Monkey Man!

Welcome to our very first movie discussion, nerds! In which we chat about the Ramayana with no Ram, why Hanuman is the Best Beast, Hijra superheroes, and also that Dev Patel should call us.

As always, be sure to visit keepingit101.com for full show notes, homework, transcripts, & more.

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Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion is proud to be part of the Amplify Podcast Network.

Chapters

• 0:00 Hi Hello
• 2:02 Plot Overview, Initial Thoughts
• 8:46 Hanuman, Religion, Politics
• 48:10 Hijras
• 1:05:30 Homework
• 1:07:12 Bonus: Simpsons

Transcript

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 0:17

This is keeping it 101, a killjoys introduction to religion podcast, which is part of the amplify Podcast Network, we're grateful to live, teach and record on the current ancestral and unceded lands of the Abenaki and Wabanaki peoples, as well as the lands of one federally recognized native nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and seven North Carolina state recognized tribal entities. Increasingly, though, native folks are pushing us to forgo land acknowledgements altogether and focus on action items. So let's start with land back. And as always, you can find material ways to support indigenous communities on our website.

Megan Goodwin: 0:50

What's up? Nerds? Hi, hello. I'm Megan Goodwin, a scholar of American religions, race, gender, sexuality, politics, all that stuff.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:00

Hi, hello. I'm Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, a historian of religion, Islam, race and racialization, and importantly, South Asia.

Megan Goodwin: 1:06

It's very important for today's discussion, because talking about monkey man,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:13

we are Goodwin. This is our first movie in five years of doing this podcast.

Megan Goodwin: 1:18

is it true? Okay, that's cool. That's fun. I like that. Trying something different. Yeah,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:24

I appreciate that. We get Dev Patel, like up in here. He is good looking, so he should be up in here all the time,

Megan Goodwin: 1:31

please. He's invited, standing invitation.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:36

Hi, hello, Dev, hi, hello.

Megan Goodwin: 1:41

We know you're out there. We know you're listening. Call us. Okay. Thanks. Bye.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:46

All right. Well, we are dear listeners, literally, maybe 15 minutes off of having watched monkey man together in separate locations whilst texting the whole time. So, you know, like a normal afternoon for us, but with Dev Patel and I think we're gonna go over all the things that we think were interesting from the perspective of religion, yeah. But again, if you could, and if you can't, that's okay, I will help. Should we give a real brief breakdown of plot such as we understand it? Because the thing that we're going to talk about is the fact that we don't fully understand the plot

Megan Goodwin: 2:19

right and like, this is the third time that I've watched this film,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 2:24

which makes me feel less bad, because this was, this was my first, my first trip to the rodeo. It actually was my first rodeo.

Megan Goodwin: 2:32

This is my third rodeo with this particular film. And, yeah, I'm still a little fuzzy on what happened, but if I have understood it correctly, and we'll do this in, like a straightforward, chronological way, even though the film does not do that, we have tiny baby Dev Patel growing up someplace rural amongst unclear, but clearly lower caste Hindu community In the forest, and they are assaulted by law enforcement. Who are they have been told, doing God's work, because the site where these people are living has been declared a sacred site, and it needs to be cleared, according to the state, so the chief of police, in the name of God, which one they were not clear, comes in and like murders, Dev Patel's mother sets her on fire. He has scars on his palms for the rest of the film because he tried to put her body out with his bare hands. There is a lot of explicit violence. There is implied sexual violence. Upon my third watching, I am curious if we're meant to think that the Chief of Police is Dev Patel's character's father. I

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 3:45

think so. I think that's the heavy implication, yeah. And

Megan Goodwin: 3:49

so Dev Patel, as one does, dedicates his life to revenge and avenging his his murdered mother so he he knows where to find his creepy, horrible rapey dad, because the the matches that he used to set his mother on fire have the logo of a place called queenies, which is run by this like Scary, mean Muslim lady who's very wealthy and is trafficking women and forcing abortions on them in this high end club in the city of India, because we're never really sure where we are or what is happening fully but anyway, in the city that that city that is in India, Queenie runs this giant joint where all of the best, most powerful people come, including the chief of police and Dev Patel, sets up this scheme to, like, get in good with them and work his way through the ranks so that he can get to the highest people in the highest places and do a do a heck in revenge. So so he does. He He gets a shot literally at killing his dad, slash the chief of police, and he fumbles it. And then action ensues, and we're just escaping through again India, and he gets the shit kicked out of him, and he gets rescued by the the local Hijra community, the third sex, historically sacred community, takes him in, encourages him to remember who he is, like the forest is in he's got that monkey in him, the Hanuman monkey will come back to that. And they like train him up and teach him to fight. And then he goes out make sure that the Hijra community has enough money to support themselves, and then decides he's gonna go, like, take on his dad again. Also, we're getting in the background these like new shots of a big deal up and coming guru, Baba, Shakti,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 5:56

yeah, like, which just means like, Dad, divine feminine, right? Yeah, yeah, Papa lady God.

Megan Goodwin: 6:02

And Papa lady God is up and coming, and he's also directly and vocally supporting the sovereign party, which is, is clearly like a BJP dupe, like, Yeah, nothing about this movie is subtle. No things are confusing. Sure. Nothing is subtle.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 6:18

Not a little bit of subtlety. We're literally getting beat down, yeah, by Panama while the monkey man action is happening.

Megan Goodwin: 6:28

So in the background, we have the sense that, like Hindu nationalism is a rising threat. It is doing violence to poor people, to rural people, to low caste people, certainly to gender, non normative people, also farmers. And come back to that. And so the big boss battle is him working his way through queenies. Again, murdering spoilers, but Hello, murders Queenie, murders his dad. But the big bad boss is actually the guru who and again, we can talk about this later, but it seems to be like politicized religion is the big bad, and secular Hanuman is here to take his revenge. And then end of movie, like it's very wusha, it's very John Wick. It is very fun to watch if you like action movies. It does not make one single lick of sense, and I'm not entirely sure what the argument was, but again, I have watched it three times.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 7:31

Yeah, yeah, I think you got all the plot points just for like, continuity or credibility. Perhaps, here is what IMDb thinks the plot is, oh, okay, that's so yours is better, far more detailed, and I specifically asked you to do it because I knew you would have done no research and none I didn't do no research. This is what IMDb claims is the plot. So interested to see what they thought of I am of this film. It is one sentence, an anonymous young man unleashes a campaign of vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to systematically victimize the poor and powerless. I mean, yeah, yeah, that's accurate. It is accurate. And it tells us nothing, nothing. It tells us nothing.

