Re: Bajrangi Bhaijaan
I guess articles did not clarify much.
Why do you think it would have been better had salman khan been a bajrang bali devotee and muslim. It would bring unnecessary controversy. Given message of film i feel it is more powerful that he plays a hindu guy from conservative background who due to his interaction with pakistanis learns to shed his misconceptions. i really liked bhar do joli meri which i know is originally a pakistani qawaali.
Id like more movies and shows from both countries without negative stereotypes. I know there have been anti pakistani movies in past but most successful ones in india have been pro both country ones like pk, namaste london and veer zaara. Another thread mentioned some stereotypes but i honestly did not see those when i watched the movie. Without giving it away..people say it shows only city areas but i think since movie was shot in india they felt it is easier to create villages and small cities common to both rather than big cities like karachi lahore etc which will be harder to be accurate. Neither i saw any more poverty than with indian side. Instead i saw both sides having snow capped mountains’, lot of greenery and majestic deserts. I dont know any group which is not stereotyped in bollywood or even any film industry..south indians with accents (chennai express), kareena’s overly caste conscious father, indian christians with hindi accents who like alcohol, foreign raised desis who are morally corrupt (pardes), racist punjabi hindu mothers (2 states) and white people usually with evil intentions. in the movie i thought the pakistani characters were more open minded. i see nothing wrong with maulana having religious cap after all he is a religious authority nor anythimg wrong with the hijabs in the.movie. Instead it disprves a stereotype that those with religious clothing are narrow minded. Clothing doesnt define thoughts as maulana saab was quite liberal minded.
The overdose of janab may be to define they were on the pakistani side of border. i did not notice any excess use of hum by heroine..what stereotype is that? Kareena played an indian girl in movie and munni the pakistani heroine did not talk. Her mother was in movie for a little while but i dont recall hum being used a lot.
the red and green flags were used outside a dargah from memory and i have seen similar use of flags in bollywood songs about dargahs eg deewani deewani main tere daras ki deewani.
Hopefully i didnt reveal too much above. I do think you will enjoy the movie.