{"id":4144,"date":"2009-07-22T06:14:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-22T00:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indiauncut.com\/?p=3457"},"modified":"2009-07-22T06:14:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-22T00:44:00","slug":"sikhs-in-hindi-cinema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indiauncut.com\/sikhs-in-hindi-cinema\/","title":{"rendered":"Sikhs In Hindi Cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"
Charan Singh Sapra, the president of the Punjabi Cultural and Heritage Board, is upset with “the continuing demeaning portrayal of the Sikh character in Hindi cinema.” ToI<\/i> reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n If a script demands a character to be a Sikh, then the community is more than willing to help filmmakers, Sapra adds. “We will guide them exactly how to portray a Sikh. Thus, they won’t end up hurting sentiments.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Immense goofiness. All good storytelling is about flawed characters—so why should every Sikh in a film be a perfect Sikh? Mr Sapra doesn’t understand that films are about individuals, that a Sikh character in a film doesn’t represent all of Sikhdom, and is not meant to be representative. If Ranbir Kapoor plays a Sikh in a film, he is not implying that all Sikhs are like that character, any more than The Godfather<\/i> implies that all Italians are gangsters or Borat<\/i> implies that everyone from Kazakhstan wears a mankini<\/a> to the beach.<\/p>\n And really, what is all this talk of ‘hurting sentiments’? I think most Sikhs are too sensible and mature to be hurt by something they see in a film, and sensitive Mr Sapra is probably not representative of his community. Maybe someone should guide him<\/i> on ‘how to portray a Sikh’?<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n That said, Sapra is right when he says that Bollywood often stereotypes Sikhs. But mainstream Hindi cinema stereotypes almost everything, and Bollywood stereotypes of Sikhs, from what I can recall right now, seem to be largely positive, portraying them as robust, jovial and kind-hearted folk. What’s the problem with that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Charan Singh Sapra, the president of the Punjabi Cultural and Heritage Board, is upset with “the continuing demeaning portrayal of the Sikh character in Hindi cinema.” ToI<\/i> reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n If a script demands a character to be a Sikh, then the community is more than willing to help filmmakers, Sapra adds. “We will guide them exactly how to portray a Sikh. Thus, they won’t end up hurting sentiments.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Immense goofiness. All good storytelling is about flawed characters—so why should every Sikh in a film be a perfect Sikh? Mr Sapra doesn’t understand that films are about individuals, that a Sikh character in a film doesn’t represent all of Sikhdom, and is not meant to be representative. If Ranbir Kapoor plays a Sikh in a film, he is not implying that all Sikhs are like that character, any more than The Godfather<\/i> implies that all Italians are gangsters or Borat<\/i> implies that everyone from Kazakhstan wears a mankini<\/a> to the beach.<\/p>\n And really, what is all this talk of ‘hurting sentiments’? I think most Sikhs are too sensible and mature to be hurt by something they see in a film, and sensitive Mr Sapra is probably not representative of his community. Maybe someone should guide him<\/i> on ‘how to portray a Sikh’?<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n That said, Sapra is right when he says that Bollywood often stereotypes Sikhs. But mainstream Hindi cinema stereotypes almost everything, and Bollywood stereotypes of Sikhs, from what I can recall right now, seem to be largely positive, portraying them as robust, jovial and kind-hearted folk. What’s the problem with that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,3,15,17],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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