Not That Sane. V Lakshman. Every Wednesday.

Victimhood, rejected (Mar. 24, 1999)

The day after the Oscars, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had an Indian journalist on the air. "When India makes nearly a thousand films a year," the anchor asked her, "don't you think it's strange that Italian films get represented but Indian films have never been?" She replied that quantity was no substitute for quality and that Indian films lagged the rest of world in quality. The lack of Oscars was well-deserved, she said.

The anchor was not having any of that. "Are you not being harsh on yourself?," he asked, "maybe Indian films have high quality, but the standards are different from those of Western films?" The Indian journalist was not cowed. She wouldn't give him an inch. She insisted that there was no conspiracy there and that Indian films would need to improve before they were eligible for any Oscars.

The BBC anchor was, if anything, persistent. "Don't you think," he insisted, "that the Oscars are a Western affair and have no relation to India?" The journalist stuck to her guts. "Two Indians have gotten the Oscars before," she instructed the BBC anchor who obviously wasn't aware that his entire thesis was wrong, "and those two deserved it. It is only now that the content and quality of Indian films are reaching Western standards and so hopefully, there will be more in the future."

It was funny how the BBC anchor was going out of the way to somehow get words out of her to the effect that the reason Indian films didn't get Oscars was that the Academy was being parochial or racist. It's amazing how much he wanted to put the language of vicitimization into her mouth. Thankfully, she didn't rise up to his bait.


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