The geographical differences have been neutralized by the advent of technology and scientific discoveries, thus letting people from one culture explore the cultural milieu of a totally different corner of the world. Thus, one might come to understand that the intertwined relationships between the nations and the predominance of globalization have opened avenues for cultural exchange among communities and ethnicities of the world. Now, one can take into account the recent music video released by the famous band, Coldplay, titled “Hymn for the Weekend.” The West has this tendency to have an ethnocentric approach while gauging the Indian culture and society, and this music video does nothing different as it stereotypes the Indian culture and the people in the blatant portrayal of ethnocentric and shallow images that fail to explore the Indian culture and society.
“Sometimes you don’t realize that something’s been missing.” (Deresiewicz 1) But what is missing in this video is evident right from the inception. The video goes on to portray Chris Martin walking around the streets of Mumbai. The video shows Beyonce as a Bollywood actress. She is seen dancing in an exotic nature, with her costumes having too much of bling. Her dance steps are somewhat identical to Bharatnatyam steps (that is a traditional dance form in India). The entire video can be explicated as a mesh of all the stereotypes that define Indian society and culture to the Western population. One cannot miss the stark resemblance of the music video to the film Slumdog Millionaire in the portrayal of the city of Mumbai. The problem is that both these artworks stereotype India and its people, and hence the apparent similarity. Coldplay’s video is ethnocentric in its approach toward the portrayal and interpretation of the Indian culture. What the makers of the video endeavor is to understand the Indian society and culture comparing it with the parameters of the Western culture. (Ansari 1) This gives rise to a shallow approach and mars the video’s capacity of being able to bring on screen the intricacies and true essence of the Indian society and people.
The video goes on to incorporate some very popular stereotypes so as to portray the picture of India. One cannot simply miss the celebrations of Holi in the course of the video that shows the kids running around in joy draped in the colors. Now, it is true that Holi is a very popular cultural event in India. But, this cannot be seen as one of the major markers of the culture as there is more to it for sure. Now, the portrayal of the celebrations of Holi coupled with the scenes with the sadhus (religious people or monks in Hinduism) in their saffron robes make the stereotypical perspective get exposed to one and all. India is primarily known all over the globe for its diversified population who differ from one another in culture, practices, religions and languages. It has to be noted that the country of India has population who hail from mainly six religions: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Apart from this, as many as 387 languages are spoken in the country. This proves that the stereotypical and blatant portraiture of Hindu culture and customs in a music video can never suffice for the representation of the Indian society and culture. However, this contextual music video by Coldplay goes on to shun the various other religious, cultural or ethnic communities that are present in large numbers in the country of India.
It needs to be reckoned that the Holi is a celebration of colors among the Hindu community of the country. Again, the sadhus represent only the Hindu religion. The way the sadhus are portrayed in the video also promote the exoticism of the portrayal as one of them is seen balancing on a pole (something that can be described to have its own theatrical value). This is followed by showing a kid guised as Lord Shiva, a popular Hindu God in India. Now, there is simply no representation or portrayal of the other ethnic and religious communities. It must be mentioned in this context that Hindus are the majority in India. As such, this video by Coldplay undermines the importance of other communities in India so as to portray the dominant community- something that can be seen as a subtle expression of propagating hegemony of Hindus over the religious communities. This is truly not supportable in any way as it is a blatant expression of certifying the cultural hegemony of Hindus in a greatly diversified nation. It is surely not expected on the part of the Western culture to shun or not acknowledge the presence of Muslims, Christians or people of other religions in India. Now, all of this is supplemented by the low-angle shot of the Hindu temple in the slum area that is shown in the video. This cinematic technique can be comprehended to be aiming to show the paramount importance of the religious structure- something that undermines the presence of the religious community once again. It has to be understood that Indian culture cannot be represented by Hinduism only. Toward the end of the video, the portraiture of people dressed up as Hanuman, another figure of apotheosis in Hindu culture further reiterates the stereotype.
Apart from all of this, the way the slums of the city are shown can also be described to be a stereotypical representation of socio-economic condition of India. Indeed, India is not as developed a nation as the United States, but it is recognized as a developing nation that has seen much economic growth in the past few decades. The city of Mumbai is popularly known in India as the economic capital of the country. As such, one can understand that the slums are not all about Mumbai. The city is highly developed in its infrastructure and facilities provided to people living there. While the video could have very well opted to show the economic disparity between the developed regions of the city and the slums portrayed, the scenes only focus on the economically backward regions of the city totally shunning the developed parts. This is surely another stereotypical view of India. The Western stereotypical perspective of India does not seem to acknowledge the fact that India has much more in it that the exoticism and the poverty of people.
One can find a few other references of Indian culture toward the end of this video that show some girls dressed up in ethnic clothes dancing together while two other dancers are seen representing a popular south Indian dance form. But, this is truly not enough in comparison to the stereotypical scenes that have already been shown in the course of the video so as to bring out a true picture of India in front of the world. In stark contrast to the failed endeavor to represent and delve deep into the Indian society and culture, one cannot possibly understand the possible reason behind showing Beyonce as a popular Indian actress. The fetishism of the Indian people about this Bollywood star is shown all through the video. While this might be described to be a marker of the populist charm of Bollywood in the Indian society, the reason behind showing Beyonce in that role cannot be justified. In contrast, Sonam Kapoor, a popular Bollywood actress is seen in the video for hardly 5 seconds, although she is not shown to be the popular self.
While one might present the counterargument that the video is an attempt to show India as colorful and positive with exuberance and vigor, the argument would fall flat against the stereotypes shown. One simply finds the things shown to be an attempt to show the exotic India (the country’s stereotypical view in the West). “Conventionally, narratives demarcate the line between texture and substance by inserting cues that flag or translate the important data.” (Johnson 1) However, in the video by Coldplay, the audience only sees the stereotypical data, and not a proper representation. Thus, it can be concluded that the contextual video is nothing but a flawed representation of India that is based on delving into some common stereotypes. The aesthetic work fails to show the ‘real’ Indian culture, society and people. Instead, it adds to the list of stereotypical, ethnocentric and biased view of India by the Western culture and artwork.
Works Cited
Ansari, Aziz. “Aziz Ansari on Acting, Race and Hollywood.” The New York Times.
nytimes.com, 10 Nov. 2015. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Deresiewicz, William. “The Dispossessed.” The American Scholar.
theamericanscholar.org, 1 Dec. 2006. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Johnson, Steven. “Watching TV Makes You Smarter.” The New York Times Magazine.
nytimes.com, 24 April 2005. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
