DVD handy, so I'll have to take your word for it. I'll check on it when I get a chance though.

39. RXT. MAYAPORE VILLAGE - AFTER SUNSET 39.

Black clouds clot across the blood-red sky as darkness falls.
Indiana, Willie and Short Round sit tensely on a shabby rug.
Above their heads, there is a thatched roof, but there are no
walls.

The dying sunset silhouettes them and the half-dozen elders seat-
ed in the dirt around them. A grey-haired man, the village
CHIEFTAIN, gives quiet commands to the women who scuttle in and
set wooden plates in front of the three visitors. No plates are
places in front of the elders.

WILLIE
(quietly to Indy)
I hope this means we're going to
get some dinner.

Indiana sees the painted shaman, who sits next to the chieftain,
watching Willie. The women bring in a bowl from which they scoop
tiny portions of grey gruel onto three plates.

To this the women add a few grains of yellowed rice and a with-
ered ,molding piece of fruit. Willie looks aghast at the unappe-
tizing combination.



I would say that I've already pointed out that that is false, but you have done so yourself:
Yes, yes I have.

But blood was spilled in Temple. The thrashing is the only instance I can think of, because I haven't seen the film in some time, but the cardioectomy was an Aztec practice (and they were big fans of blood-spilling). And the only Kali-worshipers in Temple are evil.

Okay, one last time. The depiction of a Thug ceremony in Temple of Doom is Hollywood bull****. I know it and you know it. And, although I feel you on the idea that most non-Hindus will not understand that Kali is a real deity with millions of legitimate worshipers and not some Lovecraftian demon goddess, this film is depicting a weird, cult that is a desecration of a legitimate religion.

It's kinda like saying that The Omen's use of a creepy, Satanic order of nuns is going to give people the wrong idea about Catholics.

Would you defend a film on Islam that only showed terrorists killing in the name of Allah?

Well, if it was a film specifically about terrorists, yeah. ;) Remember, not all Hindus are shown as evil in the film, just the Thuggee. And, factually, whether the Thuggee were Hindus, Sikhs or Muslims, they seem to have chose Kali as their patron. Clearly, being murderers, they weren;t very good at being Hindus, Sikhs or Muslims. :hat:


At any rate, yeah, agree to disagree. But I can't see any reason you would disagree.

Honestly, I don't really disagree with what you are saying, so much as I feel your vitriol may be misplaced.

Look, if I were somehow a part of the creative team that made this movie, I would have urges Spielberg to lose the dinner scene. I also would have taken a different direction artistically with the statue of Kali. But I wasn't and I can't fix it now. And, for the most part I enjoy Temple of Doom. Mostly I find Kate Capshaw irritating.
 
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WillKill4Food

New member
I concede that the "gruel" in the screenplay could have been merely moldy fruit. At the time I saw the film, I thought it was insects. I think there was a crunch or something. Again, I'd have to see the scene again to know why I thought that.

Your Indian co-workers may have loved the film, but Mr Tharoor, several Asian students surveyed, a bunch of IMDB reviewers, and Raiders screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan were less happy with the portrayal. In the "Making the Triology" extras on the 2003 trilogy repackaging, one of the crew members (whose name escapes me, it was the blonde scrawny fellow) mentioned that his biggest problem with the Indian government's demands was that they wanted to change parts of the script and have the film set outside of India. I would imagine that their tweaking was inspired by the portrayal in the film, being that the given reasoning for their later ban on the film was its allegedly racist depiction.
Dig Site 1138 said:
Okay, one last time. The depiction of a Thug ceremony in Temple of Doom is Hollywood bull****. I know it and you know it.
INDEED IT IS!!! Have I ever said otherwise? Do not mistake the all-caps for screaming; I just don't understand what you're trying to say by that... I have been arguing that the whole time.

Dig Site 1138 said:
And, although I feel you on the idea that most non-Hindus will not understand that Kali is a real deity with millions of legitimate worshipers and not some Lovecraftian demon goddess, this film is depicting a weird, cult that is a desecration of a legitimate religion.
And Indy talks about seeing Ram with Kali "in Hell." Whatever your interpretation of that (it has been defended somewhere in another thread), the obvious implication (that most movie-goers would discern) has to be that Kali is a demon, of the Christian sort (after all, Hindus have no equivalent of Hell).

