Several of you beginning with “Msichana” emailed us to let us know that the Indian version of Maxim has just issued its first edition with Priyanka Chopra on the cover. The BBC reports:
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Don’t ever change girl…oh…you already did? Nevermind then. |
Is primetime Priyanka too hot to handle? Forgive me for pondering the merits of Priyanka Chopra, the Bollywood starlet and former winner of the Miss World beauty pageant.But this is the burning question asked of us by the inaugural Indian edition of Maxim – the British “lad mag” which has just made its sub-continental debut with a pouting Priyanka plastered across its glossy front cover.
Readers are also promised information on “100 things you never knew about women”, a “how to” guide on professional begging, and a must-see article on the police inspector in Uttar Pradesh Panda, who fervently believes that he is the incarnation of the Hindu Goddess Radha.
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p>Folks I have learned my lesson. I’m not about to make a comment about any of Ms. Chopra’s attributes, just in case I ever meet her. In fact, I had never even heard of her before I read this article. Bollywood film-watcher I am not. Also, it just so happens that guest-blogger Karthik answered a topical question at the very end of his first post. Getting back to the magazine’s contents:
Two bikini-clad models helpfully demonstrate how to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre (handy if you have a piece of food stuck in your throat).Other parts of the magazine are a masala-like blend of men, motors and models.
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p>Well sure. EVERYONE in India should know how to properly execute a Heimlich maneuver. I’m all for health education in developing countries. I hope however that they don’t let an article like this slip into the Indian edition. It might not go over so well.
See Related Posts: Indians love their newspapers, There is no place to hide it in India, Mortified
Abhi,
You are not with the program if you have not heard of Ms. Priyanka Chopra. She was Miss World 2000.
Too much of UCLA, I guess.
LOL.
I also read the Playboy is trying to get into India and before all of you jump on me, they are trying to print a Maxim-like (read no naked women) mag.
Just to make things clear. The LOL was WRT this.
Yep, click on the second “Related post” at the bottom of my post above.
Dammit… I thought I read it else where. I really need to get my s**t straight.
I find the Maxim intro and the playboy proposal in India (and initiation in Indonesia) somewhat disturbing in light of recent convos in India. Just got back from the homeland and was surprised to see how much more steamy the tv commercials are (ie two women kissing in a hunday commercial; a woman sucking another’s pendant in a jewlery commercial; women in tank tops slipping off on tissue commercials/boxes). It’s in line w my observations from latest bollywood films, like serious sex scenes-yet still without kissing and nudity. In my opinion, the subtle references are steamier than porn but also bad because its still condemned and cant be actualized, ie the nyt article/sepia discussion featuring the crackdown on PDA.
What I learned from my circle of Indian friends/friends living in India was that social norms towards sex have not changed and most nonmarries are not having sex! And they are frustrated. Of course as an American I tried to do my part …. 😉 But in all seriousness, wtf? First, is this true? Is premarital sex really that rare?
Going on the premise that it is true (w the understanding that I may have surveyed a skewed group), and people have no or limited outlet w increasing sexualization in society, my friends higlighted another problem: there appears to have been a surge in rapes and assaults as women. The reasons we threw out were effects of outsourcing on female independence and their new hours (spesh in light of the recent brutal murder of an hp outsourced worker), but mainly, we focused on the increased sexualization of women without a socially acceptable outlet to release those tensions. So I worry about the potential correlation with magazines like maxim and the increasing various sexual stimuli in the commercial market. When I got back, I checked out the anecdotal incidents I had heard and indeed there have been many and it seems increasing horrific rapes and murders.
I know this argument is always controversial, and I for one air on the side of freedom of all press. But this does raise important and complex issues of Westernization conceptions of sexuality being introduced into India. It’s not that violence against women did not rampantly exist in India before the last several years; but I wonder if it there is a link to the increasing Western porn that sends the message that women are your objects to have at your disposal, they want it even when they say no, blah blah blah OR whether it is increasing a desire that can’t be fulfilled with a women bc of cultural norms.
