Monkey Man!

Episode Transcript
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Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:17):
This is keeping it 101, a killjoys
introduction to religionpodcast, which is part of the
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(00:40):
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find material ways to supportindigenous communities on our
website.

Megan Goodwin (00:50):
What's up? Nerds?
Hi, hello. I'm Megan Goodwin, ascholar of American religions,
race, gender, sexuality,politics, all that stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

please. He's invited, standing invitation.

Hi, hello, Dev, hi, hello.

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

All right. Well, we are dear
listeners, literally, maybe 15minutes off of having watched
monkey man together in separatelocations whilst texting the
whole time. So, you know, like anormal afternoon for us, but
with Dev Patel and I think we'regonna go over all the things
that we think were interestingfrom the perspective of
religion, yeah. But again, ifyou could, and if you can't,

(02:09):
that's okay, I will help. Shouldwe give a real brief breakdown
of plot such as we understandit? Because the thing that we're
going to talk about is the factthat we don't fully understand
the plot

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

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

This is my third rodeo with this particular film.
And, yeah, I'm still a littlefuzzy on what happened, but if I
have understood it correctly,and we'll do this in, like a
straightforward, chronologicalway, even though the film does
not do that, we have tiny babyDev Patel growing up someplace
rural amongst unclear, butclearly lower caste Hindu

(02:54):
community In the forest, andthey are assaulted by law
enforcement. Who are they havebeen told, doing God's work,
because the site where thesepeople are living has been
declared a sacred site, and itneeds to be cleared, according
to the state, so the chief ofpolice, in the name of God,

(03:18):
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 forthe rest of the film because he
tried to put her body out withhis bare hands. There is a lot
of explicit violence. There isimplied sexual violence. Upon my
third watching, I am curious ifwe're meant to think that the

(03:39):
Chief of Police is Dev Patel'scharacter's father. I

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

so Dev Patel, as one does, dedicates his life to
revenge and avenging his hismurdered mother so he he knows
where to find his creepy,horrible rapey dad, because the
the matches that he used to sethis mother on fire have the logo

(04:12):
of a place called queenies,which is run by this like Scary,
mean Muslim lady who's verywealthy and is trafficking women
and forcing abortions on them inthis high end club in the city
of India, because we're neverreally sure where we are or what

(04:34):
is happening fully but anyway,in the city that that city that
is in India, Queenie runs thisgiant joint where all of the
best, most powerful people come,including the chief of police
and Dev Patel, sets up thisscheme to, like, get in good
with them and work his waythrough the ranks so that he can
get to the highest people in thehighest places and do a do a

(04:57):
heck in revenge. So so he does.
He He gets a shot literally atkilling his dad, slash the chief
of police, and he fumbles it.
And then action ensues, andwe're just escaping through
again India, and he gets theshit kicked out of him, and he
gets rescued by the the localHijra community, the third sex,

(05:23):
historically sacred community,takes him in, encourages him to
remember who he is, like theforest is in he's got that
monkey in him, the Hanumanmonkey will come back to that.
And they like train him up andteach him to fight. And then he
goes out make sure that theHijra community has enough money
to support themselves, and thendecides he's gonna go, like,

(05:46):
take on his dad again. Also,we're getting in the background
these like new shots of a bigdeal up and coming guru, Baba,
Shakti,

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

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

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

So in the background, we have the sense
that, like Hindu nationalism isa rising threat. It is doing
violence to poor people, torural people, to low caste
people, certainly to gender, nonnormative people, also farmers.
And come back to that. And sothe big boss battle is him

(06:49):
working his way throughqueenies. Again, murdering
spoilers, but Hello, murdersQueenie, murders his dad. But
the big bad boss is actually theguru who and again, we can talk
about this later, but it seemsto be like politicized religion
is the big bad, and secularHanuman is here to take his

(07:09):
revenge. And then end of movie,like it's very wusha, it's very
John Wick. It is very fun towatch if you like action movies.
It does not make one single lickof sense, and I'm not entirely
sure what the argument was, butagain, I have watched it three
times.

Yeah, yeah, I think you got all the
plot points just for like,continuity or credibility.
Perhaps, here is what IMDbthinks the plot is, oh, okay,
that's so yours is better, farmore detailed, and I
specifically asked you to do itbecause I knew you would have
done no research and none Ididn't do no research. This is

(07:52):
what IMDb claims is the plot. Sointerested to see what they
thought of I am of this film. Itis one sentence, an anonymous
young man unleashes a campaignof vengeance against the corrupt
leaders who murdered his motherand continue to systematically
victimize the poor andpowerless. I mean, yeah, yeah,

(08:14):
that's accurate. It is accurate.
And it tells us nothing,nothing. It tells us nothing.

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

that he's anonymous. We never get a
name off of him, which I wouldnot have thought of until just
now. Yeah,

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

kid or monkey man, monkey man, or like
that terrorist, or like quite alot of that, but we don't, and
he doesn't introduce himself toanyone ever, no, and everyone
else has a name, yeah, everyoneelse has a name. Like, actually,
everyone else's name is deeplyimportant. And so that's really
fascinating, that we've, like,erased who he might be, besides

(08:57):
his trauma and his connection toHanuman, right?

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

that just feels like PTSD. Like, the
entirety of the PTSD of it islike, oh, yeah, you're good at
lying. I got you. I got you.
You're real good at, like, onthe spot, making it up because,
like, you can't touch that witha 10 foot pole.