Dig Site 1138 said:
It's kinda like saying that The Omen's use of a creepy, Satanic order of nuns is going to give people the wrong idea about Catholics.
NOT AT ALL. How many Catholics do you know compared to Hindus? More importantly, how many Hindus does the average Joe know? Temple of Doom gave many Americans the wrong idea about Hindus and Indians in general. Period.

Dig Site 1138 said:
Remember, not all Hindus are shown as evil in the film, just the Thuggee.
All Kali-worshipers are shown as evil. All Indians are shown as either destitute and helpless or evil and scheming, except for the little Maharajah boy who gets to be a little bit of both.

Dig Site 1138 said:
And, factually, whether the Thuggee were Hindus, Sikhs or Muslims, they seem to have chose Kali as their patron. Clearly, being murderers, they weren;t very good at being Hindus, Sikhs or Muslims. :hat:
No. Wrong. Just, wrong. Sikhs and Muslims are monotheists. There are are devout Christians who have murdered and robbed people without adopting other gods under whose name to do it. There's no reason to presuppose that Muslim and Sikh Thugs were worshipers of Kali. Kali's association with the Thuggee seems to stem from this popular portrayal of them in the likes of Gunga Din and Temple of Doom. The Thuggee were paramilitary. They were a crude form of organized crime (not that organized crime can be anything but crude). The Kali association does not appear to be accurate.

Dig Site 1138 said:
Honestly, I don't really disagree with what you are saying, so much as I feel your vitriol may be misplaced.
Vitriol, indeed.

Dig Site 1138 said:
Look, if I were somehow a part of the creative team that made this movie, I would have urges Spielberg to lose the dinner scene. I also would have taken a different direction artistically with the statue of Kali.
And why is that? Because it was wrong.
 

Dig Site 1138

New member
Your Indian co-workers may have loved the film, but Mr Tharoor, several Asian students surveyed, a bunch of IMDB reviewers, and Raiders screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan were less happy with the portrayal.

Well, of course. Lawrence Kasdan is a class act. They should have had him do TOD in the first place. TOD seems to have been built almost entirely out of discarded set pieces for Raiders.

INDEED IT IS!!! Have I ever said otherwise? Do not mistake the all-caps for screaming; I just don't understand what you're trying to say by that... I have been arguing that the whole time.
I guess I was trying to say that we are on the same page here.

And Indy talks about seeing Ram with Kali "in Hell." Whatever your interpretation of that (it has been defended somewhere in another thread), the obvious implication (that most movie-goers would discern) has to be that Kali is a demon, of the Christian sort (after all, Hindus have no equivalent of Hell).

Agreed, theologically shaky. Hindus do have demons, but no Hell. Kali is a terrifying, but benevolent goddess who does battle with demons.

NOT AT ALL. How many Catholics do you know compared to Hindus? More importantly, how many Hindus does the average Joe know? Temple of Doom gave many Americans the wrong idea about Hindus and Indians in general. Period.

Hold up! We weren't comparing to Catholics to Hindus, we were comparing Catholics to Satanists and Thugs to Hindus. And there are many places, even in 21st century North America where ignorance of Catholicism abounds.

All Kali-worshipers are shown as evil. All Indians are shown as either destitute and helpless or evil and scheming, except for the little Maharajah boy who gets to be a little bit of both.