Here are some examples:
Gang rape epidemic: http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/5042.asp http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/2554.asp http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=55142 http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050514/delhi.htm#1
Rape and murder of HP outsource worker taking cab: http://www.ocnus.net/cgi-bin/exec/view.cgi?archive=84&num=22129 http://in.news.yahoo.com/051217/139/61l50.html
this is dispiriting 🙁 cultural diversity is being destroyed and everyone is trying to imitate the west! A+ not T&A i say!
I’d like to be on your blogroll!
eteraz, allow me to quote our FAQ (a great place to go for stuff like this):
dude don’t even have SM on their blogroll. classless 🙂
hi razib,
i just added them. i had thought i had already done it.
Thanks Abhi..and the rest of the mutiny gang for actually taking the time to read tips! I was very excited to see that this article made it to the storyboard.
I like how Maxim entered the market quietly as compared to the hooplah with Playboy. India is a country with a readership very similar to other countries so it’s just a matter of time before magazines such as these become common place. I read femina india every now and then and they definitely have a lot of tongue in cheek references to sex and the like. Some are outrightly open. In fact, I read not so long ago that there is a show that focuses on just the topics that most people in repressed countries spend hours oggling about.
Anji, from my experience, parents and others from the older generation still assume that virginity is a virtue that is to be cherished till marriage. The children of these same parents think otherwise. Our society looks down upon sexual expression prior to marriage after marriage too, for women in some cases) so people who are actually doing the deed are forced to deny it. The stigma attached to such freedom makes most people lie about it. A close friend of mine in tke UK who is almost thirty and unmarried and has dated numerous times expects me to believe that she’s a sati savitri. I respect her decision so good luck to her and others like her. However I am also glad that magazines and interaction is allowing people to be normal. After all, we are from the land of the Kamasutra! (Don’t hate me people, I simply had to add the cliche`)
Msichana,
having sex with non-brown doesn’t count as sex you know.
(speaking as a brown virgin)
Haha..what is that then? Brotherly (sisterly) nation-building?
Btw, guess who else is on Maxim
okay….I remember a post about Sheetal Sheth’s ‘attributes’ last week. These guys at maxim need to teach the folks who made her website the wonders of photoshop. Is it just me or is she well, more ‘womanly’?
Btw, guess who else is on Maxim
man, respect the brown!
once you go brown you never turn it down
Abhi: Said it before, saying it again. Karma is a b***h.
That was very well put. But in all honesty, if you are in the “right” circle of people, you will very quickly know that pre-marital sex is more common than what the rest of the country thinks it to be.
i must say that seeing that picture makes me feel like my little sister is giving her body up to my friends. it was ok when white girls wanted to commodify themselves and be our sluts. i get sad thinking that brown mamis are also misusing their agency. paradise lost.
eteraz,
whatever happened to for brown eyes only? uh, wait…never mind.
Not really. They apparently used a doctored picture of movie actress Kushboo in the inaugural issue (with a headline that said something along the lines of “Here’s who you won’t see in the mag”). She is now suing them for publishing “immodest” pictures of her, in spite of their apology. Links here and here. Can’t beat getting sued to generate some pre-launch buzz.
They apparently used a doctored picture of movie actress Kushboo in the inaugural issue
Kushboo issue, it doesn’t seem to die. I do not know whether Sepia Mutiny blogged about her statements but I thought she was treated very badily by some of the “righetous” groups in India. Even, Sania Mirza was dragged into it.
I disagree with Kushboo’s on picture thing. It was supposed to be fun on Maxim. The entire print of Maxim’s first issue was sold out in less than 2 days.
Kush, Sania was not ‘dragged’ into it. She was just a sucker that the media used. She’s young and naive and has a view on pretty much everything. She didn’t know what she was getting into when she made the statement.
In any case, yes, Khushboo was really badly treated. Mind you, this in the same state where a temple was a built in her honour!!! DO NOT QUESTION THE CHASTITY OF TAMIL WOMEN!