(09:39):
So as the resident Southasianist Megan, I thought maybe
a thing we should talk aboutfirst is the very obvious
Hanuman of

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

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

sorry. The film opens

with kids. Mom telling him the story
from the Ramayana, fromValmiki's, Ramayana,
particularly because there'smultiple versions and
recensions, and this is the onethat we care about, the story of
how Hanuman swallows the sun,and it is told in an orange

(10:27):
covered comic book that we'reflipping through the pages, and
we're watching it kind of beanimated, but there's also
stills, and then we're watchingthe mom and the sons, kind of
life in the forest be juxtaposedagainst that, right? So those so
Hanuman is a deity. He's the sonof a the son of the wind, and he

(10:49):
is a major figure in not justValmiki'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. Sohe's, he's a little monkey, and
he could be as big as he wantsor as small as he wants. He's
known to be both playful butalso, like fiercely loyal. That

(11:11):
is kind of his narrative intheir mind, that that no matter
what Rama or Sita do, or likethe stars of their Maya, he's
loyal to them. So like, Ram waslike, Go save my wife. And he's
like, cool. I'm gonna grow tothe size of, like, several
skyscrapers. I'm gonna just,like, hop from the southern tip
of India over to what Sri Lankais now. Like, no biggie, whoop.

(11:33):
I'm just gonna, like, hop oversee what's up with Sita. And
Sita is like, bro, Ram actuallyhas to save me. He's the hero of
the story, not you, like you'dbe taking away his Dharma and
his manliness, and he's like,word that checks out. I got to
listen to you, because I'm loyalto both of you, right? Like, so
Hanuman is this kind ofcharacter, and there are loads,
and I will put in the shownotes, because this is not an

(11:55):
episode about Hanuman, but thereare loads of really great
stories about Hanuman. There isreally good research about
masculinity and Hanuman, andthese, like wrestling clubs that
exist in Delhi and Mumbai, aboutHanuman. So like when he then we
fast forward to him as an adult,and he's in a boxing ring with a

(12:16):
monkey mask on, fighting someonein a cobra mask. Yeah, the
snake, the snake, and we have totalk about that South African
Barker for like, the next 20minutes, conservatively, not
really listeners, but like,actually, I really want to, but
that all felt like, Oh, okay.
Like this is drawing on culturesof Hanuman in all of these
different ways. Like anyone whois paying attention or knows

(12:38):
about India would get thesereferences right off, even
though they don't get connectedto nothing else

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

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

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

we don't. I could, I could have
several hours of conversationabout the ways in which global
markets have never onceworshiped the rupee, despite
India being the basis of quite alot of the global wealth that
exists today. But no, ain't noone ever most nonsensical like,

(13:41):
like, we're gonna talk a biggame moment. And it's also like
some weird like, Gordon Gekkobullshit, of like, greed is
good, the almighty dollar. Andyou're like, not, Money makes
the world go round. But a SouthAfrican man with that fuck to
accent, I'm sorry I don't get tocomment on accents, except that
one, it is brutal. Saying thatwe worship the rupee. No, we do

(14:06):
not. Also, why are you here?
Which person did your family ownwhen they got kicked out of
South Africa, sir? But for real,though, for real though, I'm not
like, that's, that's a legitquestion. Who are you? Well, and

I feel like there's a lot of, who are you,
where did you come fromthroughout this movie, because
we don't have a good sense of,like, where Queenie comes from.
It like, is the is the horriblechief 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 thereis this is like a martial sick

(14:39):
man. Any of the backgroundcharacters have names that you
would not expect to show up inan Indian city like Alfonso.

Well, at least not in that Indian
city, if we're also making funof the histories of
Christianity, right, right?
Like, where is this fictionalcity? I. Which I think is called
yatana. Oh, okay, I didn't evenknow we got any. And it clearly
seems to be like a Mumbai ripoff, like, but they speak Hindi,
which is, which is not theprimary language of Mumbai. So,

(15:11):
like, Okay, I'm actually, like,deeply on, on fun to watch
movies like this with, becauseI'm like, point of order his
photo. I love that does not makeany sense. Yeah. That's

why I wanted to watch with you, because

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

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

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

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

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (16:00):
there's a, there's an Orientalism in
this that is, um, because it'sfast and loose with a place that
we never learn about. But I alsocouldn't tell if that was part
of the giggle, right? Because,like, Okay, can we come back to
the, like, boxing, wrestling, ofit all, or, like, the mixed
martial arts? So he fights kingcobra, yes. Then he fights the

(16:22):
bear, whose name is Balloon, abear necessities way. And you
have this South African withlike, you know, their vaguely
British accent, doing theirvaguely British thing, of like
we own you like, are we notsupposed to read Kipling into
that?

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

Ilyse Morgenstein Fu (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 thesame time that we've got Hanuman
and Ramayana beats happening,which could have been
interesting, if that was thething. There was a thing, but it
wasn't. No, it was just kind oflike, punch, action, stab, go,

(17:04):
John Wick,

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

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

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

I'll take the like, six shooter
revolve. It's like a 38 caliberor something like a side piece.
But anyway, what we've got goingon is this, like, vague, I don't
know, like, self ownOrientalism, but also, like,
frankly, like a kind of looseRamayana, as told, from honey
man's perspective, happening,religiously. And I think in

(17:44):
terms of, like, the stuff thatyou and I are interested in,
like, all of the religioracialization that is going on,
where there are ways to think ofthis as, like, loose and lazy.
There are also ways to think ofit as deeply on purpose. But the
it's not clear who is whatreligion, yeah, and everyone
being organized and orderedaround a guru who is trading in

(18:11):
Hindu, but not exclusivelyHindu, imagery, prayer, right?
And stuff like your, yeah, like,like, like, dress and and all of
it, right? Like, it is clearlysupposed to be that, like, these
major religions are bad and aredoing violence to the
minorities, all of them well,

and that they're pretending to be religions, when
really what they're doing ispolitics. And it sort of seems
to do that. Like, there's a,there's a pure religion out
there somewhere that'saccessible to minoritized
people. But the way that ithappens in the city is this, it
pretends to be pure, butactually is doing a deeply

(18:54):
hypocritical and very violent,exploitative politics.

