240 thoughts on “Bring Me the Head of Nina the Infidel!”

1. In one of the Ashok Banker’s story, Sita slaps Rama. In fact, last year, one of the big hits in India was a cartoon on Hanuman.

   Neither the Banker books nor the Hanuman cartoon are satirical, though. I know of one satirical (but not mocking) Ramayana book, by Indo-Irish author Aubrey Menon. It is banned in India.

   Billions of ramlilas (the theatrical/ road side adoptions of Ramayana) around October just before Dasherra every year in every town, village, city in India are testament to free interpretation. Very few of them are serious works, most of them are parodies, and local take (within the resources available) on a timeless story. That is the great strength.

   This I believe, and I’d love to see a funny one. So let me amend my hunch: religious satire isn’t as much a part of Indian mass-media, while it is in American mass-media.

2. Very few of them are serious works, most of them are parodies, and local take (within the resources available) on a timeless story. That is the great strength.

   It is, given the majority of the audience knows the true story, and therefore recognizes it as a parody.

   In fact, last year, one of the big hits in India was a cartoon on Hanuman.

   If this is what you’re referring to, I’d classify it in the same category as Amar Chitra Katha, a purely homegrown product, designed to educate through a child-accessible medium.

3. In my experience, most white Americans (even some liberals) don’t like browns criticizing even a horrible president like Bush (a la, if you don’t like it leave) so I’m going to guess your experiences in India would be something akin to that sentiment – not very attractive, but certainly universal.

4. Parody from within the culture elicits different reactions than parody from outside it. Even the term “parody” connotes a certain amount of audience familiarity with the source material, which is very likely for Christian works in the United States but not so much for Hindus.

   Would as many Christians have enjoyed “Dogma” or “Dress-Up Jesus” if they were created by Iranians?

   Also, there are definitely fault lines that WILL trigger a response from Christians in the States. The Hindu diaspora (especially the far right fringe of it) may be more vigilant about it, but Christians leap into action when they think they’re being defamed too. Remember “The Last Temptation of Christ” or “The DaVinci Code”? Wasn’t there a major controversy over a depiction of Christ defaced with feces a few years ago as well?

   I just think the Christianity vs. Hinduism argument is a stretch in the context of the United States. One is operating in the context of widespread awareness and popular support, the other isn’t.

5. My general impression is that the U.S. has a far longer history of religious protest than India. So I’m not sure I’d agree that they are more tolerant of parody. Protest is almost always mobilized even when it is not even remotely warranted. Think Fox. Religious intolerance on the part of Hindus is a more recent phenomenon I think.

   Considering that the images of gods and goddesses are so ubiquitous in India, protesting about where they ought or ought not to be displayed is pretty ridiculous. The most popular brand of bidis is called Ganesh and has an image of him on every pack. Almost every other business, in the north at least, is called Lakshmi this or that and again her images are liberally splashed all over. There does exist some kind of a minimal ethos regarding where these images ought not to be displayed but it’s mostly an unwritten code. This would include things like footwear and other things considered unclean but intoxicants and sexual stuff seem acceptable.

   But Hindus are very, very emotional about their gods – this includes people they treat as gods such as assorted movie stars or thugs from the jungle or any freak with an extra toe. You have to tread very carefully or there can be a riot if you diss any of these “dieties” that are revered.

6. <

   blockquote>

   There is nothing doctrinally wrong or heretical about a Jesus’ head on a toilet plunger–after all, He died for the downtrodden and oppressed, the very folks who are forced to deal in human excreta. Some people might find this new icon a restorative gesture, bringing Christ back to His original context.

   Whew. I thought you were going respond with complete idiocy, totally leaving common sense by the wayside. Glad I was wrong.

7. My general impression is that the U.S. has a far longer history of religious protest than India

   This can’t be right, because by just one example, there was no kind of religious protest going on in the United States when the Bhakta movement in the Indian subcontinent was in its heyday

8. Neal, that was the Virgin Mary, but yes, similar idea. The fact that we don’t know much about it indicates that not many people took it too seriously. But along HMF’s line, if Iranians did it, it would be a big story.