Megan Goodwin: 8:20

The movie kind of tells us nothing. So it is true

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 8:23

that he's anonymous. We never get a name off of him, which I would not have thought of until just now. Yeah,

Megan Goodwin: 8:30

I forget where I was looking, but they refer to him as kid, yes, because every kid,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 8:34

kid or monkey man, monkey man, or like that terrorist, or like quite a lot of that, but we don't, and he doesn't introduce himself to anyone ever, no, and everyone else has a name, yeah, everyone else has a name. Like, actually, everyone else's name is deeply important. And so that's really fascinating, that we've, like, erased who he might be, besides his trauma and his connection to Hanuman, right?

Megan Goodwin: 9:00

Because he's like, every monkey man, and he has these scarred palms that, like, mark him as, like, something bad has happened. But he tells everybody a different story, yeah? And none of the stories that he tells are true. No, that was really interesting, yeah,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 9:12

that just feels like PTSD. Like, the entirety of the PTSD of it is like, oh, yeah, you're good at lying. I got you. I got you. You're real good at, like, on the spot, making it up because, like, you can't touch that with a 10 foot pole. So as the resident South asianist Megan, I thought maybe a thing we should talk about first is the very obvious Hanuman of

Megan Goodwin: 9:49

it all, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the film opens. Do we need to do?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 9:59

I. It's gone, you're gonna, okay, who's gonna The film opens, okay,

Megan Goodwin: 10:03

sorry. The film opens

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 10:05

with kids. Mom telling him the story from the Ramayana, from Valmiki's, Ramayana, particularly because there's multiple versions and recensions, and this is the one that we care about, the story of how Hanuman swallows the sun, and it is told in an orange covered comic book that we're flipping through the pages, and we're watching it kind of be animated, but there's also stills, and then we're watching the mom and the sons, kind of life in the forest be juxtaposed against that, right? So those so Hanuman is a deity. He's the son of a the son of the wind, and he is a major figure in not just Valmiki's Ramayana, but all of the versions of the Ramayana, which is a Sanskrit and in some cases, other language epic, especially as time goes on. Hanuman is a monkey god. So he's, he's a little monkey, and he could be as big as he wants or as small as he wants. He's known to be both playful but also, like fiercely loyal. That is kind of his narrative in their mind, that that no matter what Rama or Sita do, or like the stars of their Maya, he's loyal to them. So like, Ram was like, Go save my wife. And he's like, cool. I'm gonna grow to the size of, like, several skyscrapers. I'm gonna just, like, hop from the southern tip of India over to what Sri Lanka is now. Like, no biggie, whoop. I'm just gonna, like, hop over see what's up with Sita. And Sita is like, bro, Ram actually has to save me. He's the hero of the story, not you, like you'd be taking away his Dharma and his manliness, and he's like, word that checks out. I got to listen to you, because I'm loyal to both of you, right? Like, so Hanuman is this kind of character, and there are loads, and I will put in the show notes, because this is not an episode about Hanuman, but there are loads of really great stories about Hanuman. There is really good research about masculinity and Hanuman, and these, like wrestling clubs that exist in Delhi and Mumbai, about Hanuman. So like when he then we fast forward to him as an adult, and he's in a boxing ring with a monkey mask on, fighting someone in a cobra mask. Yeah, the snake, the snake, and we have to talk about that South African Barker for like, the next 20 minutes, conservatively, not really listeners, but like, actually, I really want to, but that all felt like, Oh, okay. Like this is drawing on cultures of Hanuman in all of these different ways. Like anyone who is paying attention or knows about India would get these references right off, even though they don't get connected to nothing else

Megan Goodwin: 12:45

at all. And we have this really interesting moment where, like, again, nothing about this movie is subtle. So the South African Barker, who is agreed, fascinating moment, does a thing early on where he's like, okay, India is complicated. Some of us are Hindus, some of us are Muslims. They're my

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 13:04

first line of the movie in English. Yeah, there might be a

Megan Goodwin: 13:07

closeted Christian, and then everybody boos the train. Can giggle. He's like, but really, we all worship the rupee, which we don't, actually, we don't,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 13:18

we don't. I could, I could have several hours of conversation about the ways in which global markets have never once worshiped the rupee, despite India being the basis of quite a lot of the global wealth that exists today. But no, ain't no one ever most nonsensical like, like, we're gonna talk a big game moment. And it's also like some weird like, Gordon Gekko bullshit, of like, greed is good, the almighty dollar. And you're like, not, Money makes the world go round. But a South African man with that fuck to accent, I'm sorry I don't get to comment on accents, except that one, it is brutal. Saying that we worship the rupee. No, we do not. Also, why are you here? Which person did your family own when they got kicked out of South Africa, sir? But for real, though, for real though, I'm not like, that's, that's a legit question. Who are you? Well, and

Megan Goodwin: 14:17

I feel like there's a lot of, who are you, where did you come from throughout this movie, because we don't have a good sense of, like, where Queenie comes from. It like, is the is the horrible chief of police. Are we meant to think that he's sick? I forget, because I feel like his last name is Singh, isn't it? Yeah. So I think the implication there is this is like a martial sick man. Any of the background characters have names that you would not expect to show up in an Indian city like Alfonso.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 14:50

Well, at least not in that Indian city, if we're also making fun of the histories of Christianity, right, right? Like, where is this fictional city? I. Which I think is called yatana. Oh, okay, I didn't even know we got any. And it clearly seems to be like a Mumbai rip off, like, but they speak Hindi, which is, which is not the primary language of Mumbai. So, like, Okay, I'm actually, like, deeply on, on fun to watch movies like this with, because I'm like, point of order his photo. I love that does not make any sense. Yeah. That's

Megan Goodwin: 15:24

why I wanted to watch with you, because

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 15:26

I kept saying to you, like, Yo, where are we? Like, where are we meant to be? And you just kept being like, Indian bitch, and I was so mad at you

Megan Goodwin: 15:37

because of being right, like, it's just meant to be like, all of India in some sort of milange,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 15:41

I know, but I, I think I wanted more from an Indian producer and director than, like, all of the India like, are we at Agrabah? Like, is Raja the tiger about to come out? Like, what is going on? Why

Megan Goodwin: 15:56

was a street rat a couple times? So you're not wrong. Like,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 16:00

there's a, there's an Orientalism in this that is, um, because it's fast and loose with a place that we never learn about. But I also couldn't tell if that was part of the giggle, right? Because, like, Okay, can we come back to the, like, boxing, wrestling, of it all, or, like, the mixed martial arts? So he fights king cobra, yes. Then he fights the bear, whose name is Balloon, a bear necessities way. And you have this South African with like, you know, their vaguely British accent, doing their vaguely British thing, of like we own you like, are we not supposed to read Kipling into that?