Yeah.
I mean, it's, it is corruptpolitics like, frankly, the
church right, like the Guru'sfollowers and the Guru's inner
circle are doing the politicsand the violence and the
trafficking and the blood moneyand the revenge like no one

(19:20):
who's a bad guy in this wasn'tcaught up in this cult,

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

yeah, which I think is the confusing
part. I think the Islam pieceswere smaller. I think, I think
we are meant to think thatQueenie as a Muslim woman
running essentially a high endbrothel, yeah? And not just
running the brothel, but likedoing the trafficking that makes
a brothel run.

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

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

content, one minute size of the minute in the
rock

but that, for me, feels like the
only critique of Islam. Like thecritique of Islam there is, like
the greed, no, it's theobsession with sexual purity.
Piece, oh, like that felt to melike a mainstream India critique
of like those Muslims, they'reobsessed with how their women
have sex moment, or if they arehaving sex. So like, on the one

(20:44):
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 inthis film. Yeah, she like, the
only women we meet are like ciswomen that we meet

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Yeah, so okay, I feel like because this movie
is about everything and nothing.
We could talk about it for threehours, but I think, if I'm
understanding correctly, whatmade us want to sit with this,

(22:25):
aside from, like, Dev Patel in atank top, is one. It's doing
some interesting things with,like, Hindu stories and really
foundational stories. Two, forme, like it's kind of a cults
movie, kind of definitely andalso, and really the reason that
I had wanted to see it in thetheater to begin with was

(22:46):
because I knew that the Hijracommunity, this, like third
gender space, was prominentlyfeatured in it. So that was,
that was what I was

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuer (22:57):
thinking about. Yeah, okay, great. So we
should also talk about was thatit does that was that

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

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 allover the place is pretty
interesting, yeah, like, like,the Ramayan imagery is all over
the place, particularly theHanuman imagery, obviously. But
like they are reciting inEnglish most of the time,

(23:28):
though, at the very beginning inHindi, some pretty famous and
popular Hanuman based, likeprayer, I guess, is the right
word, supplication, yeah. Maybenot mantra. But, like, close,
right? And so, like, that'sinteresting to me. Like, oh,
that's recognizable. Like, yeah,I know what. This is. Same with,
like, at the very end, whenwe're about to murder the guru,

(23:51):
not, I mean, like, it's an weirdold movie, we're going to do
some spoilers, but like, rightat the end, where he's reading
off of the sandal that a devoteehad made him and those sandals
are clearly meant to look likeVishnu sandals. Like these are
sandals that you see in imageryacross South Asian Arts with

(24:13):
like, I actually don't know howto describe any parts of a few,
so I'm not going to

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

no straps. A little pokey thing is
a traditional way to do a shoe.
And you see that image with likethe pokey thing and the foot. So
instead of, if you're imagininglike a flip flop, the part that
goes between your big toe andyour your second toe, your index
toe, your second metatarsallike, instead of that being a

(24:44):
strap, like a instead of thatconnecting in between those two
toes by a strap, it's just along stick and essentially like
a bulbous top so that your toescan grip onto it. And then you
walk right that style of sandal.
Uncle is is pictured in Vishnuimagery all the time, like or

(25:04):
his footprints or his sandals,like you see that in places like
I have stickers of it that someuncle gave to me years ago. But
the prayer around the sandalthat someone had carved in, and
I didn't get a good enough lookat it, but it was meant to look
like Devanagari script, I think,okay, when I googled that line,
because I was like, that soundslike a giant prayer, and it's

(25:25):
like the fourth prayer thatshows up on, like a teaching
your kids giant prayer. Oh,okay. Website that's based in
India. So I was like, Okay, thatsounds familiar. That's not my
expertise. Gang. I can'tremember the last time I did
like proper, either Sanskrit orother dialect readings about or
for Jain theology. So like,Please don't come for me. It's a

(25:47):
quick Google. I'll put the linkin the show notes. But I think
those little moments of religionhave felt, have felt really
interesting throughout, becauseit's like bread crumbing, that
all of these religions areproblematic in the same way that
with his mom, it's all aboutnaturalism and connection and

(26:10):
the Hanuman stories that feelfar more popular and not
popular, like people like themmore, but popular like of the
people, which I thought wasinteresting. So there are
moments where I'm like, Yeah,that's not true. Like, name
checking the Vedas. Like, a lotof times, felt like, yeah,
that's not that's not wherethese gods show up. That's this

(26:31):
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, thosepieces of religion in the text
of the film felt reallyinteresting to me. Okay, but I
don't need to monolog what else?

Well, no, I need, I think so. One of the things
that you said that I thought wasreally interesting and something
that, like, I wouldn't havegotten. So I this is an
incoherent but incredibly richtext to sit with, right?

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

revenge. The plot is revenge. But the the thing
that you had said. So, like, thereason I brought that up is
because I know a couple I knowmore than your, your average
American is there about what'sgoing on in the state of India.
But also, I know just enoughabout India to know that I

(27:39):
don't, I don't know fuckingnothing. So, like, I could have
a moment of like, oh, it wasreally interesting that they
mentioned the farmers riots,like, the largest protest in
human history. But there was nomention of the fact that they
were led by sick people, right?
Like, there, yeah, the religionof that was completely taken
out. That was really interestingto me. But like, I don't know
from the Ramayana, like, I don'tknow these things. And you had

(28:01):
mentioned that what you thoughtmaybe was happening was like us,
not necessarily likesecularized, but like re
jiggered, telling of afoundational Hindu story, taking
out the deities are usuallythought to be the central
characters. And I was reallycurious to hear you say more
things about that. Susan, thankyou. Yeah.