9. In my experience, most white Americans (even some liberals) don’t like browns criticizing even a horrible president like Bush (a la, if you don’t like it leave)

   Really? I’m sorry to hear that. I take it you’re not in New York?

10. Unfortunately, no – but many years in San Francisco (that should be sufficiently non-midwestern).

    I think it’s a fairly common attitude outside of acedemia, and you shouldn’t apologize – as I said, I think it’s universal.

11. “About the same, I imagine. Because Christians are so numerous in relation to Hindus and Buddhists in the US, I don’t think parody coming from an “outsider” would be any more threatening. And yes, I can understand how being in a minority religion in the US, misunderstood by many, the dynamics are totally different. The outsider would be held to a much higher standard.”

    i’d have to disagree and say you’re overestimating the average american’s tolerance for “deliberate misuse” or “could be interpreted as offensive but not meant to be” depictions of christian symbols by non-christians. i mean look at this silly american idol. sanjaya is still on, and the first thing people latch on to is his ethnicity (and he’s only half indian) as a cause for his still being there and come up with lame jokes about outsourcing the votes etc. that’s the first thing they would latch on to if a hindu/buddhist artist produced a work seen as less than flattering to christianity. it’s human nature.

    during the whole mohammed cartoon controversy, u.s. television did stories on crude characterizations of christians and jews in islamic countries – in cartoons, websites etc. yet i’ve never really seen the same sort of deep soul searching over something like the grotesque anti-hindu chick cartoon books or over the derogatory comments by the falwells and robertsons and other prominent american evangelists about hindus and hinduism. indeed, falwell and robertson are often invited on as “respectable” guests on shows to do with religion etc. i’ve yet to see an american news anchor really take them to task for their comments about hindus (but they have taken them to task about their comments on muslims).

12. why cause offense ? enough riots happening as is. why add fuel to fire ?

    Living in fear of religious fundies is NOT the way forward for anyone.

13. Whose God is it anyways?, I wouldn’t call it taking them to task, as much as giving them an opportunity to expand and pontificate on their vileness. Sorry, “the news” has virtually no credibility these days.

14. LBP, like it or not, these religious fundies are legitimate parties with electoral record & protection under indian constitution and millions of voters vote them into power, possibly because they agree with some of their religious convictions. But this is all a moot point. Nina doesn’t have art exhibitions in RSS heartland, neither does she plan to show these paintings to shiv sainiks. She is comfortably doing her own thing far far away from india. Once she sets foot in India with these paintings for a public exhibition, its a completely different story. You can guarantee she will require police protection. There will be riots and burnings and lost lives. And then, one might ask if all of this was worth it. That was my point – artists in India can paint just as well and rake up enough controversy messing about with religious imagery. They don’t do so simply because they are more mature. They like living in India and don’t want to offend other communities needlessly. Here in USA, you have that luxury. Back home, we don’t.

15. I heartily disagree. No artist owes anyone an explanation of anything. If you don’t like the work, move along or blog about it. Nina doesn’t need anyone’s permission. No one owns Hindu iconography, and the last time I checked Indian artists were free to use whatever materials they wanted in their creations. Art is supposed to bother people. Otherwise, it’s just decoration.

    Preston:

    if art is meant to offend, then the offendees are part of the art. If they “move along” as you suggest, instead of throwing a fit, then the art has failed to be art, by your own definition, and it’s just decoration.

    …now excuse me as I have an appointment in Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram building, a tribute to modernism, capitalism, and alcohalism. Inspiring art, indeed.

16. There will be riots and burnings and lost lives. And then, one might ask if all of this was worth it. That was my point – artists in India can paint just as well and rake up enough controversy messing about with religious imagery. They don’t do so simply because they are more mature.

    Is simply accepting “riots and burnings and lost lives” over a work of art really “more mature”?

    Being offended is one thing, and I could understand someone being offended over a work like this. But that sounds a lot like living in fear of fundamentalists, which doesn’t seem that wise to me at all.

17. That was my point – artists in India can paint just as well and rake up enough controversy messing about with religious imagery. They don’t do so simply because they are more mature.

    Or because they are scared of the riots and burnings. In which case I would consider them less mature as artists because they are allowing the people to dictate their art rather than freely creating whatever comes to them. IMHO art requires courage. The courage to put out there your innermost thoughts, opinions, and feelings in a form that, by the inherent nature of art, is open and free to being interpreted in a completely different way than you intended. I think Nina does just that. Bravo!

