2009/11/29 Gabe Menezes <[email protected]>: > I found the clip offensive and poking fun at Hindus > and their Gods; I had listened to it before and didn't > think it funny; now I think it is downright insulting. > The man probably needs his head kicked in.
Dear Gabe, Whose head are you targetting? The man's? Or the persons who projected Anglos in this light? I too found the clip offensive, but from another perspective. It shows the Anglos to be insensitive, boorish, condescending to the mainstream, and so insular that they didn't even know how funny were connotations of what they say. In part, that could be true. But isn't it also true, in differing measures, of all of us! The Goan Catholic has also been parodied on similar lines (but not as dramatically, as when one can access it on the click of a button, via YouTube) in Bollywood and so many other places. Every steroetype is "partly true, but wholly false", as a book published by XIC of the St Xavier's College in Mumbai many years ago once put it. See 1987: ‘Partly True and Wholly False’ - Astha produces a media kit on communal stereotypes [http://www.xaviercomm.org/newsletter/bic-pictures/xcell-april-2009.pdf Communities that thought they "had the edge" in the past -- including Goan Catholics -- could be arrogant and insensitive. Now things are fast changing, for the good of everyone. But continuing to build stereotypes about cultural or religious minorities is, to my mind, just tilting at windmills. The deeper issues lie elsewhere. This YouTube clip might underline and reinforce the biases we already have about the Anglo-Indian community in India, but rest assured the same could be done about anyone else... including me and you! FN -- Frederick Noronha :: +91-832-2409490 Writing, editing, alt.publishing, photography, journalism ANOTHER GOA: http://tiny.cc/anothergoa
