Back in SM’s youth, we brought you the story of Indian Superman (posted in 2004! We was the OG playas on the Desi Blogging scene yo).
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It takes a lot of brylcreem to get that curly lock just so… |
[Indian Superman] is one of those rare movies that manages to offend on every level. It is badly acted, badly directed, badly filmed, and makes no sense whatsoever. And just to add that extra level of offensiveness, the whole project is probably illegal.
Why Illegal? Well, here’s the most direct / literal reason –
The movie starts with thundering music playing over the sight of a cityscape from some advanced alien civilization – hey, wait a minute! That music is from the American Superman movie! So are those special effects shots!
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p>Ah, the beauty of cut & paste 
’04 was the pre-YouTube Internet and, at the time, we weren’t able to post any clips of the flick. Luckily, the world has evolved and clips are now far easier to find (here’s one, presumably from the film’s climactic ending where Superman saves an otherwise-doomed Indian Airlines flight).
Of new interest to long time mutineers, however, it appears that Puneet Issar and Dharmendra Deol have passed the Superman baton on to a host of desi sequels…
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Supermenon makes the original Indian Superman look positively trim… |
Not content to let swarthy Punjabi’s from the north trample the rights to the Superman franchise on their own, my boyz decided the world needed a South Indian Superman (a Supermenon?). Because the first step in cultural domination is to use The Man’s alphabet the way he intended, our hero instead defiantly dons the letter “H.”
In the following clip, to further show The Man that our man, is in fact, The Man, he lands on the moon next to the Apollo Lunar Lander, flies over the Kremlin, Capital Hill, Big Ben, the Parthenon (so it appears), and Hong Kong all while his honey dances on his back. Christopher Reeve ain’t got nothing on our Boy.
Ah, but the North must fight back. Instead of ripping off just one superhero, they bring us 2. And to help sneak things past the MPAA, we’ll change the second hero into a woman — Introducing Indian Superman and Desi Spiderwoman –
To be clear, this is just a superhero-themed segment from the otherwise pedestrian movie Dariya Dil performed to (what else?) “Too Mera Superman (You are my Superman).” Never underestimate the lengths a Bollywood director / producer will go to beat last years top song & dance number .
and from the little theoretical music knowledge I have (but plenty of eclectic tastes) I have begun to suspect that A.R.Rahman is also blatantly as well as quietly borrowing from different places. Am I remotely right? I recognized one of his songs, from ‘Roja’ I think, as the score of some old Hollywood thriller about a stalked woman on TV late one night. The ‘Guru’ soundtrack sounded a lot like a couple of CDs at home — ‘Voices of the World’ and ‘The Silk Road Journey’ (I may be mangligng CD titles here, I am at work and am trying to recollect–anyway, it is Central Asian music). I don’t know enough to understand what constitutes legal, artistic license to build on existing folk music and what is not, but I can tell you I was so disappointed and disheartened that I have not played ‘Guru’ after that first time.
Any A.R. Rahman fans or musicologists who can take the trouble and explain otherwise and release me from my personal boycott of A.R.Rahman?
I don’t know about A. R. Rahman’s sources but he often uses qawwali-like sounds and themes in his soundtracks. And if he sings, the song usually has a pitch range from constipated to choking. I don’t think his Guru music is worth much anyway.
The Black Eyed Peas seem to love sampling old Hindi film songs, probably because there’s no real copyright enforcement. The irony, of course, is that these songs were themselves inspired (in the Annu Malik sense of the word) by 60s or 70s rock/pop. What goes around literally comes around, it seems!
I don’t know, Rahul. My husband is an online writer in a subject that is hard to establish oneself (it is his daytime job, his bread and butter). He has been systematically and blatantly plagiarized a few times. (Those are the times that we are aware of; if it happens and we don’t come to know of it, well, then we don’t know about it.) We come to know about any such incidents only if the plagiarizers are based in North America (we are also in NA) or are also online (easy to come across) or appear in India-related publications (small world phenomenon), I think. I can’t speak for him, but I feel outraged and personally violated when it happens (well, allowing for the one degree of separation between spouse and me). Having been brought up middle-class and in the subcontinent (I am not sure if those facts are relevant at all actually), I also can’t stomach the idea of someone else pocketing the money and appreciation due to him somewhere in a small, local publication in, say, India.
So the personal has strongly influenced my reaction to plagiarism of any form these days 🙂
malathi, I was just joking, didn’t mean to touch a raw nerve there.
When I see stuff like this, (Ex: the Indian version of Superman, or Pyaar Ka Saaya – the scene by scene jacked version of Ghost, or this song in some Bollywood movie that completely jacked the melody to R. Kelly’s Thoia Thoing) it makes me curse not having my JD yet (3 more semesters to go). Goddammit I could be making so much money helping clients win copyright infringement cases!
Soon, I suppose… Soon….
Yes, please Mrs. M, don’t be spewing vehemence at the Conqueror of my Misery. He’s mine, Girlfriend, so back to protecting your man from plagiarism.
The middle part of the Rishi Kapoor song (tere liya or something) seems lifted from Mamma Mia. There is actually a website(i fforget which one) which actually has a list of Indian songs plagiarized from not only Western songs, but some Turkish and Greek songs too.
There was a Bollywood version of the Macarena too. vomit.
Umm, Fuerza Dulce, because you will be the first Indian-American lawyer who watches Hindi movies? 🙂 And really, you want to help that pedophile (ok, alleged) R. Kelly?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seboaanCwts&mode=related&search=
Cheesy Bollywoodastic version of Video Killed the Radio Star. And guess the movie – DISCO DANCER!!!
Never would have taken this to be used as a disco song, but they actually do a fun job with it. Bang Bang!!! Ha ha ha.
This is getting addicting looking for Bollywood songs plagiarising English songs.
of course, i knew that. didn’t i have a smiley face in my post? Maybe I need to pay attention to my writing style…someone else accused me of rancour on another thread which i swear i didn’t have
the nerve too is not that raw actually; it was merely used as a focal of a long narrative with a point. like hubby dearest said, “you get used to it; these are mild annoyances. you got to keep your eye on the big picture, and on things under your own control.” i saw that he could be wise too (usually I think I am the only one) when the third time didn’t hurt as much as the first time, and so on. Give me seven more years with him and I will get closer to Buddha than he has gotten.
nuRf girl, you need to be worried about numero uno Rahul fan. Or are you both different avatars of the same Goddess?
of course, you are. NuRF! Now I get it. Duh!
nuRf girl, your Tammy Wynette impression leaves me speechless. But, beware, the melody could soon go so M-A-U-D-L-I-N.
malathi, I was just clarifying since it was so personal to you.
Tammy and I have more in common than our accent, hairdo and d-i-v-o-r-c-e. That’s right honey, I’m standin’ by my man sweet Rahul ah, like rasgulla!
I really need to stop drinking coffee at my desk and reading SM. This time I gagged at rasgulla. Who knew that dicking around on SM would qualify as a workplace hazard?
What do you do? and where do people like you congregate.
In Jesusland.
I keed! Sorry malathi, I couldn’t resist.
I don’t watch them much now – now I get subjected to them on rare occasions. I don’t want to help R. Kelly – it was an example 😛