    That is not to say that I necessarily applaud all artists who aim to deliberately incite the masses, creating controversial art in the hopes of garnering undeserved attention and wreaking havoc. But rather that I hold those artists in much higher regard than those who create something and then kill it for fear of “what people may think.” To me, this kind of thinking leads to a pretty big slippery slope with possibly disastrous consequences.

18. Tambram:

    Speaking of dicks, your first comment is out of order. Deleted. I understand you are angry, but if everyone else can lob criticism without arguing like that, so can you. In fact, you did, in the second comment you left, which is why IT still stands. Please take a deep breath. Thanks.

19. Or because they are scared of the riots and burnings. In which case I would consider them less mature as artists because they are allowing the people to dictate their art rather than freely creating whatever comes to them.

    I think “realistic” is a more applicable word. Hello, putting your art on a blog and having it critiqued, risking maybe at worst, a “white girl leave our stuff alone” comment is far different than publishing art that might have your kids threatened and attacked, or have your house burned down.

    I wouldn’t move to Texas and make paintings that had Bin Laden sitting at a table with Bush’s head on a platter, and taking a shit on a toilet covered with the American flag. Yes it might be artistic, and my “right” to do it, but I ain’t f#($@#)(ing stupid either. As somoene said earlier, art doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

    So, they’re not more mature or less mature, they’re just realistic and practical. Sometimes “what people may think” can simply not be ignored. Reminds me of the artist in SF who was punched in the face because she drew some picture relating to Abu Ghraib (I think? maybe someone else can clarify), everyone applauded her for courage, etc.. what did she do? Packed up and left. I don’t remember anyone calling her out for it.

20. Sooooo…….

    When is the Mutiny going to have another pledge drive anyway? I think SM Intern must be running low on Scooby Snacks, ANNA should get some welcome back swag (beyond the amazingly wide-ranging response her posts have generated), and the bunker must need new curtains or something?!

    Seriously, though, my congrats to the Mutineers. The quality of this discussion (overall, anyway) and, hell, everything on the front page right now shows, I think, that the Mutiny has, after so much work, become the potent cultural force it always deserved to be.

21. SM Intern, If Nina wants to put a penis in Kali’s palm, she can create a fictional character and put one ( or several, if she so desires ) on their palms as well. I don’t see why that comment should be banned. But it is your site, I’m just a guest, so fine. Speaking of guests, when people share their culture with you, its with the same spirit. You are not supposed to run away with their silver spoons, or break their cups and saucers. You are a guest and they’re partaking their culture with you. When Nina takes my culture ie. Hindu Gods, especially Kali, and destroys her in this manner ( destroy as in do something with it that is generally not done ) , it does offend me(fob) and a lot of other fobs as well. You can’t come to my house and break my cups and write A R T with the broken pieces and claim subjective artistic interpretation. Its not your cup. I’m just sharing it with you. The cup will be passed on to my children and further down. I don’t want to stretch the analogy, but religion/God/Kali is much, much more than just a cup. She is a common property held in very high esteem, and we as devotees/guests are handling her with care/reverence so we can pass her on to the next generation. We would appreciate if someone doesn’t barge in, grab our assets and break it into a hundred pieces. Its just polite/civic not to do so.

    Regarding the Indian artists, they’re not scared of the riots as some of the comments seem to indicate. Nor are they realistic ie. making a trade-off between art and personal safety and choosing the latter. They are just mature enough not to be unnecessarily impolite to members of another community. I was educated in India and I’m not half as smart as some of these here folk, but I think another analogy is in order. Your mom belongs to you, yes ? You wouldn’t take a photograph of her and pee all over it and write MOM with your poop and hand it over to your dad, yes ? Why not ? Its art after all. Its courageous and different and expressive and all that. You wouldn’t because its just not done. Not because you are scared of your dad ( ie. riots ) or being realistic ( can’t stay in the same house anymore after ensuing hungama) or anything else. You are just being mature enough not to indulge in this sort of foolish behavior because it is simply unnecessary, and because there are umpteen other avenues to advance your art.