Can we get back to Priyanka Chopra’s attributes, anyone?
abhi says:
What I learned from my circle of Indian friends/friends living in India was that social norms towards sex have not changed and most nonmarries are not having sex! And they are frustrated.
I have to say, my single cousins in India tell me they have lots of sex and so do their friends. Much more than I’m having over here. I think it is hard to stereotype about indians, even about sex. it all depends on the particular situation/community they are from.
Now, where can I get a copy of this magazine? 😉
Why do we have to carry the baggage of our dated culture? We must move ahead and be liberal and free about pre-marital sex
Sania was targetted because she was from the minority community. Unfortunately the manuvadi forces think that all religious beliefs share their doctrine of forcible subjugation of women liberty
About sex in India. First of all, it’s certainly happening. But more importantly it always has been. In the olden days, upto 50 or so years ago, women married very young and virginity was certainly important. But then they got a lot of action after they were married where they routinely had affairs within the family, within their social circles (army specially) or generally where-ever. Speak to your grandparents’ generation about this, preferably outside your immediate family, for the whole scoop. People just don’t talk about these things. It’s sort of like the kissing thing in bollywood. You don’t see it happening but it happens.
I have to say, my single cousins in India tell me they have lots of sex and so do their friends. Much more than I’m having over here.
This should help your situation.
Maybe a NSFW disclaimer would have been appropriate for that questionable link?
Whats NSWF
NSFW: not safe for work
My bad!
Asked my mate in Bangalore to enquire about the Maxim India magazine. Seems it is no where near to Cosmopoliton India or even Filmfare in ahem… “flesh quotient”.
I’m still reeling from Abhi never having heard of Priyanka Chopra.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Seriously dude, I am entirely re-assessing my view of you as a person.
That’s messed up man.
I don’t think I can talk to you anymore.
Correct me if I am wrong on the Gandhi issue..but aren’t the first two points referred to in Maxim’s ‘Why you should hate Gandhi’ blurb (see link above) from 2000 essentially true? the third point is a crass attempt at humor, but whatever. I agree that Maxim’s 2003 images where a guy is beating up on Gandhi is uncalled for. And I have great respect for Gandhi as a politician, idealogue, and leader of a nation; but as is often the case with great men, they often have giant egos and horrible personal lives. Am I wrong in assuming Gandhi was not so cool at home as he was in the public eye? Anyone?
For the benefit of Abhi and and other SM participants who have somehow miraculously been unaware of the charms of the lovely Priyanka Chopra, here are 2 nice photos of her: Here and here.
(Perfectly safe for work)
Correct me if I’m wrong but Priyanka Chopra looks a lot like her
joe-
I never understood this line of attack on gandhi. It seems like the line of attack my far-left marxist professor once did, too. After a class going thru all of gandhi’s amazing values and feats, we then spent 45 minutes on the fact that his eldest son didnt get along with him, became a drunkard, and then converted to islam, and this was supposed to show— what? There are several things wrong here. -first things first – my professor failed to mention, by the way, and i had to find this out on my own, and most people who bring up this point also similary fail to mention — that that runaway eldest son eventually came back to gandhi and they made up; that nearly all of gandhi’s other children had a PERFECTLY fine relationship with him (in so far as one can with a father as famous and as busy as gandhi was) – several of them have written remininsces of their childhood and all of them come out in the end quite in awe of their father, quite admiring, while being frank about the difficulties of being so close to the most important mass movement in indian history (and is that part really a surprise? talk to the children of any mega-famous person). gandhi’s children by and large came out quite well – two of his sons and some grandchildren are STILL involved in non-violence and pro-toleration movements, all over the world – there is a center in the US, there are centers in South africa that they still run; one of his children was instrumental in helping to bring about the end of apartheid, helping to mediate between the different groups; another is active in middle east peace campaigns and writes about it online somewhere. Thats quite a remarkable legacy. Similarly feminists (and my marxist prof) sometimes lamented about how difficult it must have