Megan Goodwin: 16:38

Because I felt very Kipling. No, it felt extremely Kipling in on purpose,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 16:41

especially because he's, like, he comes from the darkest forest, like, okay, like, we've just got like, Mowgli beats happening at the same time that we've got Hanuman and Ramayana beats happening, which could have been interesting, if that was the thing. There was a thing, but it wasn't. No, it was just kind of like, punch, action, stab, go, John Wick,

Megan Goodwin: 17:05

yeah, it was even a job making that reference dog,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 17:10

even making that reference in there, of like, is this John Wick? And he's like, like,

Megan Goodwin: 17:15

yes, but I can't afford that gun, so I will need a cheaper gun. Yeah,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 17:19

I'll take the like, six shooter revolve. It's like a 38 caliber or something like a side piece. But anyway, what we've got going on is this, like, vague, I don't know, like, self own Orientalism, but also, like, frankly, like a kind of loose Ramayana, as told, from honey man's perspective, happening, religiously. And I think in terms of, like, the stuff that you and I are interested in, like, all of the religio racialization that is going on, where there are ways to think of this as, like, loose and lazy. There are also ways to think of it as deeply on purpose. But the it's not clear who is what religion, yeah, and everyone being organized and ordered around a guru who is trading in Hindu, but not exclusively Hindu, imagery, prayer, right? And stuff like your, yeah, like, like, like, dress and and all of it, right? Like, it is clearly supposed to be that, like, these major religions are bad and are doing violence to the minorities, all of them well,

Megan Goodwin: 18:32

and that they're pretending to be religions, when really what they're doing is politics. And it sort of seems to do that. Like, there's a, there's a pure religion out there somewhere that's accessible to minoritized people. But the way that it happens in the city is this, it pretends to be pure, but actually is doing a deeply hypocritical and very violent, exploitative politics.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 18:58

Yeah. I mean, it's, it is corrupt politics like, frankly, the church right, like the Guru's followers and the Guru's inner circle are doing the politics and the violence and the trafficking and the blood money and the revenge like no one who's a bad guy in this wasn't caught up in this cult,

Megan Goodwin: 19:25

right? Right? Everybody is implicit or like complicit in it, despite, again, sometimes it's Muslim, sometimes it's Sikhs, but we are all using this politicized Hinduism, plus, to try to take over India and push a Hindu nationalist agenda,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 19:41

yeah, which I think is the confusing part. I think the Islam pieces were smaller. I think, I think we are meant to think that Queenie as a Muslim woman running essentially a high end brothel, yeah? And not just running the brothel, but like doing the trafficking that makes a brothel run.

Megan Goodwin: 19:59

She's. Deeply and personally invested in, like, you're getting an abortion. I want this girl. She's the pimp.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 20:05

Man, yeah, he's fully the pimp. Like she's selecting children from fucking photo books and asking if they were broken in. That was like,

Megan Goodwin: 20:17

content, one minute size of the minute in the rock

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 20:21

but that, for me, feels like the only critique of Islam. Like the critique of Islam there is, like the greed, no, it's the obsession with sexual purity. Piece, oh, like that felt to me like a mainstream India critique of like those Muslims, they're obsessed with how their women have sex moment, or if they are having sex. So like, on the one hand, Queenie could be this, like, empowered lady who's like, yep, we sell sex. It's cool, like we're good. But she's also like, the face of of women in this film. Yeah, she like, the only women we meet are like cis women that we meet

Megan Goodwin: 21:06

are either working for Queenie Yep, or are Queenie yep or murdered mom,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 21:12

right or murdered mom, which is unclear whether she's working for Queenie, yeah, I don't think she's working for Queenie, but it, it is very clear from the from the relationship with Singh, the cop who clearly has been sexually assaulting and or raping her for years, it's not clear that she's not also a working girl,

Megan Goodwin: 21:34

right? Yeah, we really just don't know.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 21:37

We don't know. It's not clear. But, like you might extrapolate from the fact that he and his kin and ilk are in that club all the time that like that would be the connection.

Megan Goodwin: 21:48

Yeah, no, that makes sense to me. It's at least one read.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 21:51

I don't think it's the right read, but it could it let the film lends itself to be read that way.

Megan Goodwin: 22:02

I Yeah, so okay, I feel like because this movie is about everything and nothing. We could talk about it for three hours, but I think, if I'm understanding correctly, what made us want to sit with this, aside from, like, Dev Patel in a tank top, is one. It's doing some interesting things with, like, Hindu stories and really foundational stories. Two, for me, like it's kind of a cults movie, kind of definitely and also, and really the reason that I had wanted to see it in the theater to begin with was because I knew that the Hijra community, this, like third gender space, was prominently featured in it. So that was, that was what I was

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 22:57

thinking about. Yeah, okay, great. So we should also talk about was that it does that was that

Megan Goodwin: 23:03

was my list. We talked about other things too. What else? No, I think

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 23:07

that's a good list. I think I had some, like, minor moments that that, like, we could reference, like, I think where religion is all over the place is pretty interesting, yeah, like, like, the Ramayan imagery is all over the place, particularly the Hanuman imagery, obviously. But like they are reciting in English most of the time, though, at the very beginning in Hindi, some pretty famous and popular Hanuman based, like prayer, I guess, is the right word, supplication, yeah. Maybe not mantra. But, like, close, right? And so, like, that's interesting to me. Like, oh, that's recognizable. Like, yeah, I know what. This is. Same with, like, at the very end, when we're about to murder the guru, not, I mean, like, it's an weird old movie, we're going to do some spoilers, but like, right at the end, where he's reading off of the sandal that a devotee had made him and those sandals are clearly meant to look like Vishnu sandals. Like these are sandals that you see in imagery across South Asian Arts with like, I actually don't know how to describe any parts of a few, so I'm not going to

Megan Goodwin: 24:16

try, but you can, well, there's the prayer around the thing that sounded like a giant prayer, right? And then the like pokey thing, but there's no straps. There's