That's a little extreme. I will grant you there are no non-Thug Kali worshipers depicted. So what? There are other Hindus. And the villagers are destitute and helpless. That's why there's an opportunity for the story's hero to rescue them. Nothing implies that they are destitute because they are Hindu. And they are prosperous and happy once the Siva Linga is returned. They seem less dependent on Dr. Jones than on the good will of Siva... or maybe a rock :confused:


No. Wrong. Just, wrong. Sikhs and Muslims are monotheists. There are are devout Christians who have murdered and robbed people without adopting other gods under whose name to do it. There's no reason to presuppose that Muslim and Sikh Thugs were worshipers of Kali. Kali's association with the Thuggee seems to stem from this popular portrayal of them in the likes of Gunga Din and Temple of Doom. The Thuggee were paramilitary. They were a crude form of organized crime (not that organized crime can be anything but crude). The Kali association does not appear to be accurate.
The Kali association predates both TOD and Gunga Din. It is brought up in contemporary British Colonial accounts that Thuggists base their killings on the mythological/theological account of Kali's battle against demons. Just how that works out for the Sikhs and Muslims who also cast in their lot with the Thugs is a complete mystery to me. I will grant that there is a good chance this was British propaganda, but I'm not sure to what end. At any rate, the association between Thugs and sacrifice to Kali was there well before mssrs. Lucas and Spielberg came along.

I have it on good account from a nice, older Gujarati woman of my acquaintance that the notion that the Thugs strangled or drowned sacrificial victims to avoid spilling blood is directly connected to the story of Kali's fight with a demon. Every drop of blood that was spilled made another demon.


And why is that? Because it was wrong.
[/QUOTE]

Well, yeah. I thought I made that clear. ;)
 

WillKill4Food

New member
Dig Site 1138 said:
And there are many places, even in 21st century North America where ignorance of Catholicism abounds.
But it's not the same, and you know it. Catholics are more common than Hindus. Temple of Doom spread ignorance. It's undeniable. The filmmakers were wreckless.

Dig Site 1138 said:
They seem less dependent on Dr. Jones than on the good will of Siva... or maybe a rock :confused:
It's still an inaccurate portrayal. And the whole story is really screwed up to begin with. The Sivalinga MacGuffin is really sketchy.

Dig Site 1138 said:
The Kali association predates both TOD and Gunga Din. It is brought up in contemporary British Colonial accounts that Thuggists base their killings on the mythological/theological account of Kali's battle against demons.
I'm aware. That's why I said "the likes" of those movies. I meant that Westerners, including British colonialists, have been the purveyors of the Kali-association. I almost spelled that out in the last comment, but neglected to out of laziness. I definitely should have, because now it probably sounds like I'm just pulling it out of my arse.

Dig Site 1138 said:
Just how that works out for the Sikhs and Muslims who also cast in their lot with the Thugs is a complete mystery to me. I will grant that there is a good chance this was British propaganda, but I'm not sure to what end.
I think that it was largely British propaganda from what I've read. Modern portrayals such as those mentioned above ensured its survival, because, after all, it makes a good adventure story.

Dig Site 1138 said:
At any rate, the association between Thugs and sacrifice to Kali was there well before mssrs. Lucas and Spielberg came along.
But it isn't accurate. D.W. Griffith didn't invent Jim Crow (extreme comparison, but applicable).

Dig Site 1138 said:
Every drop of blood that was spilled made another demon.
I've read that elsewhere, either in a thread on the Raven or on the internet.
Dig Site 1138 said:
Well, yeah. I thought I made that clear. ;)
Yeah, so what are you defending?
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Sharkey said:
Temple of Doom hurts ignorant people. So do knives and forks. Get a helmet.

Trust you to cut to the chase, Sharkey!

TOD only spreads ignorance to ignorant people. We all have the opportunity to make our own enquiries.

The truth is out there. Just don't ask Lucas or Spielberg for it, as they couldn't give a damn. It's not what they were interested in with Indy. On the contrary, the falsehoods are very telling about the real point of their Indy project: escapism from constricting real world reality.
 

Dig Site 1138

New member
WillKill4Food said:
But it's not the same, and you know it. Catholics are more common than Hindus. Temple of Doom spread ignorance. It's undeniable. The filmmakers were wreckless.

Actually, it's pretty close. 1.1 Billion Catholics to 900 Million Hindus. ;) Temple of Doom is a work of fiction. I mean, I just don't see why it gets you so worked up is all. "Posse" is full of horrible misinformation that begins with the opening prologue, but you don't see me going to some sort of Mario VanPeebles forum and getting indignant about it. :p


It's still an inaccurate portrayal. And the whole story is really screwed up to begin with. The Sivalinga MacGuffin is really sketchy.

