My dissertation research is on the construction of Jewish ethnic identity in and through Jewish-Gentile intermarriage (cross-ethnic romance) stories in North American film. I am making a close survey of about fifty films, and focusing tightly on about ten of the most important ones. To add comparative flavour, I am reviewing a dozen or so non-Jewish intermarriage films, such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1967).
To some, this activity might seem more like recreation than research, and I admit it is awfully amusing, and I feel lucky to have the gig. However, today I was reminded that it really isn't always a gas.
Today, I caught the 2004 film Bride and Prejudice, which is roughly a Bollywood take on the Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice. While colourful, potentially fun, and a good piece for my comparative flavour aspect, this film was absolutely painful to watch, and reminds me that this research takes a strong stomach, eyes that can roll for two hours without falling out, and a strong will not to just turn something off and find a good episode of Northern Exposure to "survey" instead.
Focusing on the unexpected and conflicted romance between a beautiful and feisty Indian girl and a cold-blooded American business man (William Darcy, of course), this film modernizes the original story by making it trans-global and high-tech, and adds the gimmick of the Bollywood musical genre. While I am not anti-Bollywood (in fact, some authentic Bollywood can be quite fun), this film is tiresome, poorly acted and down right annoying. Neither real Bollywood, nor a piece of Western realism, this film cannot resort to any true genre form to make one tolerate its corniness. It is somewhere halfway between - perhaps a deeper metaphor for the confusion sometimes caused by intermarriage than the filmmakers intended.
So, yes - the next time someone makes a jab at me for having it cushy, I can fall back on this film as exactly the ways in which I, too, must pay my dues. I had to watch this thing - it may not be equal to plowing through mountains of German political philosophy, but it is a giant sugar-induced cavity in my brain, and two hours of my life I will never, ever get back.
Avoid it at all costs. You can get the same spirit of fun, only better, from Moulin Rouge (2001), and with that one you may not want to hang yourself at the 45 minute mark.
6 comments:
Yar. The name be Fitzwilliam, ye scurvy knave.
And I agree, Bride and Prejudice was a long drag to get through. No Firthiness.
Oh, Catherine - so very ready to correct. Yes, in the book it was Fitzwilliam, but in the movie here it was William.
And Catherine - HOW DARE YOU suggest that I don't know what the real Darcy's first name was? That kind of crap might play with your less P&P-masterful friends, but not around here, chicky.
You're right, I was out of line. But what the hell? They changed his name in the movies? In the BBC mini, too? I don't think so, and that's the one I know best. I only saw the Knightly one once (and that was enough).
The Knightly one was terrible. I don't care WHAT they called him in that film - whatever it was "Sacrilege" is what it sounded like to me.
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