been on poor kasturba – of course it was difficult! It was difficult for anyone who took gandhi seriously, because what made him amazing was precisely the demands he made on people in the cause of self discipline for social toleration and justice. We can debate to death whether his path is the only possible path towards those goals – but why are we expressing surprise that his wife would have often found it difficult? any more or less than his sons or his children? Or his followers? She did not have to stay with him, and she did not have to actively participate (as she increasingly did throughout her life) in his projects. he always respected her freedom to withdraw, as she also did from time to time, and he certainly had the right to show his dissapointment when she did – as he showed it to anyone who didnt live up to the ideals he felt so strongly. Is that really a surprise? My marxist prof loved to point to the famous ‘beef tea’ episode in his autobio (short version: kasturba is very ill. doctor prescribes beef tea. gandhi has debate with her: dont drink it, its better to die. she’s not sure. he says you are free to do what you like, but i would say its better to die. in end she agrees and doesnt drink it. she survives.) in our class, our prof went on and on AS IF GANDHI DEMANDED THAT OTHERS DIE, AS IF HE NEVER PUT HIS OWN LIFE ON THE LINE, FOR SIMILAR REASONS AND SIMILAR CONVICTION, TIME AND TIME AGAIN – which of course he did. But for our professor, these facts did not come into the picture – he simply COULD NOT get over the fact that gandhi had told kasturba not to drink it. -All this talk about his family having a hard time living with such ideals (by the way, they didnt always go along with him. During his experiments with eating only fresh fruit (which he did for a while i think in early 1910s), his family – whole family – openly mocked him for it and refused to go along. he was dissapointed; he also thought it was funny, noting to a friend that they all thought he was nuts! Yet, they were free not to join, and he was free to continue with his experiments – and all they were were experiments; he later abondoned it, agreeing that it had been silly. but he learned something from his experiment, and that was the point). All this talk about his family having a hard time, is therefore a) highly selective in its examples, b) is it really a surprise that there would be SOME hardship? c) and what is the point of it? To say that gandhi should have become an engineer so that he could get a nice middle class job and give his wife a washing machine and give his children ipods? I mean seriously, isnt that a bit beside the point for gandhi? -it seems to me the ‘gandhi was mean to his family’ business is more reflective of a general rejection of gandhi’s core methods and values, which being embarrased to just come out and disagree, or perhaps not knowing how, one thus focuses on silly things like this.
just my 2 cents… 😉
Now onto more important things: Mujahid_for_debaucher, your link didnt work! 😉
happy to hear that premarital sex is more common than i had heard anecdotally. the modeling/ particular form of commodiification that maxim brings sux but i guess as someone pointed out cosmo india and other pop culture stuff has already been doing it.
to follow up from my earlier comment about the feeling of mourning at seeing brown skinned women objectified, i would alert my fellow bloggers to an interesting exchange i had with an egyptian woman, the results of which i’ve placed on my blog in the form of a post entitled “Patriarchy, Boys, Eroticism, Female Kindness.”
Ever since i moved to Bangalore for med school last august…ive been pissed i cant get my usual magazines for decent rates or that Maxim (i have a free subscription back in Cali) isnt here. Then one day comming back from school i stopped at the newstand and i saw Maxim…and i was like…HOT DAMN I MUST BUY THIS!. The issue was pretty good and defiently not as much skin as the US or other versions…which isnt that bad considering the content and layout is pretty much the same, with some adjustment for the indian market. Yah Priyanka Chopra doesnt show much if anything at all…and she’s pretty covered up for the shoot, but there is another girl in the mag that shows more of herself (some model whose name i forget, lol)….On the topic of Pre-marital sex…i think it is becoming more common, wat with the sex scenes hotting up in bollywood (Ashiaq Bayne Apne, Neal and Niki…jsut to name a few examples) and on tv as well. The commercials, as someone said earlier, are definetly hotting up as well. But yeah..unfortunetly, violence against women is seeing an upswing as well..so i guess its both good and bad.
Prinkya: Just read she has a Malu mom and a Punjabi dad…doesn’t know what to eat when she goes home, idlis or aloo paratha..god bless Filmfare magazine!