See, now we're getting into my real issues with TOD. That whole Sivalinga thing felt pretty phoned in. I mean Hindu myth and tradition is so full of cool stories and things... why this Sankara nonsense?


I'm aware. That's why I said "the likes" of those movies. I meant that Westerners, including British colonialists, have been the purveyors of the Kali-association. I almost spelled that out in the last comment, but neglected to out of laziness. I definitely should have, because now it probably sounds like I'm just pulling it out of my arse.

I'll let that one slide ;)

I think that it was largely British propaganda from what I've read. Modern portrayals such as those mentioned above ensured its survival, because, after all, it makes a good adventure story.

A good adventure story!!! Aha!!! So, you admit it! The Thuggee Cult are excellent villains that make for a good adventure story!! :whip:


But it isn't accurate. D.W. Griffith didn't invent Jim Crow (extreme comparison, but applicable).

Not really analogous. Anti-black sentiment was pretty common throughout the U.S. (even without Griffith's love letter to the KKK), but anti-Hindu sentiment has never (to my knowledge) been created or fostered by TOD. Most of the time, Hindus and Sikhs are shunned in the U.S. because they are ignorantly mistaken for Muslims (and, for the record, shunning Muslims is also not cool). :mad:

Yeah, so what are you defending?
[/QUOTE]

Eh, I'm just have fun discussing the merits and flaws of a movie I've seen too many times.
:D
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Dig Site 1138 said:
Eh, I'm just have fun discussing the merits and flaws of a movie I've seen too many times.:D

That really is the fun part of these discussions.

This has been a point of argument since TOD was in production, and it isn't likely to go away.

You could easily look at Bollywood films and rip them apart for racism and misrepresentation. Racism and generalization are a two way street. I've been through colonial studies, and it's easy to get caught up in it. Read Conrad and you can see both sides of the same argument from the same pen: you can define him as racist writer, or as an enlightened one with deeply held humanitarian convictions and a moral outrage. He was also a product of his age, and used terminology common to his age. Lucas and Spielberg were also looking back to fantastic adventures from a less politically correct era, only they did allow for some more acceptible sensibilities to shine through.
 

Dig Site 1138

New member
Montana Smith said:
That really is the fun part of these discussions.

This has been a point of argument since TOD was in production, and it isn't likely to go away.

You could easily look at Bollywood films and rip them apart for racism and misrepresentation. Racism and generalization are a two way street. I've been through colonial studies, and it's easy to get caught up in it. Read Conrad and you can see both sides of the same argument from the same pen: you can define him as racist writer, or as an enlightened one with deeply held humanitarian convictions and a moral outrage. He was also a product of his age, and used terminology common to his age. Lucas and Spielberg were also looking back to fantastic adventures from a less politically correct era, only they did allow for some more acceptible sensibilities to shine through.

(y)

Adventure stories from "King Solomon's Mines" to "Live and Let Die" are filled with- if not intentionally racist, then certainly insensitive- dialogue and concepts. Concepts that, I might add, reflect their context. Of course, as WillKill4Food will point out, TOD was made in 1984. It came out shortly after I saw "Sixteen Candles" in which Gary Watanabe played a Chinese exchange student named "Long Duck Dong". Perhaps 1984 was not nearly as enlightened a time as we would like to think :rolleyes:

TOD falls back on the ages-old formula of the traveller's tale. It's out of vogue now, but it was all the rage in the film's setting of 1935. Just as movies about Commies and flying saucers were all the rage in 1957. Both TOD and KOTCS fall short of really hitting the mark they are aiming at, IMO.

So, yeah, TOD makes me wince. But I do not find it malicious.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Dig Site 1138 said:
(y)

Adventure stories from "King Solomon's Mines" to "Live and Let Die" are filled with- if not intentionally racist, then certainly insensitive- dialogue and concepts. Concepts that, I might add, reflect their context. Of course, as WillKill4Food will point out, TOD was made in 1984. It came out shortly after I saw "Sixteen Candles" in which Gary Watanabe played a Chinese exchange student named "Long Duck Dong". Perhaps 1984 was not nearly as enlightened a time as we would like to think :rolleyes:

TOD falls back on the ages-old formula of the traveller's tale. It's out of vogue now, but it was all the rage in the film's setting of 1935. Just as movies about Commies and flying saucers were all the rage in 1957. Both TOD and KOTCS fall short of really hitting the mark they are aiming at, IMO.