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 24:22

no straps. A little pokey thing is a traditional way to do a shoe. And you see that image with like the pokey thing and the foot. So instead of, if you're imagining like a flip flop, the part that goes between your big toe and your your second toe, your index toe, your second metatarsal like, instead of that being a strap, like a instead of that connecting in between those two toes by a strap, it's just a long stick and essentially like a bulbous top so that your toes can grip onto it. And then you walk right that style of sandal. Uncle is is pictured in Vishnu imagery all the time, like or his footprints or his sandals, like you see that in places like I have stickers of it that some uncle gave to me years ago. But the prayer around the sandal that someone had carved in, and I didn't get a good enough look at it, but it was meant to look like Devanagari script, I think, okay, when I googled that line, because I was like, that sounds like a giant prayer, and it's like the fourth prayer that shows up on, like a teaching your kids giant prayer. Oh, okay. Website that's based in India. So I was like, Okay, that sounds familiar. That's not my expertise. Gang. I can't remember the last time I did like proper, either Sanskrit or other dialect readings about or for Jain theology. So like, Please don't come for me. It's a quick Google. I'll put the link in the show notes. But I think those little moments of religion have felt, have felt really interesting throughout, because it's like bread crumbing, that all of these religions are problematic in the same way that with his mom, it's all about naturalism and connection and the Hanuman stories that feel far more popular and not popular, like people like them more, but popular like of the people, which I thought was interesting. So there are moments where I'm like, Yeah, that's not true. Like, name checking the Vedas. Like, a lot of times, felt like, yeah, that's not that's not where these gods show up. That's this is not the story. That's there, and that's fine. But like, that is a for the audience moment, not for a characters in the film moment. And so, like, those pieces of religion in the text of the film felt really interesting to me. Okay, but I don't need to monolog what else?

Megan Goodwin: 26:52

Well, no, I need, I think so. One of the things that you said that I thought was really interesting and something that, like, I wouldn't have gotten. So I this is an incoherent but incredibly rich text to sit with, right?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 27:06

Totally incoherent, like I cannot stress to the audience of our podcast, enough that there really is no plot. The plot is, do some do some damage,

Megan Goodwin: 27:16

revenge. The plot is revenge. But the the thing that you had said. So, like, the reason I brought that up is because I know a couple I know more than your, your average American is there about what's going on in the state of India. But also, I know just enough about India to know that I don't, I don't know fucking nothing. So, like, I could have a moment of like, oh, it was really interesting that they mentioned the farmers riots, like, the largest protest in human history. But there was no mention of the fact that they were led by sick people, right? Like, there, yeah, the religion of that was completely taken out. That was really interesting to me. But like, I don't know from the Ramayana, like, I don't know these things. And you had mentioned that what you thought maybe was happening was like us, not necessarily like secularized, but like re jiggered, telling of a foundational Hindu story, taking out the deities are usually thought to be the central characters. And I was really curious to hear you say more things about that. Susan, thank you. Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 28:25

Okay, so the Ramayana is the story of Ram and Sita. We have talked about this before on the podcast, particularly in our Hinduism episodes. I love the Ramayana. The Ramayana is where I tested out my Sanskrit ability. It is also when I was studying Sanskrit in India, and I was literally put in a kindergarten class, and I had to sing the Ramayana with all these kindergartners. And these, like very jolly parents were like, Oh my God, you did so well, you white girl. And I was like, I know I'm the best five year old. At 22 years old, I'm the best one.

Megan Goodwin: 28:59

This is me, like doing Tai Chi with senior citizens. It was

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 29:01

so ridiculous. It was so ridiculous. My, my Sanskrit teacher, KS, balla, super mun yn was like, I think, I think you're at a kindergarten level. I think we'll do private lessons, and then, frankly, like, we're already teaching at this level. Go hang out with the five year olds. And I was like, okay, that feels creeper. And in America, I need, like, a special background check to be in this room. Yeah. Fine, yeah. So I have, like, a deep soft spot for the Ramayana. I teach a whole class on it. I teach it every time I teach Hinduism like it is a story near and dear, both to like my intellectual process and just how I learned about Hinduism. So the Ramayana is about ramen Sita, and most people use it in a contemporary moment when we talked about this on our Hinduism episodes, in a way that is nationalistic period. Well, that

Megan Goodwin: 29:47

was going to be my thought, right is because now when we get the name of RAM and vote like in a Twitter space, it is 100% a Hindu

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 29:56

nationalist moment. 100% Jai Sri Ram has become this phrase. That used to mean like, Victory to Ram or victory to the Lord Rama. And it still means that. But the valence of it is not like, Yay, I love my God. It's like, fuck you. It's gonna kill you. And this land is only properly the land of Rama. And if you do not succumb to that, then LOL, you should go now forever.

Megan Goodwin: 30:20

We're gonna burn down your village because this is ours. Yeah, yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 30:25

And, like, I have lots of written work about this kind of nationalism. I have an article coming out in the next couple of months, actually, about nationalism and Jaishree and and how we're using the Ramayana in various ways. So like, we've got stuff coming. If you want more on that, I can point your way. But if you subtract out ramen Sita, there's this massive part of the Ramayan that is really about Hanuman, and how much Hanuman loves Rama and loves Ramas family, and is, like, so devoted, such that in the film, when they've, uh, when they Patel's character, uh, alpha, the lead, hijra, whose fucking name is alpha, for some reason, fine, fine, moving right along. When alpha is like, you need to, like, remember who you are, Simba and like, blows, goop on him, which literally is what happens in The Lion

