Movie Review: Kurbaan - Typically Stereotypical

Kurbaan proves yet again – if proof were needed – that Karan Johar is incapable of churning out anything but the worst stereotypes. Harsh, perhaps, but it is my honest assessment of his work so far.

In Kuch Kuch Hotaa Hai, for instance, Rahul (SRK) is attracted to Anjali (Kajol) only when she trades in her Western outfits for sarees, loses a basketball game to him, and drops her pallu for his gaze. This is as offensive to men as it is to women. In Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, the women suffer silently to feed a patriarch’s gargantuan ego, and when he finally caves in – presto! – all those tears that poor saas and bahu had shed are suddenly water under the bridge.

True, Hindi cinema isn’t exactly big on independent women with a mind (let alone sexuality) of their own. But, unlike Johar’s films, there’s no duplicity in the works of the other blockbuster directors. So when Sooraj Barjatya makes a Hum Aapke Hain Kaun or a Vivaah, he seems to believe in his work; the universe of these films, and the characters that inhabit that universe are extensions of his world view – the sincerity shows. Whereas Johar’s yuppiness on his talk show (his rather bold assertion, for instance, that he doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage) doesn’t quite square with his championing of the traditional on celluloid. There is a cynical marketing strategy at work here: given the big bucks he puts in to a film, he’d rather pander to an imagined lowest common denominator than speak his mind - a deception that is the politician’s stock in trade.

Johar may liken himself to Yash Chopra, but no woman in his films has ever had an iota of Rekha’s sexuality in Silsilaa (which, incidentally, never made the kind of money Johar's films do). In fact Johar is closest to Ekta Kapoor. (That both have a 'K' fixation is no coincidence. When you don't believe in your work, superstition is all you've got. Unless, of course, Johar doesn't know that the word is qurbaan). Since he doesn't understand the characters he creates, stereotypes are all he can come up with – it may not be intentional but it is inevitable.

In Kurbaan, the worst stereotypes are the Muslim characters: Riyaaz (Vivek Oberoi), the only young Muslim male who isn't a terrorist, asserts that he's American and that “our side” is the embedded media version of events; his father, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, sides with “his people” on religious grounds (“mazhab se wafaadaarii”). No one objects to the American invasions on secular, humanist bases: the issue here is framed in a classic 'with us or against us' binary. The Muslims live in eerie suburbs, killing wives and planning attacks in their spooky basements; the “ali maula” number plays in the background when the terrorists are carrying out their dastardly attacks; the damsel in distress is a liberal Hindu girl (couldn't she have been Muslim, or is that asking for too much imagination?) who probably should've respected her father's reservations about marrying a Muslim. (At one point, I hoped that the heroine would turn out to be paranoid-schizophrenic, driven by the desolate suburbia and an Electra complex to imagine the worst about Muslims – some kind of a comment on latent biases. Then I remembered it was a Karan Johar movie.)

To top it all, there's the Hannity and Colmes phenomenon - the good Muslim is Vivek Oberoi and the terrorist is Saif Ali Khan. Guess which one is more charismatic. If the Muslims have it bad, the Anglo-Saxon Americans aren't spared either. The white students that speak out in a classroom debate are all pro-war – a gross misrepresentation if there ever was one; and the cops are geeky, clueless and ineffective. There isn't a shred of the nuance or sensitivity we've seen in Kabir Khan's Kabul Express and New York, or Mira Nair's short on 9/11. All we have is insiduous stereotypes - all unintended perhaps, but inevitable, given the absence of conviction.

Even if you look past the issues of representation, the pretensions of topicality, and the simple minded politics, the script is riddled with craters left over by blasts – far too many to enumerate.(And what on earth was Anurag Kashyap doing co-writing dialogues for this?) Someone in the row behind mine quipped, “Should've stayed home and napped”. “Curb-yawn huwaa”, anyone?