So, yeah, TOD makes me wince. But I do not find it malicious.

I'm with you. I understand that TOD may not be everyone's cup of Darjeeling, but I have an inescapable nostalgia for it.

I'm reminded of the the Indian chap in Short Circuit, who played his race for laughs, and then later Apoo from The Simpsons. They are at once unflattering representations of Asian culture, or at best comedic stereotypes. But I think this is fine as long, as all races are subjected to the same rules of fun-making - just as the British, French, Germans and Italians are all made to look foolish in Allo Allo.

The Indy movies, I think, follow that pattern. Foolish, cowardly or brutal people are not confined to anyone race. Indy has great respect for other cultures and their religions (at least he does sometimes, anyway!) Marhan the shaman is treated with respect. A Chinese boy is given a pivotal heroic role. The Indian children are deemed worthy of saving from slavery.

If TOD commits crimes against good taste, it does them in the spirit of high adventure, and not malicious intent.
 

Dig Site 1138

New member
Montana Smith said:
- just as the British, French, Germans and Italians are all made to look foolish in Allo Allo.

I love Allo, Allo! It's such an absurd, formulaic farce and yet, it has touches of brilliance. In particular the way they deal with everyone's "accents" even though everyone is speaking English as French and German. The French policeman who misplaces all of his vowels because he's an English spy, the way Michelle of the Resistance goes back and forth from a stage French accent to a broad, Bigglesy sort of upper class thing when she speaks "English" to the downed Arimen...

That show cracks me up.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
WOW, I'm out of it for a few days and this thread has gone wild. Too much to comment on at the moment...so for now:
WillKill4Food said:
I don't care about the portrayal of the cultists, at all.
WillKill4Food said:
2. Nobody cares that the Thuggee were slandered.
Please, re-read the title of this thread: Thuggee: Fact & Fiction. It's not about the audience's general perception of India via this movie. (With all due respect, there are plenty of other threads to vent your greivances & frustration). This is a thread specifically dedicated to the history surrounding those nasty, murderous THUGS!:whip:
WillKill4Food said:
I am bothered by their neglecting to mention that Thuggee groups were not exclusively worshipers of the goddess Kali, who they called Bhavani. The Thuggee of the 1830s were a form of organized crime, more a paramilitary group than a religious cult. The film's portrayal of modern Thuggee would be completely acceptable if at some point Indy had made some mention of the fact that not all worshipers of Kali were blood-crazed and not all Thuggee were worshipers of Kali.
Kali was known to the Thugs by many other names, not just Bhavani/Bhowanee. As per your many comments that not all Thugs (Hindu or Muslim) worshipped or associated with Kali: Where are you getting this from? Kali formed the basis of their entire system. The Muslim Thugs still believed in the Koran but also accepted Kali. Am I going to have to quote some more passages from the actual Thug trials to prove this?
Dig Site 1138 said:
So, it's a debate as to whether the pick-axe bearers are Fakirs or just fakers?
Bwa-ha! Nice one, Dip Site!:D
 

WillKill4Food

New member
Stoo said:
Kali was known to the Thugs by many other names, not just Bhavani/Bhowanee.
You're right. I overstepped my bounds by implying that all Thuggee called her that.

Stoo said:
As per your many comments that not all Thugs (Hindu or Muslim) worshipped or associated with Kali: Where are you getting this from? Kali formed the basis of their entire system. The Muslim Thugs still believed in the Koran but also accepted Kali.
I had read somewhere that it was believed that, in retrospect, some scholars believed that the religious aspect of Thuggee activity was greatly overestimated by the (xenophobic) British, and that the faith of the Thuggee was not so different from that of the other villagers. I could easily be wrong.