Okay, so the Ramayana is the story of
Ram and Sita. We have talkedabout this before on the
podcast, particularly in ourHinduism episodes. I love the
Ramayana. The Ramayana is whereI tested out my Sanskrit
ability. It is also when I wasstudying Sanskrit in India, and
I was literally put in akindergarten class, and I had to
sing the Ramayana with all thesekindergartners. And these, like

(28:47):
very jolly parents were like, Ohmy God, you did so well, you
white girl. And I was like, Iknow I'm the best five year old.
At 22 years old, I'm the bestone.

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

so ridiculous. It was so
ridiculous. My, my Sanskritteacher, KS, balla, super mun yn
was like, I think, I thinkyou're at a kindergarten level.
I think we'll do privatelessons, and then, frankly,
like, we're already teaching atthis level. Go hang out with the
five year olds. And I was like,okay, that feels creeper. And in
America, I need, like, a specialbackground check to be in this
room. Yeah. Fine, yeah. So Ihave, like, a deep soft spot for

(29:25):
the Ramayana. I teach a wholeclass on it. I teach it every
time I teach Hinduism like it isa story near and dear, both to
like my intellectual process andjust how I learned about
Hinduism. So the Ramayana isabout ramen Sita, and most
people use it in a contemporarymoment when we talked about this
on our Hinduism episodes, in away that is nationalistic

(29:46):
period. Well, that

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

Ilyse Morgenstein F (29:56):
nationalist moment. 100% Jai Sri Ram has
become this phrase. That used tomean like, Victory to Ram or
victory to the Lord Rama. And itstill 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. Andthis land is only properly the
land of Rama. And if you do notsuccumb to that, then LOL, you

(30:18):
should go now forever.

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

And, like, I have lots of written
work about this kind ofnationalism. I have an article
coming out in the next couple ofmonths, actually, about
nationalism and Jaishree and andhow we're using the Ramayana in
various ways. So like, we've gotstuff coming. If you want more
on that, I can point your way.
But if you subtract out ramenSita, there's this massive part

(30:47):
of the Ramayan that is reallyabout Hanuman, and how much
Hanuman loves Rama and lovesRamas 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.

(31:09):
When alpha is like, you need to,like, remember who you are,
Simba and like, blows, goop onhim, which literally is what
happens in The Lion

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

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 tobe fine. And it's
hallucinogenic, because heimmediately hallucinates, like
we are immediately in the astralplane, yes. And we see in like
an animation, a scar runningfrom devs collarbone to his

(31:49):
sternum, kind of opens up, andDev, like rips his chest open.
And in it we see the sun beatingas if Hanuman had swallowed the
sun. Yes, except that in theRamayan when that happens, when
Hanuman rips his chest open, itis to prove to Rama and Sita
that he is devoted to them andthem alone. And when he opens

(32:12):
his chest, every rib has Ramawritten on it. Oh, wow. And like
in visual depictions like, dearlistener, I will put it in the
show notes. But if you're like,on your phone, you want to just
Google in your kitchen whileyou're doing the dishes. If you
Google Hanuman, Rama and Sita, Iguarantee you like, if not the
first, then the second or thethird image will be an image of

(32:34):
Hanuman with his chest open withramen Sita in the heart, because
the idea is he's so devoted, itis literally them that's beating
his heart. But in this it's thesun, and we never mention Rama,
and we never mention Sita.
There's not even a sidecharacter that's named the Rama
or Sita, like, this, is it? Thisis the whole thing. It's just
Hanuman. So I think what'sinteresting, or like, in my

(32:57):
vague hypothesis of, like, whatthe fuck is going on in this
movie that has no plot? The plotis revenge. The plot is revenge.
It has a plot. It has no story.
No story. Is like. What would itlook like if Hanuman was
fighting the war alone? Whatwould it look like if Hanuman
was taking down corruption andinstalling righteous power,

(33:20):
which is the stuff, which is thestory of the Ramayan. Just that,
at the end of the Ramayanrestoring rightful power is
putting Rama and Sita back onthe throne. And here it's
getting rid of everybody that'srelated to the throne. And the
movie ends fade to black, likewe don't get a what happens.
There's no plan. And as you putand pointed out, it does not

(33:42):
bring his dead mother back, itdoes not heal his trauma. He
just kills a bunch of people,which maybe felt good for a
minute, and then, is he dead? Wedon't know. We don't know. We
don't know. It's the same reasonwhy, like, his sandal felt
really poignant. Because, likein the Ramayan, it's a very long
story, friends, it's an epic.
It's longer than the Iliad andthe Odyssey, so, like, it's very
long. So I can't do all of it,but in the Ramayana, really

(34:04):
important part is that rama'slittle brother is put on the
throne instead of Rama, which iswhy 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

(34:25):
of imagery happening that ishella Ramayan, but it's not like
a one to one, which is why mybrain is like, okay, Dev Patel
is clearly supposed to beHanuman period the end, yeah.
Complete with, like, I'm in theforest, which, like in the
Ramayana, like the dun dukhaforest is, like, really
important. Like, it's just, likeall of this stuff is just

(34:46):
mirroring the story, again,loosely, because this movie has
no story, and the Ramayana haslike 40 stories, including its
main story, because it's anepic. So it's got side quests.
Yeah. But. If kid or dev Patel'scharacter is supposed to be
Hanuman, which I don't think isdebatable. Yeah, like, that's
clear. Then, is this theRamayana? Is this a retelling of