Megan Goodwin: 31:22

King. Oh, god, you're right. It was, it was just a magic goop moment. It

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 31:25

was a magic goop, like, it's like, powder that gets blown on him, but it's not Coke, because we saw coke before, and it's red, so, like, what is it? I don't know what the drug was meant to be fine. And it's hallucinogenic, because he immediately hallucinates, like we are immediately in the astral plane, yes. And we see in like an animation, a scar running from devs collarbone to his sternum, kind of opens up, and Dev, like rips his chest open. And in it we see the sun beating as if Hanuman had swallowed the sun. Yes, except that in the Ramayan when that happens, when Hanuman rips his chest open, it is to prove to Rama and Sita that he is devoted to them and them alone. And when he opens his chest, every rib has Rama written on it. Oh, wow. And like in visual depictions like, dear listener, I will put it in the show notes. But if you're like, on your phone, you want to just Google in your kitchen while you're doing the dishes. If you Google Hanuman, Rama and Sita, I guarantee you like, if not the first, then the second or the third image will be an image of Hanuman with his chest open with ramen Sita in the heart, because the idea is he's so devoted, it is literally them that's beating his heart. But in this it's the sun, and we never mention Rama, and we never mention Sita. There's not even a side character that's named the Rama or Sita, like, this, is it? This is the whole thing. It's just Hanuman. So I think what's interesting, or like, in my vague hypothesis of, like, what the fuck is going on in this movie that has no plot? The plot is revenge. The plot is revenge. It has a plot. It has no story. No story. Is like. What would it look like if Hanuman was fighting the war alone? What would it look like if Hanuman was taking down corruption and installing righteous power, which is the stuff, which is the story of the Ramayan. Just that, at the end of the Ramayan restoring rightful power is putting Rama and Sita back on the throne. And here it's getting rid of everybody that's related to the throne. And the movie ends fade to black, like we don't get a what happens. There's no plan. And as you put and pointed out, it does not bring his dead mother back, it does not heal his trauma. He just kills a bunch of people, which maybe felt good for a minute, and then, is he dead? We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. It's the same reason why, like, his sandal felt really poignant. Because, like in the Ramayan, it's a very long story, friends, it's an epic. It's longer than the Iliad and the Odyssey, so, like, it's very long. So I can't do all of it, but in the Ramayana, really important part is that rama's little brother is put on the throne instead of Rama, which is why he goes to the forest in the first place and is like deposed, essentially. And his little brother is like anti this plan, and in his stead, puts Rama sandals in the throne. Oh, right. So, like, there's a lot of imagery happening that is hella Ramayan, but it's not like a one to one, which is why my brain is like, okay, Dev Patel is clearly supposed to be Hanuman period the end, yeah. Complete with, like, I'm in the forest, which, like in the Ramayana, like the dun dukha forest is, like, really important. Like, it's just, like all of this stuff is just mirroring the story, again, loosely, because this movie has no story, and the Ramayana has like 40 stories, including its main story, because it's an epic. So it's got side quests. Yeah. But. If kid or dev Patel's character is supposed to be Hanuman, which I don't think is debatable. Yeah, like, that's clear. Then, is this the Ramayana? Is this a retelling of the Ramayana through hanuman's eyes in a contemporary setting? And I'm it's fanfic. I think it's fanfic, okay? And I think it might, I think it might be that

Megan Goodwin: 35:25

Yeah, and it doesn't actually offer a if it offers any sort of solution, and I'm not certain that it does. The solution might be that we need to return to, like the true heart of these foundational stories, which is kind of sweet but seems deeply dangerous, and also there's no path forward. It's just like, Okay, I killed the big bad guy. I saved India. And

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 35:56

that's actually where, like killing the big bad guy makes me kind of crabby, yeah, because if this is a Ramayan retelling in the Ramayana, Ravana is the bad guy. So Ravana is the bad guy. He steals Sita, he takes her hostage. He's like, I'm gonna give your boyfriend, Ram like your husband. Rom like, X, number of days to come get you, and then my girl, you will be mine. And it's like a threat of rape. And she's friends, like, but, but the text leaves open that Ravana is someone that is actually just following his Dharma, like his understanding of good deeds, and like in the film, they're like, Ravana is a scholar. And I was like, yes, in the Ramayana, Ravana is not just a scholar. He's also the primary devotee of Shiva, really, yeah, Shiva gives him all these boons. That's why he's got 10 heads and 10 arms, and he's, like, really good at the veena, and he does all these, like, rights, and he takes on all these sacrifices, and he is rewarded by the gods for being such a compelling devotee.

Megan Goodwin: 36:59

This kind of Magneto feature is what I see, like, it's a sympathetic villain sort of moment, and

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 37:04

there's a read of the Ramayana. No, I mean, I think so. And there are communities of Ravan worshipers, particularly in what is now Sri Lanka, because Ravan rules the kingdom of Lanka, which is where we get the name Sri Lanka. And like there are communities of people who see Ravan as just doing his Dharma in the same way that RAM is doing his Dharma, but our dharmas don't overlap. And one of the reasons I find the Ramayana, I'd be so deeply compelling as an epic all these many years later, is precisely this tension. Is that there's a way to read everyone as acting not good in all circumstances, But according to their dharma or their religious obligation, you it. And so taking that out of this film, because the Guru is not good. There is nothing good about him. He is evil, and you are meant to think he's evil,

Megan Goodwin: 38:12

and like he knows that he's evil, which is a little window piece comes in, right? Like he is taking advantage of everybody's like credulity and faith and devotion and using it for his own like, financial and political gain completely

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 38:28

and like he's doing it for financial and political gain, whereas Ravana there's an argument to be had that, like he starts this whole rivalry because his sister's assaulted by rama's brother in the forest like she's mutilated by ravana's Brother. Uh, sorry, rama's brother mutilates ravana's sister. Okay? And there's also, I want to be clear, there's also many, many reads of the Ramayana that Ravana is just the bad guy and Rama is the good guy. And this is a clear cut case of good and evil doing their thing and battling for final superiority, at which point the good guy wins. But there's a lot of reads of Rama that are not good, which is interesting. Hanuman, however, always good. Okay. Hanuman is an unproblematic fave. Go way to go. Will monkey in these books. He just is. He's unproblematic. You ask him to do something, he does it. You say you shouldn't do something. He's like, no prop Bob, like he does what he's supposed to do out of devotion, but also out of, like, quick thinking and loyalty and faith and like, a real sense of ethics, like you get the sense about Hanuman that, like, he's one of the good guys in this book,

Megan Goodwin: 39:39

right, right, right. Well, so, so that's my question, if we take if we think Dev Patel had a point, and I think he thinks he does. I

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 39:49

hope he thinks he does. Otherwise, it's like you did a John Wick and, like, borne supremacy, but

Megan Goodwin: 39:55

just made it brown. Yeah, you just made it brown. Indian

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 39:59

and like, that feels. Confusing to me.

Megan Goodwin: 40:01

I mean, I want to say again, it is a it is kick ass action movie 5% and I also really, really enjoy when action movies directly involve not white people, because I feel like the hero of the action movie is nine times out of 10, unless you're watching it fast and furious. Is a white dude, right? Uh, not at all the case here. Great. The only white dude I think we see is that horrible South African man, and he is, in no way like a redemptive figure at all. And one, um,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 40:31

of our sex workers, who is supposedly the former Miss Lithuania, right, right, right, right, right, right, okay, but, but those are our only whites, right?