22. Weren’t most of the samples in old school rap albums from black artists anyway? Old funk and soul stuff…” Not hardly Average White Band The turtles Hall and Oates Babe Ruth Ashra Temple Grand Funk Bowie Can Bob JAMES Zeppelin Toto Kraftwerk Sabbath and many others were in the mix It was a glorious free for all….Music is waaaaay beyond color in any case…and the thing about hip hop is..’it can take the waackest song and make it beetterrrrr!’ (KRS-1

    Whoa, that list is highly skewed and definitely not representative of old skool hip hop sampling. It certainly “was a glorious free for all” and music does transcends color, but funk, soul, R&B, etc. samples from mainly African-American artists provided the backbone for a lot of early hip hop. I’m not implying that there is a hierarchy between musicians or that blue-eyed soul singers were not as “authentic” as their black counterparts, but the proof is in the pudding – or in this case, the plundering.

    Weren’t most of the samples in old school rap albums from black artists anyway? Old funk and soul stuff…

    Neal’s correct: all of those artists glass houses listed combined don’t even come close to African-American artists/acts such as James Brown, The Meters, George Clinton, Parliament, or Roy Ayers for instance. The first mainstream Top 40 hip hop hit, Rapper’s Delight, was sampled from Chic, another all Af-Am act. The artists you’ve listen have certainly had their music looped, chopped, and sampled but, with the exception of Bob James and Jerry Martini from Sly and Family Stone, the top ten most sampled artists are black.

    I think the whole idea of “cultural ownership” comes from Disney, record companies, and the corporate entertainment industries. Ask Google, “Who Owns Culture?” As copyright laws have become increasingly draconian in the US, they pose the single greatest threat to free speech. There’s an American desi angle to this too, as the author of Copyrights and Copywrongs is NYU’s Siva Vaidhyanathan.

    Well said, Nina. For those unfamiliar with what she’s referring to, check out the Copyright Term Extension Act, legislation supported more by labels and industries than by musicians.
    Artists like George Clinton encourage others to sample his music and even put out to albums designed to allow producers to do so and circumvent the record industry.

    Vaidyanathan isn’t the only desi working against the notion of intellectual property: fellow Primus fanatic and outsider musician Ram Samudrala makes some compelling points here. (Siva is my current man-crush, but Ram just might displace him. Sorry No Von Mises, but you can have Pollan is all to yourself.)

23. Art is supposed to bother people. Otherwise, it’s just decoration.

    I don’t like this definition as it usually leads to a common fallacy:

    Good art bothers people. A dead cat on the doorstep bothers people. A dead cat on the doorstep is art.

    I wouldn’t move to Texas and make paintings that had Bin Laden sitting at a table with Bush’s head on a platter, and taking a shit on a toilet covered with the American flag. Yes it might be artistic, and my “right” to do it, but I ain’t f#($@#)(ing stupid either. As somoene said earlier, art doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

    I have a serious problem with defining this kind of stuff as art as, in that case, what is art in Texas is not art in Iraq. That sounds funny to me.

    IMO whether something shocks or bothers you is totally orthogonal to its value as art. Otherwise Farrelly brothers movies would be high art.

24. Here’s one of my favorite old, Indian paintings of the naked Chinnamasta Devi, a form of Kali/Shakti. She is headless, having cut off Her OWN head this time, while drinking Her own blood and standing on top of the naked Rati and Kamadeva as they make love, Rati on top of and straddling Her lover. Kamadeva (God of Lust) is Cupid and Rati (attachment) is His consort.

    http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/HT92/

25. Here’s one of the fiercesome Bhadra Kali, holding in her hand a naked Shiva and naked dark man – perhaps Vishnu or again Kamadeva? While standing atop a naked man with chinese looking shika.

    There is no dearth of nudity in old Indian paintings. http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/HT15/

26. http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/HV01/

    Lingam and Yoni symbolism – “tantric folk art”

27. It doesn’t get more explicit than this http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/BG05/

    This is the kind of art I was reminded of when seeing Nina’s depiction of Kali. Here we have a form of Her holding two penises, one in each hand, while the prominant one is in it’s natural place. Notice the yonis in the Goddesses two lower hands. There is a precedent in old India for the type of art depicted by Nina.