(35:10):
the Ramayana through hanuman'seyes in a contemporary setting?
And I'm it's fanfic. I thinkit's fanfic, okay? And I think
it might, I think it might bethat

Yeah, and it doesn't actually offer a if it
offers any sort of solution, andI'm not certain that it does.
The solution might be that weneed to return to, like the true
heart of these foundationalstories, which is kind of sweet

(35:46):
but seems deeply dangerous, andalso there's no path forward.
It's just like, Okay, I killedthe big bad guy. I saved India.
And

that's actually where, like killing the
big bad guy makes me kind ofcrabby, yeah, because if this is
a Ramayan retelling in theRamayana, Ravana is the bad guy.
So Ravana is the bad guy. Hesteals Sita, he takes her
hostage. He's like, I'm gonnagive your boyfriend, Ram like
your husband. Rom like, X,number of days to come get you,
and then my girl, you will bemine. And it's like a threat of

(36:20):
rape. And she's friends, like,but, but the text leaves open
that Ravana is someone that isactually just following his
Dharma, like his understandingof good deeds, and like in the
film, they're like, Ravana is ascholar. And I was like, yes, in
the Ramayana, Ravana is not justa scholar. He's also the primary

(36:41):
devotee of Shiva, really, yeah,Shiva gives him all these boons.
That's why he's got 10 heads and10 arms, and he's, like, really
good at the veena, and he doesall these, like, rights, and he
takes on all these sacrifices,and he is rewarded by the gods
for being such a compellingdevotee.

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

there's a read of the Ramayana. No, I
mean, I think so. And there arecommunities of Ravan worshipers,
particularly in what is now SriLanka, because Ravan rules the
kingdom of Lanka, which is wherewe get the name Sri Lanka. And
like there are communities ofpeople who see Ravan as just
doing his Dharma in the same waythat RAM is doing his Dharma,

(37:27):
but our dharmas don't overlap.
And one of the reasons I findthe Ramayana, I'd be so deeply
compelling as an epic all thesemany years later, is precisely
this tension. Is that there's away to read everyone as acting
not good in all circumstances,But according to their dharma or
their religious obligation, youit. And so taking that out of

(37:52):
this film, because the Guru isnot good. There is nothing good
about him. He is evil, and youare meant to think he's evil,

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 likecredulity and faith and devotion
and using it for his own like,financial and political gain
completely

and like he's doing it for financial
and political gain, whereasRavana there's an argument to be
had that, like he starts thiswhole rivalry because his
sister's assaulted by rama'sbrother in the forest like she's
mutilated by ravana's Brother.
Uh, sorry, rama's brothermutilates ravana's sister. Okay?
And there's also, I want to beclear, there's also many, many

(38:51):
reads of the Ramayana thatRavana is just the bad guy and
Rama is the good guy. And thisis a clear cut case of good and
evil doing their thing andbattling for final superiority,
at which point the good guywins. But there's a lot of reads
of Rama that are not good, whichis interesting. Hanuman,
however, always good. Okay.

(39:12):
Hanuman is an unproblematicfave. Go way to go. Will monkey
in these books. He just is. He'sunproblematic. You ask him to do
something, he does it. You sayyou shouldn't do something. He's
like, no prop Bob, like he doeswhat he's supposed to do out of
devotion, but also out of, like,quick thinking and loyalty and
faith and like, a real sense ofethics, like you get the sense

(39:35):
about Hanuman that, like, he'sone of the good guys in this
book,

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

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

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

and like, that feels. Confusing to
me.

I mean, I want to say again, it is a it is kick
ass action movie 5% and I alsoreally, really enjoy when action
movies directly involve notwhite people, because I feel
like the hero of the actionmovie is nine times out of 10,
unless you're watching it fastand furious. Is a white dude,
right? Uh, not at all the casehere. Great. The only white dude

(40:23):
I think we see is that horribleSouth African man, and he is, in
no way like a redemptive figureat all. And one, um,

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

And that's fine.
That's more than enough,frankly, so if we think Dev
Patel had a point, and if wethink that point is to tell,
like a rethinking, what it is tobe Indian, possibly even
faithfully Indian, notnecessarily faithfully Hindu,
but like faithfully Indian isthe devotion here? Obviously,

(41:01):
both to his mom, right? But Ifeel like his mom is a stand in,
right for Mother India. And thedevotion is not to Rama, but to
India as an idea, a potentialpurity question, yeah, because

(41:23):
we also get, like, the drive bysaving of the sex worker who
has, like the bird from hisvillage tattooed on her
shoulder. And they have the,like, very hot and heavy finger
touchy moment, and then theyjust keep moving. But like, I

(41:44):
think

they touch fingers so hard, it

really did. It was, it was lascivious. But
like, the devotion is not tothis nationalistic Hinduism. But
again, we really do see likethese, these foundational
stories that are Hindu, but notjust Hindu. And Hanuman as, like
the savior of this multi racial,multi religious hodgepodge that

(42:12):
is everywhere and nowhere India,and that's where the loyalty
lies. Like, that's what Hanumandefinitely saving.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuer (42:21):
Question that makes sense to me, that
feels like a viable read, andhere's how we can support that.
Okay, so in the film, we got afew scenes with baby, Dev Patel
and mom, yeah, both of whom areunnamed, and one in one of the
scenes, she's asking him aboutwhat his future holds, and she's

(42:45):
doing a palm reading, like she'sshowing him where the root of
his lifeline starts moving inpalm reading, palmistry has a
very, very long history in SouthAsia,