Megan Goodwin: 40:39

And that's fine. That's more than enough, frankly, so if we think Dev Patel had a point, and if we think that point is to tell, like a rethinking, what it is to be Indian, possibly even faithfully Indian, not necessarily faithfully Hindu, but like faithfully Indian is the devotion here? Obviously, both to his mom, right? But I feel like his mom is a stand in, right for Mother India. And the devotion is not to Rama, but to India as an idea, a potential purity question, yeah, because we also get, like, the drive by saving of the sex worker who has, like the bird from his village tattooed on her shoulder. And they have the, like, very hot and heavy finger touchy moment, and then they just keep moving. But like, I think

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 41:46

they touch fingers so hard, it

Megan Goodwin: 41:48

really did. It was, it was lascivious. But like, the devotion is not to this nationalistic Hinduism. But again, we really do see like these, these foundational stories that are Hindu, but not just Hindu. And Hanuman as, like the savior of this multi racial, multi religious hodgepodge that is everywhere and nowhere India, and that's where the loyalty lies. Like, that's what Hanuman definitely saving.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 42:21

Question that makes sense to me, that feels like a viable read, and here's how we can support that. Okay, so in the film, we got a few scenes with baby, Dev Patel and mom, yeah, both of whom are unnamed, and one in one of the scenes, she's asking him about what his future holds, and she's doing a palm reading, like she's showing him where the root of his lifeline starts moving in palm reading, palmistry has a very, very long history in South Asia,

Megan Goodwin: 42:58

which, like, I fully did not know. So learn something today?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 43:02

Yeah, no, like, astrology is a big thing in South Asia, and some of that's about stars, but astrology kind of includes, I would say, in South Asia, also palmistry, which I believe had, is connected to where you get Vedic Astrology. So I know that there's the hasta Samudrika sastra. I'll have to look that up, but I know that that is about palm reading, and it is part of ancient religious literature, like Vedic literature, and so there's, like, a way that, there's a way that, and I've heard this said, I don't know if this is true, because I don't know nothing about, you know, frankly, your shit, but there's a way that I have heard, certainly Hindu scholars talk about palm reading as innately Indian as a practice, and that it spreads to other places from there. And I've I've heard that there are some connections between that and, like, the ways that Romani people are connected also to North Indian practices. So like that piece of it feels like a for lack of a better word, and since we're talking off the top of our heads, like a pre modern Indian religious practice, or South Asian religion practice to take it out of the nationalism a full practice, perhaps. Yeah, there's also a moment where she's there in the forest. So like the forest is obviously far more religiously fertile than the city. We've got those modes too. We also get her making sure that he knows about Hanuman, and we see scenes of them hiding and sleeping, where she is happy to listen to her son talk about his devotional and like to pray to Hanuman, but she's not praying he

Megan Goodwin: 44:56

Yes. Well, she's like training him in devotional practice. Right,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 45:02

like a very decent I also think if we're going to think about like dev Patel's Hanuman embodiment as defending his or being loyal to his mom, who politics is destroying,

Megan Goodwin: 45:16

has raped and destroyed and set upon it like set on fire. There's a

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 45:21

few things I want to say. The first is that that is an that is a direct stealing of And flipping on its head of Hindu nationalist rhetoric.

Megan Goodwin: 45:31

Very much. So, yeah, yeah. The

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 45:33

second thing I want to say is that you also get the sense that others who are more connected, religiously, spiritually, outsiders see him as what he is. Yes, yeah. So like the whole you are the beast, you are the monkey man, you are this, assume your role and that, that like seeing someone and recognizing Him as deity has a word in Sanskrit and Hindu practice, which is Darshan, not just Hindu practice, but yeah, it starts. And so this idea that, like, you can see something divine in someone else, even though they're alive, that is like a living practice, right? Absolutely part of uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable with, like, folk religion, but like, it is a practice. Like, if you, I don't know, go to any forest in India, there's usually places that, like, there is a rock that's painted or a tree that's painted, because, like, the trees are divine. So like, that was the other piece that I wanted to say, which, yeah, in the forest, and she's, like, running through the roots. There is a very, very widespread practice of tree worship in South Asia, where the trees have souls, and frankly, like where we get the phrase tree hugger is from the Chipko movement in north India, where a bunch of women were defending their village against capitalist expansion, and they tied themselves to a tree and said, You will not cut down this family member. You will not harm our God. They did and whatever. But like that is where we get the phrase tree hugger in English, because this was, like a huge movement in this rural village that was led by women who knew that the trees were deities or divine, or family or ancestors, or like, however it gets glossed in many ways. I'm not being finicky on purpose, like, I'm trying to do it quick. So I think that's a I think the movie lends itself to this kind of read where, like, instead of BART Mata mother, India, we've got mommy, yep, and who is Mommy being protected by but Hanuman, who is fiercely loyal and is trying to get the right person back on

Megan Goodwin: 47:39

the throne. Or, like, we kind of get the sense that there is no right person to put on the throne. Like

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 47:45

it literally fades to black. There's a helicopter waiting to take Baba Shakti, which I, like, I can't get over how nonsense that word is. You

Megan Goodwin: 48:10

let's do that, though, because I think that's a good transition into the hijra piece, right? So for folks who are not Hashtag blessed enough to have a South Asian history expert as their best friend. The folks I knew who wanted to see this were overwhelmingly like action fans, but also big queer MOS because they were like transgender superheroes and like yes and no. But the piece that I hadn't caught until this time, because I was so wrapped up in the action I watch things like I'm five, so just like, there's hitting and things are flashy is that the Guru's name is literally Baba Shakti, which is like Big Daddy goddess feminine energy, right? So one of the things that I wasn't sure what to do with when I saw this film was the fact that the Hijra community was under attack by the BJP dupe because, and again, this is so very far outside my area of expertise, but I did, because you told me to read Gayatri Reddy is with respect to sex, which is all about the Hijra community. And her assertion is that one gender is not the most important thing about these people for this community, but two that they're historically have been really valued and like revered members of many different Indian communities. So watching them be under attack like this was really confusing for me, because that was not my understanding of like, how hijras existed in the world. So I reached out to a friend. I talked to Deepa syndrome. Thanks, Deepa. And she was saying that, yeah, one of the things that has marked the BJP his rise is an increased hostility toward Hijra community. So this is, this is another space where, like, we are clearly doing an incoherent but timely political critique. Great,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 49:54

yeah, and the BJP hates it for the same reason that conservatives around the world. World hate, gender

Megan Goodwin: 50:03

difference, non conformity. I

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 50:06

was gonna say, anyone that's not a man, I was gonna correct it, but like, but like, yes, gender non conformity, gender difference, gender plurality, yeah. Like,

Megan Goodwin: 50:17

compromised masculinity, right?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 50:19