So I’m ashamed to say that I just read about this whole Maxim-in-India thing in the Guardian today for the first time. And while the SM crew is clearly way ahead of me on this issue – I can’t resist commenting… the whole thing brings up so many of the things that we brown-kids-in-the-West wonder incessantly about our brothers and sisters back in the motherland. Do you guys date? What does that mean? Do you do it? Really?!
Of my friends there, I’d say 1/8 are comfortable even discussing sex – and I can usually get anyone talking about it. And we’re all in our mid-twenties. Isn’t this the age to talk about sex to death? To brag, compare, exchange naughty anecdotes, make dirty jokes, talk about technique? Apparently no. So (and of course this whole thing is discussing the westernised urban elite – the flip-side of India is just too much to bring in) while people are doin’ it, they’re clearly still too coy to talk about it.
Which brings me to the topic of hand. Maxim. What is it that makes me react so violently to Maxim as opposed to something just as vapid and sexual like say Cosmo or Femina? Both objectify women, commercialise sexuality and package it so it falls right in line with sex in the West (no matter how tamed down and how much Sunil Mehra decides to show only cleavage and no nipples because that’s just not done in India). Maxim however, seems to go a step further. It’s importing its offensiveness on a whole different level. The Guardian talks about the incident regarding Khushboo who promoted safe pre-marital sex (and was pelted with tomatoes, rotten eggs and old shoes – okay now, hitting people with jutas is BAD):
“Instead of celebrating her stance, Maxim’s inaugural edition had a mocked-up photograph of Khushboo half naked beneath a slogan declaring: ‘Of course, I am a virgin if you don’t count from the behind.’ Khushboo threatened to sue and Maxim was forced last week to make a public apology.”
Oh good. Let’s not just adopt the basest of Western culture by turning sexuality into a freak show, but let’s throw in some of its healthy misogyny as well. These magazines exist (and drive me up the wall) on this end of the world too. The same things that scare me about them here make me cringe for them being in India. Girls with eating disorders, a reinforcement of patriarchy, the objectification of women, the turning of sex into something that’s even dirtier (and more bland) than it’s already percieved as. People may be having more and more promiscuous sex in India (yay!) but as long as there is the collective culture of puritanical shame, embarassment and a need to slip it through the back door, so to speak, the impact of these magazines on Indian society will not be mediated (boo).
So India’s opened its borders. More and more corporations are realising the potential of its markets and more and more people have the money and the consumer savvy to pick, choose and buy buy buy. Wow isn’t this revolutionary? Now India can look at half-clothed underweight BROWN women with implants! Hot!
I hope this increasing availabilty of good(ie)s promotes an upsurge in activist and resistant groups in response – that would be amazing. Brown punk movements. Feminist groups. Queer groups. Anti-oppression groups – and not just in the pot-smoking, Marx-reading, theatre-performing fringes… Even just an increase in safer-sex/healthier-sex education would be good. Unfortuantely, as always, there seems to be a bit of a lag between product placement and public awareness. I hope ordinary people get talking, get critical, get angry, thoughtful or intrigued as they get pelted with an increasing number of Western-style uh, crap. And please, let there be a voice that grows louder and more accessible than just Shobha De’s facile weekly “social critiques”.
A counterpoint: its funny, for the longest time when my family first moved to the states (i was in my early teens), I always felt about brown women here that they were my ‘sisters’, like we were all related somehow. Try as I might, I could not get myself to objectify them and see them as sexual, sexy objects. I had no trouble doing that to nearly all other women, and as a result I dated only white women or other asians for the longest time (and became ‘good friends’ with browns, even when, on occasion, they expressed sexual interest (yes, it happens from time to time, even between geeks!)). It wasnt until my late 20s that I finally, for the first time, dated a brown. It took me that long to see brown women as individual, sexual, and as objects (in the GOOD way – i’ve come to believe there is such a thing as ‘healthy objectification,’ even sexually– especially sexually!). That was then. Today, a brown is miss universe, priyanka is spellbindingly beautiful and sexy, and a culture of brown sexiness, brown sexuality, looks like is going to explode both into indian culture and seep into world culture (capitalism – and Maxim and other media businesses – will ensure that). And I wonder: is it so bad? For that change to happen? Both in me and in world culture? There is a bad side to objectification, which plenty of people have pointed out, but there is also a healthy, good side to it. I wonder if we bourgeois dont often mix the two sides of it up together, sometimes too hastily. Of course no one wants to see bulemia or violence against women. But objectifying and being objectified is also often great for self esteem, very positive, and certainly is a key component of the psychological process of sex with all its rewards, too. The matter is more complex than a simplistic “objectification causes bad things”. No, a host of factors combining in particular ways, causes bad things. Objectification on its own, does not. It can often cause good things, too.