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

Yeah, no, like, astrology is a big
thing in South Asia, and some ofthat's about stars, but
astrology kind of includes, Iwould say, in South Asia, also
palmistry, which I believe had,is connected to where you get
Vedic Astrology. So I know thatthere's the hasta Samudrika

(43:25):
sastra. I'll have to look thatup, but I know that that is
about palm reading, and it ispart of ancient religious
literature, like Vedicliterature, and so there's,
like, a way that, there's a waythat, and I've heard this said,
I don't know if this is true,because I don't know nothing
about, you know, frankly, yourshit, but there's a way that I

(43:48):
have heard, certainly Hinduscholars talk about palm reading
as innately Indian as apractice, and that it spreads to
other places from there. AndI've I've heard that there are
some connections between thatand, like, the ways that Romani
people are connected also toNorth Indian practices. So like

(44:11):
that piece of it feels like afor lack of a better word, and
since we're talking off the topof our heads, like a pre modern
Indian religious practice, orSouth Asian religion practice to
take it out of the nationalism afull practice, perhaps. Yeah,
there's also a moment whereshe's there in the forest. So
like the forest is obviously farmore religiously fertile than

(44:34):
the city. We've got those modestoo. We also get her making sure
that he knows about Hanuman, andwe see scenes of them hiding and
sleeping, where she is happy tolisten to her son talk about his
devotional and like to pray toHanuman, but she's not praying

(44:55):
he

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

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

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

few things I want to say. The first
is that that is an that is adirect stealing of And flipping
on its head of Hindu nationalistrhetoric.

Very much. So, yeah, yeah. The

second thing I want to say is that you
also get the sense that otherswho are more connected,
religiously, spiritually,outsiders see him as what he is.
Yes, yeah. So like the whole youare the beast, you are the

(45:53):
monkey man, you are this, assumeyour role and that, that like
seeing someone and recognizingHim 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, youcan see something divine in
someone else, even thoughthey're alive, that is like a
living practice, right?

(46:17):
Absolutely part ofuncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable
with, like, folk religion, butlike, it is a practice. Like, if
you, I don't know, go to anyforest in India, there's usually
places that, like, there is arock that's painted or a tree
that's painted, because, like,the trees are divine. So like,
that was the other piece that Iwanted to say, which, yeah, in

(46:37):
the forest, and she's, like,running through the roots. There
is a very, very widespreadpractice of tree worship in
South Asia, where the trees havesouls, and frankly, like where
we get the phrase tree hugger isfrom the Chipko movement in
north India, where a bunch ofwomen were defending their
village against capitalistexpansion, and they tied

(46:58):
themselves to a tree and said,You will not cut down this
family member. You will not harmour God. They did and whatever.
But like that is where we getthe phrase tree hugger in
English, because this was, likea huge movement in this rural
village that was led by womenwho knew that the trees were
deities or divine, or family orancestors, or like, however it

(47:18):
gets glossed in many ways. I'mnot being finicky on purpose,
like, I'm trying to do it quick.
So I think that's a I think themovie lends itself to this kind
of read where, like, instead ofBART Mata mother, India, we've
got mommy, yep, and who is Mommybeing protected by but Hanuman,
who is fiercely loyal and istrying to get the right person
back on

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

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

let's do that, though, because I think that's a
good transition into the hijrapiece, right? So for folks who
are not Hashtag blessed enoughto have a South Asian history
expert as their best friend. Thefolks I knew who wanted to see
this were overwhelmingly likeaction fans, but also big queer
MOS because they were liketransgender superheroes and like

(48:34):
yes and no. But the piece that Ihadn't caught until this time,
because I was so wrapped up inthe action I watch things like
I'm five, so just like, there'shitting and things are flashy is
that the Guru's name isliterally Baba Shakti, which is
like Big Daddy goddess feminineenergy, right? So one of the

(48:55):
things that I wasn't sure whatto do with when I saw this film
was the fact that the Hijracommunity 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 tosex, which is all about the

(49:15):
Hijra community. And herassertion is that one gender is
not the most important thingabout these people for this
community, but two that they'rehistorically have been really
valued and like revered membersof many different Indian
communities. So watching them beunder attack like this was
really confusing for me, becausethat was not my understanding of
like, how hijras existed in theworld. So I reached out to a

(49:39):
friend. I talked to Deepasyndrome. Thanks, Deepa. And she
was saying that, yeah, one ofthe things that has marked the
BJP his rise is an increasedhostility toward Hijra
community. So this is, this isanother space where, like, we
are clearly doing an incoherentbut timely political critique.
Great,

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

difference, non conformity. I

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

compromised masculinity, right?

Yeah, it's toxic masculinity. This.
This is just the flavor of Hindutoxic masculinity is to severely
punish a group of people thatthat come under fire in the
British, you know, under Britishrule and later, you know, but
like never had been. I thinksometimes in the West, we get so

(50:43):
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 theGayatri ready

piece. Well, let's, let's pause on that,
because I feel like that's athing that a lot of folks, even
folks who work on gender andsexuality, are not aware of, is
that there's an eagerness to mapWestern and particularly
American paradigms of gender andsexuality onto the global stage.
And there's, there's such alonging, I think, for queer
ancestors that it is to me, it'sa very sympathetic impulse. I

(51:17):
get wanting to see yourself inhistory. I get wanting to find
other people who are findingways to be different and outside
a system that is trying to killyou at the same time, the
category of transgender as itexists in the US, which is not
to say that people have notalways fucked up with gender,

(51:38):
because people have alwaysfucked with gender, but the idea
of transgender as an identityreally traces to the 1980s
whereas the Hijra community ismillennia old, right? And the
transgender community in the USvery, very focused on gender as
possibly the core piece of theiridentity. And that, again, is

(51:59):
not true for the Hijracommunity?