    A few words about the painting;

    This tantrika deity, in the form of a Shaivite Devi figure, manifests the unity of the cosmic male and female principles, which is the core of not only Tantra but also of India’s cosmological vision. Using elaborate symbolism and repeated manifestations of the principle, the artist has conveyed his idea of the creative process. The blank undefined blood stained opaque background is suggestive of lifeless vacuum, the void, emerging after the deluge. It has, in the form of phallus, the male principle, which the Indian mythology identifies as Lord Vishnu. Male principle is inert, though not lifeless. The female principle rides over it and charges it into kinetic energy. In India’s mythology this female principle has been perceived as Mahadevi, the Omni-present and Omni-potent female principle, and the kinetic energy as Kundalini symbolised here in the painting by the snake coiling around the phallus. The snake has, as has the Kundalini, an upward rise and in the process unites the male and female principles. Significantly, the point, where the snake transgresses into the figure of the female deity, is the sphere of Muladhara-chakra of Kundalini, the basic region wherefrom the kinetic energy takes off. The snake rises up to the womb, where the creative process conceives and the genital principle begins to operate.

28. Just saw this on BoingBoing. Thought I will add to Nina’s list.

    “Dinner and Drinks with Son of God”

29. Another one http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/HP73/

30. The Bhadrakali pic is interesting. Kali is holding (lifeless) Brahma, Vishnu and Maheswar in her hands, and the man under her feet, is that Buddha? And whose body is she eating? Brahma’s?

    the series you have posted all look pretty modern in style, though; not traditional Indian art.

31. Corporate Serf

    That painting seems to be symbolizing the annihilation of male-founded, male-dominated religions. With Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva rendered helpless and limp in her hands, as well as the brahmin under her feet (or perhaps the Buddha, as you suggest), and the feminine principle towering strong and powerful over them all….. and the Shakta and Tantric paths are female dominated ones – at least in theory or at least in terms of the Deities worshipped.

32. Those are some amazing paintings, MoS, traditional or not.

    This is the kind of art I was reminded of when seeing Nina’s depiction of Kali

    Just want to re-iterate, my picture is of Desire. It refers to Kali, and I understand most people see it as Kali, but that’s not actually what I was specifically depicting. If someone asked me to depict Kali, it would not look like the picture Anna posted above. Some critics may not make the distinction, but others might as well.

33. Speaking of guests, when people share their culture with you, its with the same spirit. You are not supposed to run away with their silver spoons, or break their cups and saucers. You are a guest and they’re partaking their culture with you. When Nina takes my culture ie. Hindu Gods, especially Kali, and destroys her in this manner ( destroy as in do something with it that is generally not done ) , it does offend me(fob) and a lot of other fobs as well. You can’t come to my house and break my cups and write A R T with the broken pieces and claim subjective artistic interpretation. Its not your cup. I’m just sharing it with you.

    Here we have not only “cultural ownership,” but also the idea of intellectual property. Disney, Sony and BMI couldn’t have said it better.

    The difference between culture and objects like cups and spoons, is that one person copying/interpreting/appropriating a song, image or story does not actually take anything away from another. If I took your spoons, you’d have fewer or no spoons. If I retell Ramayana, you still have your Ramayana. Your Kali icons are still there, too.

34. Just want to re-iterate, my picture is of Desire. It refers to Kali, and I understand most people see it as Kali, but that’s not actually what I was specifically depicting.

    Then nobody should have a problem with it.

    Speaking of guests, when people share their culture with you, its with the same spirit. You are not supposed to run away with their silver spoons, or break their cups and saucers. You are a guest and they’re partaking their culture with you. When Nina takes my culture ie. Hindu Gods, especially Kali, and destroys her in this manner ( destroy as in do something with it that is generally not done ) , it does offend me(fob) and a lot of other fobs as well. You can’t come to my house and break my cups and write A R T with the broken pieces and claim subjective artistic interpretation. Its not your cup. I’m just sharing it with you.

    So who’s got a copywrite on Kali Ma now? She’d more than likely cut off your head if you even try to fit her into some kind of box.

