Monkey Man and the politics of South Asian representation

Indians are not hungry for action heroes. At least those who grow up in India. Since the 1970s, when Amitabh Bachchan trailblazed as a vengeful, angst-ridden anti-hero waging a lone battle against all of India's ills, Indian movies have produced a steady stream of lead characters on screen who send villains flying. This is true not just of Hindi cinema (known mainly as Bollywood) but of most Indian cinema (of which there are many, as I have written on these pages before). So, a young Indian boy looked not only to the Marvel superhero and an assortment of American action stars but also to their homegrown variety. There was no dearth of Indian representation in the violent tales.

But the South Asian diaspora is vast and calls all parts of the world home. And for them, at least, if their access to South Asian popular culture was denied or hard to access, they did not have representation on screen. Children who grew up in lands far away from India and who were not surrounded by a robust Indian community were cut off from the rich, melodramatic, musical, over-the-top representation of their culture and social mores on the big screen. And they had no representation in the dreamworlds of Hollywood.  

That representation matters is a cliche. But cliches can still be valid. Having grown up with the majesty of Mohanlal and Amitabh Bachchan, I never yearned for representation on the big screens. Yet, I remember being excited when Kal Penn's Kumar went to white castle (in 2004) many years after Peter Seller's Hrundi (in 1968) went to a party. Mindy Kaling, Priyanka Chopra, and Never Have I Ever have represented the other fifty percent of the Indian diaspora. My daughters will not need to go down a cultural "ethnic" detour to find representation. Aziz Ansari and Hasan Minhaj have also represented India well in excellence and, now, in controversy.

However, action heroes in the American mainstream were always a bridge too far. While I had always dreamt of a mainstream Hindi lead actor taking on the role of a Bond (Amitabh, Hrithik, Shah Rukh all fit the bill), the lack of imagination on the part of the franchise producers- not an unfamiliar trait to Hollywood studios - meant that they missed an easy play. Forty years later, they are still talking of a non-white, non-male Bond. This has meant that there has been no South Asian character kicking the proverbial behind on the big screen in the West. South Asian characters in significant action Hollywood productions tend to be the doctor or the scientist or, as in the Bond movie Octopussy, the autorickshaw driver.

Until Monkey Man. Dev Patel, the British actor of Indian descent, stars and directs this violent, gritty, and stylish thriller. With a plot inspired by countless action movies (in and out of India), the film stands out for its treatment. Shot with dark filters, it portrays the fictional Indian city of Yatana, which is steadily under the control of a political party that uses religion as a means to power and exploitation. There is little that is original in the tale or in its setting. In fact, I felt a pang of irritation at the old-fashioned orientalism of it all. Over-the-top villains, the teeming masses, and the desperate stylized poverty are all cliches when it comes to portrayals of India when the West tries to make a movie of it. Shantaram's tiresome earnestness and painful stereotypes were the most recent examples of such unfunny excess.

But I enjoyed Monkey Man despite all this. It was fun. And I rooted for Patel. He is intense, serious, quiet, and desperate as a man bent on revenge. He finds kindred souls in a community of transexuals who challenge the corrupt powers that be. The margins strike back. Despite the overpowering obviousness of that metaphor, it was fun to see tabla maestro Zakir Hussain play the tabla to the rhythms of Patel's punches.  

Patel is not the typical action hero - he is thin, sleek, and svelte. He does not look like a Stallone or a Rock, who are built to intimidate. Dev Patel is built to be underestimated in a fight. An apt metaphor of the South Asian experience. He makes up for his lack of brawn with a kinetic and dynamic energy that brings Bruce Lee's screen presence to mind. And what was Bruce Lee but a challenge to the underestimation of the Asian-Americans. While Dev Patel is no Bruce Lee, he does justice to this tale of a marginalized Indian seeking to say his piece in a cruel, corrupt world. I can cheer for that. And I can cheer for this representation on the big screen.