Yeah, it's toxic masculinity. This. This is just the flavor of Hindu toxic masculinity is to severely punish a group of people that that come under fire in the British, you know, under British rule and later, you know, but like never had been. I think sometimes in the West, we get so excited about non conformity, or, like, gender plurality, and it's indigenous and whatever, and like, everyone gets all excited about it, and that's the Gayatri ready

Megan Goodwin: 50:52

piece. Well, let's, let's pause on that, because I feel like that's a thing that a lot of folks, even folks who work on gender and sexuality, are not aware of, is that there's an eagerness to map Western and particularly American paradigms of gender and sexuality onto the global stage. And there's, there's such a longing, I think, for queer ancestors that it is to me, it's a very sympathetic impulse. I get wanting to see yourself in history. I get wanting to find other people who are finding ways to be different and outside a system that is trying to kill you at the same time, the category of transgender as it exists in the US, which is not to say that people have not always fucked up with gender, because people have always fucked with gender, but the idea of transgender as an identity really traces to the 1980s whereas the Hijra community is millennia old, right? And the transgender community in the US very, very focused on gender as possibly the core piece of their identity. And that, again, is not true for the Hijra community?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 52:01

Yeah, I think talking about Hijra is one of those things that always makes me a little bit crabby, because the baby queers in my classes who are one, meaning, yeah, and are starved for ancestors, absolutely. But I have had to be like, I've had to cancel half of a classes lecture before Yes, because I had, like, my front row queers, right? Like, I am a synergy professor, and so the front row queers are always in the front row, but they're real quick to call me out, because I'm really good at being called in, like, I'm good at it. I'm happy to learn, yeah, but we read an article. This happened, like a couple years ago. We read an article where Hijra were referring to themselves in English. So when they were talking and not English, they used a different word, but in English they were using the language of transvestite. And my students lost their shit in like a this is racist, not racist. This is queer phobic. This is transphobic. How dare they? Blah, blah, blah, blah, old people are this is outdated, did it not? And I was like, it's not outdated. This is from six months ago. This isn't a sweater game moment. Like, also, like, you're not allowed, you don't get to dictate how other people refer to themselves, my darlings, that's the thing. That is the thing,

Megan Goodwin: 53:15

and it's also, and I have, I know in my soul that this was the rest of the conversation that you had was it is such a Western and particularly American Imperial impulse to pick up our categories and try to move them around the world and say what you're really doing, yeah, what you really mean is this thing that makes sense to me and is important to me and and the whole point of my using that the ready book in my classes, the whole point of the scholarship that's been engaged here is that you don't get to tell communities what's the most important thing about them. You learn from communities what the most important thing about them is for them. Like, that's how we do this responsibly. And also, like,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 53:55

I saw my 18 to 22 year olds, whose frontal cortex is not fully cooked, get stuck on a phrase that that is harmful and is used epithetically here, but also I saw them get deeply relieved when I said the easiest way to do this is just talk about gender plurality and non conformity, like that is an umbrella that is not doing harm to nobody and accurately explains what's happening here. But it is not like you don't get to cancel someone for using the words that they want to use to describe themselves, and then have a very specific history, and in English history in the subcontinent of India, that's exactly, right. It just again, was a moment of like, oh, you also don't know that Indian English is real, right? It was just like the layers were so intense. But I find Hijra confusing for folks because, and I don't want to say that this is what the film did, because I don't, I don't know that the film had a story, so I don't know that this is what the film did. But often, when you see hidra Show up in Bollywood films, or Bollywood Style films, or films that look like this, where we're like, doing it all India, all. South Asia cast, Hijra show up to be like magical, right, right?

Megan Goodwin: 55:04

And it definitely felt like a magical brown person film, which was uncomfy to sit with. And at the same time, largely when queer folks in western context see themselves represented on film, it is as victims. It is as victims of violence. It is people who are vulnerable. It is people who get the shit kicked out of them. And we definitely get that piece in this film. But then it flips it on its head, because it turns out that what, what kid, what Dev Patel really needs to know that he is the beast and that he can unleash that beast, yes, or for vengeance for his mother, slash Mother India, is to learn the true spirit of the warrior from these gender non conforming people, 100% because it turns out twist they themselves are warriors. They had always been warriors, and they show up to be like his martial backup in this big boss fight. And that scene, frankly, I think is my favorite in the film, because they are in these, like, amazing dancing skirts, but also scary masks, and they are fucking shit up. And you do not get a whole lot of, like, queer, gender non conforming action hero moments. There's just

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 56:17

no that piece of it's fantastic. And I also think what's fascinating about the use of Hijra here is that while it gives me an American who knows very well about like, magical savages, like all of that imagery, speaking of Kipling, the thing is that Hijra are meant to kind of be a little bit magical, like they serve a ritual purpose of blessing, right? And of, I don't want to say, like, mediating between practitioners and the divine, but I'm not, not going to say that, because that is actively how Hijra have functioned in in quite a lot of communities, right? Like there's a sacred significance there, yeah, and so, like, on the one hand, it absolutely was uncomfortable and felt like, like this, this particular Brown is real close to the Earth and God, but at the same time, that is why you like that is why family like people that still participate in Hijra blessings will literally seek them out for blessings, like ahead of weddings or baby showers or like baby birds, right? Like, like you do actually want that magic. So it's both like, legitimate and problematic, because this is a movie that is Western facing,

Megan Goodwin: 57:36

and because, again, I don't, I don't think most Americans are aware of, like, the the rich complexity of this community. But I will say that the the piece that made me feel better about the like, magical Hijra of it all was the fact that that's not their only significance, or that's not or they're like, helping Dev Patel along, like, know himself better. Yeah, they're his gurus.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 58:00

Like, they are the ones. They're like the alt gurus of the movie. I think

Megan Goodwin: 58:04

they are totally the alt gurus. But also they are themselves actors, right? Like, they're not just there to support Dev Patel, they're there to take their own revenge. They're there to claim their own identities. And like, Yes, I could have used 45 more minutes of that, but even the five minutes I got, because I am starved for that felt really fucking tasty. I liked it a lot. I'll also

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 58:24

say that because the only cis women that we get in the film are sex workers or a pimp when we get the Hijra community doing their fucking shit up battle, and they are dressed in traditional dance saris, fucking fine ass costuming like everything is bedazzled. Everything is jeweled. It's got that weight to it that dance saris often have when you like, have like weighted fabric so that when you twirl, it twirls out really nicely. But they also are wearing Katia Kali, like Kathakali masks, which is a traditional form of dance in South Asia. They've got, like, imagery galore from multiple kinds of classical dance forms, yeah, and so, like, there is also the way that we are allowing this group of hijra, who again to use American terminologies we would perceive them as trans women. That is not the right term, no, but that is what's going on, right? So these are FEM presenting folk that they are taking up the space that cis women usually would take up in their performance and in their dress and doing this, like COVID, like, the part that stood out to me was the coordinated dance moves, yeah, yeah. We're like, that looks Bollywood, that dance battle, but there's no cis women.