    Even if it is depicting Kali, I like it. And Kali Ma is part of my tradition – Sita even more so, and from what little I saw of Sita Sings the Blues, I like that too.

35. Nina, the reason I chose to use theoretical langauge to make my point was so we could have a critical exchange and not resort to name calling, accusations of lying, and defensive posturing. Still, you chose to:

    (a) Label me as a racist; (b) Accuse me of being someone else to posit this as some sort of conspiracy; and (c) Label the language in which I choose to speak as “over-written, highfallutin, decades-old academic puffery.”

    Fine. So in response, I’m just going to write viscerally because I’m feeling like a bitch tonight and let the blog administrators deal with me as they please, since you seem to be some sort of “sacred cow” here. I’m not trying to strip this forum of the civility it deserves, and I’m going to try not to resort to your level of argument, but I am going to write without tip toeing.***

    Nina, your calling me a racist is tantamount to me calling you a man-hater. Some of your work is obviously borne from a feminist viewpoint, and you yourself say that you initially deemed the Ramayana a “misogynistic” work. One can argue that your “Sitayana” is a feminist re-telling of the parable. How elementary and simplistic would it be for me to call you a “man-hating feminazi” because you chose to accentuate the female voice in the Ramayana? I mean, your positing Sita as the primary voice in your work obviously means that you are anti-Rama and therefore anti-man. Right? I mean, what is with your campaign against men? You must be a lesbian.

    That would obviously be ludicrous. You chose to engage in a critical interpretation of the Ramayana steeped in the feminist tradition of re-positing gender dynamics within popular works. LIKEWISE, I chose to engage in a critical race analysis of your work in a postcolonial context, choosing not to divorce the artist from the art. Asking you to be critical of your position as a white, American woman is not tantamount to me hating you simply because your white. That is racism. I didn’t just happen to see your piece, learn that you’re a white woman, and decide to mount some campaign against you because I hate white people. Give me a damn break.

    I mean, damn, let’s do a simple, high school “read between the lines” of the Sitayana – your work, it can be argued, is asking the viewer to consider the female point of view and situation in the Ramayana. So why should the female view be privileged? Huh?

    OH, that’s right – because we don’t live in a completely egalitarian, colorblind, kumba-friggin’-ya society. Sexism and misogyny are alive and strong, aren’t they? Right…so it’s not about hating men. It’s about giving the marginalized a voice – in this case, the woman.

    In the same regard, my critique is not about hating you or hating white people. But I don’t live in a colorblind, patriarchy-free, all-are-equal, gender-is-irrelevant kind of society, the kind of society that even so many damn liberals selectively bring up when their positionality and privilege are brought into question. JUST as your work seems to imply that men and women are not treated equally in our society, my critique implies that white people and people of color are not treated equally in our society. Saying that does not make me a racist. As much as you and others may want to think so, I don’t apply my critiques solely to white people. As much as you and others may want to think so, I don’t shy away from similar critiques of my work. I have certain privileges in and pre-conceived notions about the world – HELL YEAH, I do! And if we want to take it to the next level, then damn, let’s just say it Avenue Q style – everyone’s a little bit racist.

    A racist with a lot of over-written, highfallutin, decades-old academic puffery as self-justification.

    This just irks the hell out of me. Listen, if you’re going to argue using your own language and lexicon, then fine – I never called you out for that. But do NOT feign to sit there and call my reference points bullshit just because (a) you’ve never read them, (b) you don’t understand them, (c) you don’t think they apply to you, or (d) they are “old” (???????). I don’t know anything about your education (institutional or otherwise), but just because something sounds “highfallutin” doesn’t mean it’s crap. That’s the same argument Ann Coulter and the Bush camp use when liberals make sophisticated, nuanced arguments against the war, environmental degradation, racism, etc. Disagree with it, call its shit out, denounce it – fine. But dismissing whole schools of thought is pretty damn ignorant in my book.