Haha. This is probably the first time I’ve heard anyone articulate that “objectification can cause good things”. But it did make me stop and think. And I see where you’re going with this except I would argue that it’s not the objectification of women that we need more of, it’s a greater awareness and comfort with sexuality as a whole. I’m not advocating for a minute that brown women should somehow not be blatently sexual in whatever way they choose or that they should not be free to articulate both thier desires and thier enjoyment of sex. And I think you’re right – there needs to be a revolution in the way a lot of brown men and brown women relate to each other. I sympathise with you Rks – I predominantly date white boys because I often have a hard time seeing brown men as “sexual objects”. My perception of brown men is that they can be repressed, are often controlling, tend to be chauvanistic and end up treating you like a either a doll that’s going to break or a surrogate mother. Is this a fair generalisation? Probably not – but the discourse is framed that way; chaste unobtainable women vs. lecherous/misogynist men.
Magazines like Maxim are not in and of themselves the answer to any of these issues – other than the fact that it might propel a conscious critique of them and (fingers crossed) change some of these problematic relationships desi culture has with expressions of sexuality – opening up the sphere for more freedom in that regard. Maxim supports a pretty monolithic and a very (insert “western” here) culturally specific view of what “sexuality” means – both in its potrayal of the ideal woman and in its promotion of a certain type of interpersonal relationship. And while it’s clear you don’t support violence against women, I’d ask you to consider who exactly is benefitting from this “objectification” in these glossy men’s magazines? It certainly isn’t your average brown chick. She doesn’t look anywhere close to Prianka Chopra – just as no white girl I know looks like oh I dunno, Angelina Jolie. And while I’m glad it’s got you thinking more about brown women as sexual beings as opposed to your sisters, I don’t think the large majority of brown men have that problem, given our gold standing in overpopulation and from what I can gather from what gets hollared at me every time I step into the street in India. India is already immensely sexual – in the way that 14 year olds are – it’s there, it’s raging and everyone’s fascinated, but it’s shameful and hidden and largely uninformed, other than a few stupidly brave examples who then get pelted with stuff at recess. Yes we need a sexual transformation. But sexuality is historically and culturally contingent and we’re just importing something in hopes of playing catch-up. Why? The revolution needs to be on brown terms, and Maxim is hardly the prime candidate to lead the way.
“The revolution needs to be on brown terms“
Brown terms were supposed to be that the individual does not matter and all actions must be such that they are beneficial to one’s community or society at large. It was in this context that sex was considered insignificant to one’s happiness and an entire cultural ethos developed around it. The Kamasutra and Tantra are very ritual and rule bound and have long lists of do’s and don’ts and do not resemble western sexual habits in the least.
With rapid westernization Indians too are developing a strong sense of individuality. Personal pleasure is way more important than social cohesion. It’s too late to do anything about it now and impossible to think in any way other than individualistically. But we’re certainly importing all of the west’s problems along with western “liberation”. There will definitely be more neurosis in India because of this and the family will not be there to fall back on. But I suppose these things are cyclic and it will not surprise me if many decades from now, even in the west virginity and eternal faithfulness become strongly cherished values once again.