Yeah, I think talking about Hijra is
one of those things that alwaysmakes me a little bit crabby,
because the baby queers in myclasses who are one, meaning,
yeah, and are starved forancestors, absolutely. But I
have had to be like, I've had tocancel half of a classes lecture

(52:22):
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, butthey're real quick to call me
out, because I'm really good atbeing called in, like, I'm good
at it. I'm happy to learn, yeah,but we read an article. This
happened, like a couple yearsago. We read an article where

(52:43):
Hijra were referring tothemselves in English. So when
they were talking and notEnglish, they used a different
word, but in English they wereusing the language of
transvestite. And my studentslost their shit in like a this
is racist, not racist. This isqueer phobic. This is
transphobic. How dare they?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, oldpeople are this is outdated, did
it not? And I was like, it's notoutdated. This is from six

(53:04):
months ago. This isn't a sweatergame moment. Like, also, like,
you're not allowed, you don'tget to dictate how other people
refer to themselves, mydarlings, that's the thing. That
is the thing,

and it's also, and I have, I know in my soul
that this was the rest of theconversation that you had was it
is such a Western andparticularly American Imperial
impulse to pick up ourcategories and try to move them
around the world and say whatyou're really doing, yeah, what
you really mean is this thingthat makes sense to me and is

(53:36):
important to me and and thewhole point of my using that the
ready book in my classes, thewhole point of the scholarship
that's been engaged here is thatyou don't get to tell
communities what's the mostimportant thing about them. You
learn from communities what themost important thing about them
is for them. Like, that's how wedo this responsibly. And also,
like,

I saw my 18 to 22 year olds, whose
frontal cortex is not fullycooked, get stuck on a phrase
that that is harmful and is usedepithetically here, but also I
saw them get deeply relievedwhen I said the easiest way to
do this is just talk aboutgender plurality and non
conformity, like that is anumbrella that is not doing harm

(54:17):
to nobody and accuratelyexplains what's happening here.
But it is not like you don't getto cancel someone for using the
words that they want to use todescribe themselves, and then
have a very specific history,and in English history in the
subcontinent of India, that'sexactly, right. It just again,
was a moment of like, oh, youalso don't know that Indian
English is real, right? It wasjust like the layers were so

(54:40):
intense. But I find Hijraconfusing for folks because, and
I don't want to say that this iswhat the film did, because I
don't, I don't know that thefilm had a story, so I don't
know that this is what the filmdid. But often, when you see
hidra Show up in Bollywoodfilms, 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

(55:03):
magical, right, right?

And it definitely felt like a magical brown person
film, which was uncomfy to sitwith. And at the same time,
largely when queer folks inwestern context see themselves
represented on film, it is asvictims. It is as victims of
violence. It is people who arevulnerable. It is people who get

(55:27):
the shit kicked out of them. Andwe definitely get that piece in
this film. But then it flips iton its head, because it turns
out that what, what kid, whatDev Patel really needs to know
that he is the beast and that hecan unleash that beast, yes, or
for vengeance for his mother,slash Mother India, is to learn
the true spirit of the warriorfrom these gender non conforming

(55:50):
people, 100% because it turnsout twist they themselves are
warriors. They had always beenwarriors, and they show up to be
like his martial backup in thisbig boss fight. And that scene,
frankly, I think is my favoritein the film, because they are in
these, like, amazing dancingskirts, but also scary masks,
and they are fucking shit up.
And you do not get a whole lotof, like, queer, gender non

(56:12):
conforming action hero moments.
There's just

no that piece of it's fantastic.
And I also think what'sfascinating about the use of
Hijra here is that while itgives me an American who knows
very well about like, magicalsavages, like all of that
imagery, speaking of Kipling,the thing is that Hijra are

(56:39):
meant to kind of be a little bitmagical, like they serve a
ritual purpose of blessing,right? And of, I don't want to
say, like, mediating betweenpractitioners and the divine,
but I'm not, not going to saythat, because that is actively
how Hijra have functioned in inquite a lot of communities,

(57:00):
right? Like there's a sacredsignificance there, yeah, and
so, like, on the one hand, itabsolutely was uncomfortable and
felt like, like this, thisparticular Brown is real close
to the Earth and God, but at thesame time, that is why you like
that is why family like peoplethat still participate in Hijra

(57:21):
blessings will literally seekthem out for blessings, like
ahead of weddings or babyshowers or like baby birds,
right? Like, like you doactually want that magic. So
it's both like, legitimate andproblematic, because this is a
movie that is Western facing,

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 saythat the the piece that made me
feel better about the like,magical Hijra of it all was the
fact that that's not their onlysignificance, or that's not or
they're like, helping Dev Patelalong, like, know himself

(57:57):
better. Yeah, they're his gurus.

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

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 thereto take their own revenge.
They're there to claim their ownidentities. And like, Yes, I
could have used 45 more minutesof that, but even the five
minutes I got, because I amstarved for that felt really
fucking tasty. I liked it a lot.
I'll also

say that because the only cis women
that we get in the film are sexworkers or a pimp when we get
the Hijra community doing theirfucking shit up battle, and they
are dressed in traditional dancesaris, fucking fine ass

(58:47):
costuming like everything isbedazzled. Everything is
jeweled. It's got that weight toit that dance saris often have
when you like, have likeweighted fabric so that when you
twirl, it twirls out reallynicely. But they also are
wearing Katia Kali, likeKathakali masks, which is a
traditional form of dance inSouth Asia. They've got, like,

(59:10):
imagery galore from multiplekinds of classical dance forms,
yeah, and so, like, there isalso the way that we are
allowing this group of hijra,who again to use American
terminologies we would perceivethem as trans women. That is not
the right term, no, but that iswhat's going on, right? So these

(59:31):
are FEM presenting folk thatthey are taking up the space
that cis women usually wouldtake up in their performance and
in their dress and doing this,like COVID, like, the part that
stood out to me was thecoordinated dance moves, yeah,
yeah. We're like, that looksBollywood, that dance battle,

(59:53):
but there's no cis women.

