Sita Sings the Blues and Ethnocentrism

Sita Sings the Blues: A Modern Ramayana Recapping



Sita Sings the Blues is a modern Ramayana recapping that goes through many modes of animation, descending the story through Sita's triste personality, rescued, rejected and exiled by her husband, Rama. Nina's own comical account of the breaking-up of her marriage is contrasting with Sita's sad story. Nina uses the themes of utter love and rejection, thus overcoming time and place, referring to Sita's own sad story. The video gives the early Indian story a thrilling westernized blend. Instead of focusing on the epic hero and main character, Rama, Nina focuses her story on the predicament Sita, Rama's wife, to compare and contrast her own modern disparaged romance. The background soundtrack is done by a 1920s jazz artist, Annette Hanshaw, songs which are brought out through Singing of Sita about being unhappily in love (Lodhia, 6).



Is Sita Sings the Blues Ethnocentric?



The big question that is normally asked is whether Sita Sings the Blues is ethnocentric or not in its nature. This paper seeks to answer the question by reviewing the available literature.



Discussion



Sita Sings the Blues is not ethnocentric because although the themes in the film are universal, Nina does not avoid using sarcasm and irony to point out the mockery contained in those universal feelings. For instance, there are three shadow puppets of Indian origin that, throughout the entire film, remark on the story with sharp hilarity and comical inability to accurately remember the facts. This is what makes the film successfully ethnocentric. The shadow puppets keep on talking about the story and commenting all along. They could occasionally comment simultaneously and apologize for doing so. The puppets also highlight some inconsistencies and holes in the plot, as well as give their narrations on Sita's outward blindness and poor decisions for tolerating Rama's 'nonsense.' Nina is poking fun at her past. This is one of the reasons why I disagree with the individuals who perceive the film as ethnocentric; because it ridicules the Indian culture. Most of them would see Nina's humor as being ethnocentric, expressly considering its viewpoints on Sita and her poor decisions. That cannot be true at all because Nina is Sita, and that is why she makes a parallel between her contemporary story and the historical fiction story of Sita. The themes and feelings expressed in the story eventually universal. For example, the feelings that Nina herself experienced in her marriage (Scott, 23). She is ridiculing herself for her blindness to the extent of allowing love to walk over her. She is also ridiculing those feelings that affect us in a manner that blinds us from appreciating the beauty in the world. The film is not ethnocentric because, although it employs an Indian concept, the themes addressed in the film are universal.



Conventionally, the Ramayana, on which the narrative of Sita Sings the Blues is based, is a more religious transcript centered on the Buddhist concept of dharma, which is an Indian principle. However, Nina is out to contest such Indian myths that support gender typecasts and self-justify male domination alongside with female enslavement; the main reason why the Hindu extremists were enraged by the film. Therefore, it can be argued the film is not ethnographic. Another thing that makes the film non-ethnocentric is the connectivity Nina achieves by paralleling the story of Rama and Sita with that of present-day day married couple, David and Nina, whose marriage breaks down when David abandons Nina in New York and goes on a prolonged trip to India. Heartlessly, he dissolves their relationship through an email. Nina is not the first filmmaker to try to revolutionize a sacred text.



Nina's film brings two periods, traditions, and cultures together to bring out her message and convey the significance of her art through several generations and cultures. The script, the Ramayana, portrays an idealistic wife in the Indian culture whereby the wife is supposed to stick with her husband regardless of how poorly she is treated. In contrast, the modernized version, Sita Sings the Blues, portrays the concept as illogical and unacceptable because of the advancement of women. For instance, Nina argues out that happiness is not only achieved for being married with children but only when there is an understanding within the marriage. This proposes that when things do not work out in a marriage, the woman should move on as Nina did in her real life. Nina tries to bring out the ideal modern woman in contrast with the Indian culture ideal woman (Singh, 172). Therefore, there is no way the film can be said to be ethnocentric.



Rama in Ramayana is depicted as the perfect ideal man in the Indian culture. He is shown as a perfect husband, father, and son. Sita is shown as an ideal woman and a wife for him; therefore both function as a representation for perfect man and woman in customary Indian community. However in Sita Sings the Blues, Nina paints an altered, custom-made picture of Sita. Rama in the present age is viewed as someone who is egocentric and is unable to understand the value of a woman. Rama's actions deduce him to be an offensive and abusive fellow to his wife, a behavior that cannot be tolerated in the current society. In the Ramayana, Sita goes a long way and sacrifices a lot to be with the man she was devoted to. All these actions were socially acceptable at the era she lived in. However, we see Nina cannot get over a person who is just her boyfriend who did not treat her 'properly' from the start. This behavior is socially unacceptable in today's generation and is termed as "unhealthy relationship." From which Nina got over it slowly. Given both cultures brought out by the Nina, one cannot proclaim that the film is ethnocentric (Kohn, 13). Although both Sita Sings the Blues and Ramayana have a similar narrative, Nina modifies it to create relevance to today's society by surrendering the traditional feature of love in traditional Indian culture and bringing in the aspect of women rights.



Conclusion



Sita Sings the Blues is a modern recapping of Ramayana and passes through various animation styles to describe the story through the sad experiences of Sita. Nina utilizes the themes of total love and rejection in a manner that surpasses time and place, therefore relating her own sad tale with that of Sita. Sita Sings the Blues is not ethnocentric because, although it employs an Indian concept, the themes addressed in the film are universal. Also, Nina brings up two periods, traditions, and cultures together to bring out her message and bring the significance of her art through many generations and cultures.



Work Cited



Dodd, Kevin V. "Sita Sings the Blues." Journal of Religion & Film 13.2 (2016): 16.


Kohn, Eric. "A Filmmaker's 'Blues' Prompts Traditionalists To See Red." Jewish Daily Forward, May 29 (2008).


Lodhia, Sharmila. "Deconstructing Sita's Blues: Questions of Mis/representation, Cultural Property, and Feminist Critique in Nina Paley's Ramayana." Feminist Studies 41.2 (2015): 371-408.


Scott, A. O. "Review 'Legendary Breakups: Good (Animated) Women Done Wrong in India'." New York Times 24 (2009).


Singh, Amardeep. "Animating a Postmodern Ramayana: Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues." South Asian Review 30.1 (2009): 167-180.

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