    Look, if you don’t understand something, look it up. Read. Ask questions. Preston jumps in and says “‘appropriated’ (whatever this means).” Just because a term doesn’t sit well with me doesn’t mean I’m going to just dismiss it as ivy tower, esoteric, not-dealing-with-reality BS. If you don’t know what appropriation is in the context of this thread, read Orientalism. Read Said and Spivak. Do a Google Scholar search. Do a Wiki search. Consider some aspects of post-modern theory, post-colonial theory and literature, Orientalist theory, subaltern studies, etc. before making a Coulter-like, “we’re the authentic thing” kind of dismissal. Heck, some of your feminist messages, Nina, stem from a lot of the highfallutin’ feminist academic puffery of the 1960s and 1970s. And, uh, since when is something negligible because it’s OLD?! Lest I remind you that the Ramayana you’re dealing with is pretty damn old, too.

    But hey, why consider all this when you can just call something “lame.” Seems pretty lazy to me.

    That’s “mighty white” of you Zoe I mean Nagasai, not “naively” labelling me a racist “solely” for being white – not here anyway.

    That’s pretty hilarious and somewhat paranoid of you to think that I am Zoey. I don’t know Zoey. Yes, I read her critique of your work on her blog, and yeah, we seem to share a lot of the same views about it (really, how arrogant can you be to think that only ONE person in this work can critique your work using theoretical reference points?), but I’m not her. I don’t know how I can prove this to you, but Sepia Mutiny’s blog administrators seem to have a lot of shiny and fun technology at their disposal to figure this one out. So please: track me. Go all Patriot Act on my ass. Seriously! Track my IP address, and then track the IP address of the person who runs this blog: http://zooeylive.blogspot.com/. Track anything you want, be as intrusive as you want, get as much info as you want – I’m an open book. Because then you’ll realize that we’re two completely different people who happen to share similar views. And then maybe you’ll quiet down about trying to posit me as some troll or conspirator. Because that’s just too damn easy.

    Anyway, I have a date tonight, and a sexy black dress and a sexy white man waiting for me. I don’t want any images of you or your “Desire” in my head tonight, so I’m going to cut out now.

    ***Seriously, Sepia Mutiny people, I’m not trying to obnoxious here. But I had to “pound the keyboard” just as Nina chose to go for the visceral, as well. Sorry, I don’t want you to have to act like a parent patrolling a bunch of kiddies. But hey, I am relatively new here. And I just want to respectfully make one point, as a relative newcomer: I’m not against the banning of trolls and whatnot, but what is kind of irksome in a thread like this is when a multitude of people are trying to espouse their views and in drops the “SM Intern” with quips like, “Aww damn, Nina, you told her!” or “You don’t have to apologize, Nina” (I’m paraphrasing). No, it’s not that I want any sort of fuzzy attention from ya’ll (high school is blisfully a thing of the past), but to be honest, it does kinda sorta create an unwelcoming vibe for new people to this blog. It kind of creates this cliquish feeling, and that’s what I was trying to articulate when I said that the tendency is to be emotional. Please, free love all you want, but can it take place elsewhere so us wee newcomers don’t feel like the administrators of the blog are rooting for us to embarrass ourselves in this public forum? I’m being totally sincere. Thanks. And good night.

36. Tambram:

    Its art after all. Its courageous and different and expressive and all that. You wouldn’t because its just not done. Not because you are scared of your dad ( ie. riots ) or being realistic ( can’t stay in the same house anymore after ensuing hungama) or anything else.

    I’d say IF someone wanted to do such a thing, the fear and realistic reprecussions would curtail it. If you’re saying that they naturally would never do such a thing, just out of an innate respect and politeness, then this statement of yours makes no sense:

    There will be riots and burnings and lost lives. And then, one might ask if all of this was worth it. That was my point – artists in India can paint just as well and rake up enough controversy messing about with religious imagery.

    Nagasai:

    Sometimes the only way to explain white privelage to a white woman, is to put it in the context of male privelage. Bravo.

37. Tell it, Nagasai! I’m not one who really subscribes to this ‘white privilege’* thing that so many on this forum go on about, but other than that I agree with you, and you expressed yourself well.

    *Yes ‘white privilege’ exists to various extents in different situations…and affects some people more than others…but many desis I know (including myself) are more privileged than all but the highest echelons of whites in this country. That’s what’s great about America.

38. Nagasai is right. I appreciate the nuance of what she’s getting at.

    Nina’s right too.