No, no. It's fascinating. And

so.
That I thought was like, Oh,that's interesting. I don't know
what it's doing, because it feltlike a side quest that was like,
without, yep, without, withoutresolution and without thesis.
It wasn't like, here's the pointof this side quest. It was just
a side quest. But it was a verypretty side quest well, but

Megan Goodwin (01:00:15):
I will also say too that the juxtaposition of
like, a Baba Shakti, right, whowas claiming to do in his very
title, a gender duality for thegood of the people, and then the
juxtaposition of that with thisgender complex, gender fluid,
gender non conforming, but likethe right, the true, the

(01:00:38):
essential right, the purereligion piece that was really
interesting to me, because,again, it's like, it isn't a
movie that's saying religion isinherently bad or wrong. It is a
movie that's saying there is aright religion and a wrong
religion and the wrong religionhappens when it gets political,
which, like, oh, but probablynot that crazy about what's
happening there

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:00:58):
when it gets political and capital
and like exclusive, because theother thing we get is we get
these, like cult rings that arehappening, and we get meetings
like we see these rallies. Andso I think we're supposed to
believe that the members of theShakti cult are protected by

(01:01:22):
Baba Shakti. Yeah, and he saysthat a lot. So I think we're
supposed to think, like there isa wrong institutional religion,

right? Very much.
So yeah, which is also like,again, given the the face of a
feminine divine, because whatthey'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.

(01:01:58):
I feel like we got to all thestuff that I wanted to get to.
Is there anything else that youwanted to get to?

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

(01:02:25):
this movie, was like, Wait, but

what's unclear and like it happened

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (01:02:30):
because it looked cool, yeah, like doing
lines of coke off of a mirrorlooks fucking cool. Or like
doing lines of like

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

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

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

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 toqueenies, like to get to the
boss level in the elevator, andthen you walk through the
elevator, and there's just agiant hallway with the battle
scene of the Ramayan withHanuman in the center, which,
like I have seen many paintingsof the Ramayana. This is a
rarity. Like, everyone'sobsessed with Hanuman. Like,

(01:03:16):
this is a world where rom doesnot exist in the Ramayana, and
there's a pool, like every partof it was fucking weird, but,
like, visually interesting, juststory wise, like, incoherent.
What happened? I don't know,fighting. Fighting happened in
India, yeah, well, I'm glad thatyou made me watch this. I'm glad

(01:03:38):
that you watched it with me, andI am

confusion.

I am confusion. I found that
challenging. Yep, yep, oh. Theonly other thing I wanted to say
is that while Baba Shakti isclaiming in his title this like
multiplicity, we do get thevalidity of the Hijra community,
claiming multiplicity by citingand praying to and featuring the

(01:04:07):
version of Shiva that isArdhanarishvara, which is the
form of Shiva that is usuallydepicted literally as a half
man, half woman. So usually it'slike right down the nose. Like,
if you were to make like, twosides of your symmetrical body,
one side would be very mask,usually shirtless, with like a

(01:04:28):
man Peck, and then on the otherside there'd be like a very over
developed, like breast andtushy, okay. And so that
version, like, I thought thatthat was doing, was doing work
too. Like you are grounding thisin an actual form of a deity,
yeah? And you are praying to it,and we watch that prayer happen
in that big tree scene, whereasBaba, Shakti just has people

(01:04:49):
cheering for him, yeah? And sothose feel interesting,
especially because Shakti justmeans, like it's the active
divinity that is femininecoding. And so, like, I think
they were doing things on Ithink those things felt
purposeful,

yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there were a
number of moments that were onpurpose. I just don't think a
whole lot of folks did anythingabout making those moments come
together in that thing we callstory. Yeah,

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'sgreat. What happens, I don't
know. Just don't fuck

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

Well, gang in that we're not gonna
give you any homework, but Iwill put in the show notes, some
reviews of this film thatinclude religion. I will put
some Hijra resources, and I willput some stuff about Amar,
Chitra, Katha and the use ofHanuman in that very nationalist
series. And I'll throw somethings about Hijra. And if I
didn't say that already, you canstill find us on social media.

(01:05:53):
We are I'm about to shut down myTwitter. I don't know about you,
but we're there. If you're stillthere, otherwise, find us on
Instagram. That's our primarysocial media right now, as well
as Tiktok. And we do have aFacebook page, but most of you
aren't there. We're not usingGrandpas now. Who goes there?
Yeah. And if none of that, Idon't know, monkeys your man.
Monkey's your man, then you cancheck us out on our website,

(01:06:15):
which is keeping it one, oh,one.com. As always, you are
encouraged to drop us a ratingor review in your podcaster of
choice. And since we have justput out our book, religion is
not done with you. We would alsostrongly, strongly, strongly
request that you put ratings andreviews of that book on Amazon
or Goodreads. You don't have tobuy from those places, but it

(01:06:35):
does help us out. And if you'dlike for us to visit your
campus, your bookstore, yourlocal public library, please,
please, please, reach out to usor to Caitlin Meyer and Our
incredible marketing andpublicity team over at Beacon.
Everything I just said is on thewebsite. So by all means, go
check it out. And with that,peace out nerds and do your

homework. It's on the syllabus. You

Simpsons (01:07:12):
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 (01:07:41):
finally made me. I love you. Dr Zam.

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