Megan Goodwin: 59:57

No, no. It's fascinating. And

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 59:59

so. That I thought was like, Oh, that's interesting. I don't know what it's doing, because it felt like a side quest that was like, without, yep, without, without resolution and without thesis. It wasn't like, here's the point of this side quest. It was just a side quest. But it was a very pretty side quest well, but

Megan Goodwin: 1:00:15

I will also say too that the juxtaposition of like, a Baba Shakti, right, who was claiming to do in his very title, a gender duality for the good of the people, and then the juxtaposition of that with this gender complex, gender fluid, gender non conforming, but like the right, the true, the essential right, the pure religion piece that was really interesting to me, because, again, it's like, it isn't a movie that's saying religion is inherently bad or wrong. It is a movie that's saying there is a right religion and a wrong religion and the wrong religion happens when it gets political, which, like, oh, but probably not that crazy about what's happening there

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:00:58

when it gets political and capital and like exclusive, because the other thing we get is we get these, like cult rings that are happening, and we get meetings like we see these rallies. And so I think we're supposed to believe that the members of the Shakti cult are protected by Baba Shakti. Yeah, and he says that a lot. So I think we're supposed to think, like there is a wrong institutional religion,

Megan Goodwin: 1:01:30

right? Very much. So yeah, which is also like, again, given the the face of a feminine divine, because what they're shouting when they're gathering on moss is Shakti, Shakti, Shakti. So that was that was an interesting space. Okay, well, we've been talking for an hour. I feel like we got to all the stuff that I wanted to get to. Is there anything else that you wanted to get to?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:02:04

No, I love an action movie. I wish this action movie had had more of a story, because, like, the revenge made sense, but the way the story was told, it didn't really make that much sense. Like, I am glad you watched it three times, because I even knowing, like, various plots of what I think was going on in this movie, was like, Wait, but

Megan Goodwin: 1:02:28

what's unclear and like it happened

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:02:30

because it looked cool, yeah, like doing lines of coke off of a mirror looks fucking cool. Or like doing lines of like

Megan Goodwin: 1:02:36

a little tie, like you got, like a little test tube of coke that you then did off a mirror like that.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:02:41

He held with, like, a fucking Tong. Like, I was like, What is the point of this? Like, what are we doing?

Megan Goodwin: 1:02:46

It's supposed to look like a name the movie has gone out of my head. Fuck Scarface. It's just, like, it's just doing an Indian Scarface. 100%

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:02:53

there were like, and I think stuff like that felt kind of weird, like, in the same way that, like, needing a ring to get to queenies, like to get to the boss level in the elevator, and then you walk through the elevator, and there's just a giant hallway with the battle scene of the Ramayan with Hanuman in the center, which, like I have seen many paintings of the Ramayana. This is a rarity. Like, everyone's obsessed with Hanuman. Like, this is a world where rom does not exist in the Ramayana, and there's a pool, like every part of it was fucking weird, but, like, visually interesting, just story wise, like, incoherent. What happened? I don't know, fighting. Fighting happened in India, yeah, well, I'm glad that you made me watch this. I'm glad that you watched it with me, and I am

Megan Goodwin: 1:03:42

confusion.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:03:46

I am confusion. I found that challenging. Yep, yep, oh. The only other thing I wanted to say is that while Baba Shakti is claiming in his title this like multiplicity, we do get the validity of the Hijra community, claiming multiplicity by citing and praying to and featuring the version of Shiva that is Ardhanarishvara, which is the form of Shiva that is usually depicted literally as a half man, half woman. So usually it's like right down the nose. Like, if you were to make like, two sides of your symmetrical body, one side would be very mask, usually shirtless, with like a man Peck, and then on the other side there'd be like a very over developed, like breast and tushy, okay. And so that version, like, I thought that that was doing, was doing work too. Like you are grounding this in an actual form of a deity, yeah? And you are praying to it, and we watch that prayer happen in that big tree scene, whereas Baba, Shakti just has people cheering for him, yeah? And so those feel interesting, especially because Shakti just means, like it's the active divinity that is feminine coding. And so, like, I think they were doing things on I think those things felt purposeful,

Megan Goodwin: 1:05:04

yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there were a number of moments that were on purpose. I just don't think a whole lot of folks did anything about making those moments come together in that thing we call story. Yeah,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:05:17

no, there was plot, but no story. I think that's correct, which, like when you're in a shoot 'em up movie, like, who cares? It's great. What happens, I don't know. Just don't fuck

Megan Goodwin: 1:05:27

with this dog. Okay, great. Thanks. Cool.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: 1:05:31

Well, gang in that we're not gonna give you any homework, but I will put in the show notes, some reviews of this film that include religion. I will put some Hijra resources, and I will put some stuff about Amar, Chitra, Katha and the use of Hanuman in that very nationalist series. And I'll throw some things about Hijra. And if I didn't say that already, you can still find us on social media. We are I'm about to shut down my Twitter. I don't know about you, but we're there. If you're still there, otherwise, find us on Instagram. That's our primary social media right now, as well as Tiktok. And we do have a Facebook page, but most of you aren't there. We're not using Grandpas now. Who goes there? Yeah. And if none of that, I don't know, monkeys your man. Monkey's your man, then you can check us out on our website, which is keeping it one, oh, one.com. As always, you are encouraged to drop us a rating or review in your podcaster of choice. And since we have just put out our book, religion is not done with you. We would also strongly, strongly, strongly request that you put ratings and reviews of that book on Amazon or Goodreads. You don't have to buy from those places, but it does help us out. And if you'd like for us to visit your campus, your bookstore, your local public library, please, please, please, reach out to us or to Caitlin Meyer and Our incredible marketing and publicity team over at Beacon. Everything I just said is on the website. So by all means, go check it out. And with that, peace out nerds and do your

Megan Goodwin: 1:06:53

homework. It's on the syllabus. You

Simpsons: 1:07:12

Oh, my God, I was wrong. It was Earth all along. You finally made a monkey? Yes, you finally made a monkey? Yes, you

Unknown: 1:07:41

finally made me. I love you. Dr Zam.