    In fact, it’s not clear to me exactly why they are in conflict. Nagasai is suggesting the necessary hesitations, and Nina is exercising artistic license. A person can do both. A person can weigh the postcolonial/cultural-appropriation factors at play, and still produce risky, artistically challenging work.

    I think drawing a line between “religion qua religion” and “religion as cultural expression” might be helpful. It’s possible to have zero respect for the former (not necessarily true of Nina, but true of an apostate like me), and great reverence for the latter. It’s alright to piss on religion (again, that’s not Nina, that’s me), but it’s not alright to piss on people.

    There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to this thing, but “I’m offended” is rarely enough reason to get in the way of artistic practice.

    Kumba-friggin-ya, people, kumba-friggin-ya. If your God is so strong, she can open up the can of whoop-ass without our help. Culture needs defending, but Gods don’t.

39. Nagasai, I apologise for accusing you of being someone you’re not. And I regretted resorting to insults as soon as I hit “post,” hence my apology to SM Intern for dragging down the level of discussion.

    What you call

    critical race analysis of your work in a postcolonial context

    I call racism couched in academic jargon. Although it’s not actually jargon to me – I’ve been there and done that and am familiar with theories of white privelege and postocolonialism.

    Here’s a sincere question for you and any other critical race analysts here: what good comes from “critical race analysis”? What are your ends? How does bringing race into a critique of art improve the critique, or understanding? I said your ideas are “decades-old” because these ideas are no longer new and radical – they’re mainstream. With the exception of people who rely on the Fox Network for their news, people know about American Imperialism, colonialism, post-colonial imperialism, white privelege, and most importantly, white guilt. When you bring race into a critique, you’re not actually enlightening anyone who never considered race. So what are you hoping to accomplish? Do you think that, if white artists thought more about their white privilege, they wouldn’t make art that offends you?

40. Sepia Mutiny’s blog administrators seem to have a lot of shiny and fun technology at their disposal to figure this one out.

    Nagasai, all we have is a few dedicated bloggers who try and squeeze SM in when they’re not being parents or siblings or full-time drones.

    All I did was try and open up a discussion, a discussion I was warned not to, lest it become an absolute clusterfuck.  For the most part, I’m proud of how everyone carried themselves and I don’t regret my somewhat controversial choice to try and create this dialogue.  However, I’m being challenged by my workload right now and I’m being stretched very thin.  I’m feeling like whatever I do isn’t good enough and that hurts when this site is one of the most precious things in my life. 

    I’m sorry that my attempts to intervene via the "intern" struck you as clannish and stupid; all I was trying to do in my flawed way was

    a)  remind people that I was around,to nip the suddenly and sadly prevalent, "while the admins are away, bannable offenses are okay" bullshit right in the bud.

    b)  keep things light-hearted in a VERY emotional and heavy thread…a virtual court jester, if you will.

    c)  let Nina know that she wasn’t alone.  Not because she’s our friend but because some of you were really going at her jugular (especially the deleted comments…but I know you’re kind and wise enough to remember that there were probably several of those, right?) and she didn’t have to give me permission to draw a target sign on her back via this post.  I am not a mean girl in high school; I am also not an asshole.  Perhaps my compassion was running rampant, but at moments, I felt bad for her even as I was in awe that she put herself out there for skewering.

    If I really were a "mean girl", I wouldn’t have opened up an entire post as a forum, essentially just for you.  I love our newcomers, even as most of them don’t seem to love me.  On a more general note, I don’t need to be kowtowed to, but to be a little less abused, to have the best vs the worst assumed about me and to not be taken for granted would be nice.

    A final note:  I am not the mutineer who closed this thread.  While each of us is responsible for modding our own threads, each of us has the others’ back, as well.  I mention this so you realize that this isn’t personal etc etc.  Please don’t assume that the intern is ALWAYS me or that the person who closed Vinod’s thread is Vinod.

    And now, though I did not close it, I do agree with the decision to do so because I need to go to bed and I can’t be counted on to manage this.  Perhaps it’s for the best; Nagasai, you aren’t the only one who apparently thinks I did a poor job of it.

    Good night and thank you for participating.  To the 90% of you who weren’t trolls, who were respectful and cogent, you rocked my polka-dotted socks off.  🙂  Thank you, most.