Aaak I’m getting sucked in. One more comment and I’m off to class; not for a moment did I mean to suggest either the “Kama Sutra” or “Tantra” are somehow cultural blueprints for brown sexuality. You’re right – one is extremely ritually bound and the other is an insignificant text or being a dandy, blown out of proportion. Both have extremely complex histories tied in with issues of colonialism and Orientalism and thier histories and the public perception of them have been forever altered by these discourses. We’ve only recieved the knowledge of both and the “knowledge” from both within this problematic framework So no… that’s not what I was thinking of. There are countless examples of the erotic in desi culture that don’t involve either the KS or “Tantra” and it’s not fair to distill the culture to either.
Yes, India (just to be specific) is rapidly being embraced by the rapture that is late capitalism. And so ideals like individualism, free markets, ‘global culture’ etc are becoming inevitable parts of the country’s and culture’s landscape. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a way for India to negotiate what is coming its way without being closed off to it. Japan is always touted as a great example of a culture able to both negotiate and in many ways, transcend the thrust of western modernity. We, as consumers and voters (democracy and capitalism – it’s what we sing) do have a say in what gets marketed to us and what we choose to embrace and what we choose to reject. But it takes responsible choices and a willingly educated and politically mobilised people to do so.
yes, this is exactly what i mean – believe me, it works the other way too – the vast majority of brown men who i know who grew up here have only dated white women. at least, those who have made any real attempt to become a part of this culture, that is. its almost like dating brown women would be ‘awkward’ in some way. Why is that? Isnt it absurd, if you think about it?
I agree. thats why i’m saying lets not pick on Maxim too much; maxim is just a small part of the whole picture; in fact, its when we FORGET that, that we run into trouble. That is, arguably, those who use Maxim to objectify women in bad ways – have forgetten exactly that – that maxim is just a small part of the whole picture, that there is more to sex than just objectification. So lets ourselves not also forget that, by arguing objectification is itself bad. That is, if we do that, we wind up ‘forgetting’ the big picture exactly like those whom we’re criticizing. I think the right way to fight bad objectification isnt by denying the validity of objectiication, but by drawing attention to the small place it has in a much larger scheme. Thats a subtly different argument to make, but the devil is in the details, I think.
Thanks for noticing!
Here’s another counterpoint: I disagree with you on this, on the following terms: Who is benefitting from angelina jolie’s picture being splashed across our media and held up as an ideal beauty? Not white women? OF COURSE WHITE WOMEN! Yes, they dont look like her, for the most part. Yet, can anyone deny that PART of the reason that we americanized desis more easily jump into white relationships rather than brown ones – as both you and I have done – is because it has less baggage precisely because it is more mainstream, validated, legitimated, for white folk to BE sexual objects, A LA angelina jolie? Or let me put that as a question: Isnt that so? I think perhaps it is part of the equation. IF thats the case, would not the same validations seep into brown desi culture precisely BECAUSE of maxim’s objectificatinos of brown priyanka and others? and who benefits – brown women, brown men, in their mutual objectifications. no? Its a question, I think an open one.
No argument here; but we’re talking about how that sexuality gets expressed and massaged and channeled thru mainstream representations and from there how it influences desi-on-desi social relations. No question that india is a pot of raging sexuality and always has been. I agree with that. The question is what if anything does MAXIM change in that, and whether that change is ‘good’, ‘bad’, or ‘undecided’/neutral.
I think a brown maxim is PART of a brown sexual revolution. Ie, on what grounds do we separate Maxim (capitalism, westernization) from Priyanka (brown, indian sexuality). They are on the same page together, colluding, making a statement at both browns and whites. I agree that the forms of western objectification, when they reach monopolizing power, can be unhealthy, like any monopoly. Lets criticize that, sure. I’m just saying we should criticize it by contextualizing it rather than by demonizing it. For the moment the monopoly of western male gaze hasnt yet arrived in india. For the moment a priyanka-in-maxim is legitimating indian sexuality if a very public and international way. For the moment i think thats good. When the said monopoly arrives, it will be a problem just as it is in the states. but the culprit wont be the act of objectification, but its monopoly. Again, subtle difference, but i think that difference should inform our critiques. I’m sure you recognize what i’m saying; it doesnt sound like we’re too far apart on this.