Getting to the bottom of that is what this thread is about, after all, so yeah, go ahead and provide evidence about the religious aspect.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Shiva / Siva

In another thread (Lets see your Sanskrit manuscript) some questions arose regarding Shiva on the pictographs in "Doom". Rather than take that thread off-topic, it would be better to continue the discussion here since Shiva has such a close association with Kali. They both share some similar characteristics and are inextricably linked because they are husband & wife.

Whiplashsmile asked:
"I see that everyone makes there guy blue but in the movie he looks green to me..why is this?"

I replied:
"Many Hindu gods and avatars are often depicted as blue and our friend here, Shiva, is one of them. This is partly due to an association with the endless boundaries of the sky and water. Plus, Shiva's throat turned blue after he drank some poison and he would cover his body in ash which gave his skin a gray/blue colour."

IndyJoey followed with:
"I heard the prop was actually of Krishna though, not Shiva. Is this true? Can someone tell me why this is so, or why it isn't. I am not well informed on Hindu mythology, or religion for that matter. Can anyone explain why it is of Krishna, or why it is of Shiva."

===
It is Shiva. He is shown sitting in the lotus position and that is a key signifier since it's essentially Shiva's traditional pose (he is a yogi). The multiple necklaces are another matching characteristic. Even though Shiva is supposed to have 3 eyes and sometimes has 4 arms, he is often shown with only 2 of each - so no problem there. The only out-of-place element on the pictographs is the crown because he doesn't wear one.

Krishna, on the other hand, DOES wear a crown (but NOT like the one on the prop). However, he is usually depicted wearing yellow clothes and he often holds a flute, neither of which are shown on the paintings in "Doom". Perhaps the crown is the reason why some people think he is Krishna?

---
Another interesting note is that the portrayal of blue-skinned gods & avatars really only started to be widely used after India came under British colonial rule in the mid-1700s (Battle of Plassey, 1757*). Before that, most of the earlier depictions of deities were dark/black-skinned** and Shiva was fair-skinned due to the ash on his body.

Indiana Jones tells Willie that the cloth is "hundreds of years old". How many hundreds? If it was meant to be older than 200, then it might have been more accurate if Shiva *was not* painted with such a strong hue of blue.

*I plan on going into this subject with much more detail because it has a VERY LARGE bearing on the film's dinner conversation!
**This relates to a lengthy debate in another thread that I had with WillKill4Food about Kali (Is Indy an atheist (in Raiders)? posts #169-#182). I wish all of those posts could be transplanted here.
 
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russds

New member
Just stumbled upon this thread today. I've also found it interesting to look at the blend of fact and fiction in the Indy movies, probably mostly in ToD because I know so little of the Hindu/Indian culture, I found it interesting to read about various things like Kali, Thuggee, Sankara Stones, etc. I've actually found a lot of interesting information in the wikipedia (not sure if that's been mentioned in this thread already).

Here are some highlights:

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

"The Thuggee cult was suppressed by the British rulers of India in the 1830s"

"Martine van Woerkens suggests that evidence for the existence of a Thuggee cult in the 19th century was in part the product of "colonial imaginings" ? British fear of the little-known interior of India and limited understanding of the religious and social practices of its inhabitants." Reminds me of the dialoge during the dinner table in ToD, where the british, indy, and chatter lau are all talking "village folklore"

"The patron deity of the Thuggee was the Hindu Goddess Kali...Many Thuggees worshipped Kali but most supporters of Kali did not practise Thuggee.

"The two most popular depictions of the cult in film are the 1939 film, Gunga Din, and the 1984 film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The Indiana Jones movie is notable for Amrish Puri's villain, who is shown chanting lines such as "maaro maaro sooar ko, chamdi nocho pee lo khoon" - literally "Kill, Kill the pig, flay his skin, drink his blood". Temple of Doom was temporarily banned in India for an allegedly racist portrayal of Indians. Both films have the heroes fighting secret revivals of the cult to prevent them from resuming their reigns of terror, although Temple of Doom included features that were never part of the Thuggee, such as the removal of the heart during a ritual."
 
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