Mr. India: The First Avenger

Red Skull - the villain of Captain America: the First Avenger

 

Mogambo - the villain of Mr. India

("Khush-Hua" means "is pleased" roughly)

Two similar movies, each with a focus on a main superhero who represents their country in ideals as well as name, fighting a villain who embodies the epitome of all they are against. 

Captain America. A hero of red, white and blue. 

Mr. India. A hero of . . . dark grey and . . . a beige hat?

Each hero has one thing (apart from their morals and ideals) that enables them to fight evil and be a hero in the first place. 

Cap has his super-serum, allowing him to ♫ run faster, jump higher. ♫

Mr. India has an invisibility bracelet, allowing him to turn invisible. 

They are both good men, with high ideals and moral standards, fighting bad men with none. Mogambo aims to destroy and control all of India, and Red Skull seeks the same, just with a larger target in mind: the whole world. 

Each character has a close connection to youth. Captain America was a young, weasel-y kid facing discrimination and bullying from others. Part of why he was bullied was because of his removal of local youth culture - the whole immoral, playboy nature of teens his age din't appeal to him - he had higher ideals. 

Mr. India is a kind man, who runs an impromptu (likely un-certified and illegal) orphanage for starving kids from the street. He takes any work he can to make up enough money to buy food for the kids, and he loves them deeply. 

Each character also is forced to deal with war. Captain America less so, because he did want to fight in the war. But nevertheless, he was chosen for the Supersoldier program, and thrust into World War II, fighting the Nazi War Machine, fighting fro freedom, and justice and liberty. 

Mr. India fights against Mogambo. Originally, all he wants is to feed the kids, but soon he is forced to fight the forces of terror commanded by Mogambo. Mogambo places bombs, and attempts to nuke India, and save for one bomb, Mr. India thwarts it all. 

Each movie is an origin story showing how one kind man becomes a hero and saves the world. Each hero fights a vicious, merciless villain commanding armies of minions, hoping for destruction and domination. Each time, the hero wins after a battle where the hero must sacrifice something. 

 Each character represents the highest, most praised ideals. Kindness, charity, selflessness, honesty and family. Superheroes are staples of cultures. I would be surprised to hear of a culture that doesn't have some form of hero. And a good, proper hero, from any culture, is likely to have the same ideals as another, no matter the time or location. Humans, in the end, will always hold in high esteem these certain ideals. 

The Prequels, The Originals, and The Sequels

That's gonna get confusing someday. Some kid in 2045 is gonna look up at their pa and say, "Dad, which Star Wars movies are prequels, which are originals, which are sequels, and which are spin-offs?"
And assuming that pa is me, I'd go, "well, son, it's like this, the prequels are 1-3, the originals are 4-6, the sequels are 7-9, and the spin-offs are Rogue One ad etc." But someday it'll get confusing. A different pa might have a real hard time answering his son's question.
Because apparently some people are sacrilegious freaks who've never seen Star Wars or aren't massive nerds about Star Wars. 

But let's focus on the originals. 
Is there a generation gap in Star Wars? A New Hope, specifically? I don't mean by the people watching it, but in the characters. Er, between them. Amongst them. Whatever. 

Wait. A Star Wars essay? I'm really doing a Star Wars essay?

I think first and foremost we have Han Solo. He'd be one of the "Silent Generation" kids. He's old enough to have experienced the Clone Wars as a child, and judging by this . . . 

He just totally seems like that kinda guy. Cynical, hard to impress.

Obi-Wan, on the other hand, definitely a G.I. kinda guy.

He's even more cynical, has experienced every war since the Clone Wars, very wizened.

Darth Vader falls into about the same category.

He's been apprenticed by a veteran, and he's a veteran, himself. He has been scarred and hurt by the wars he's seen, and it shows, boy does it show.

Leia is more . . . interesting.

A baby boomer, Leia is uptight and commanding, brought up as a princess, never having seen a war, being born after one. Luke is similar.

Obligatory binary sunset gif.

 

They are both very confident, perhaps to a fault, except perhaps for Luke in the first movie. 

But I mean . . . he's still confident.


Just a little whiny, that's all.



 NOTE: I will bulk this up later.

words

Class.

class

klas/

noun

noun: class; plural noun: classes

1. 1.

   a set or category of things having some property or attribute in common and differentiated from others by kind, type, or quality.

   "the accommodations were good for a hotel of this class"

   synonyms:

   category, grade, rating, classification, group, grouping More "a hotel of the first class" kind, sort, type, variety, genre, brand; species, genus, breed, strain, stripe "a new class of heart drug"

   • Biology

     a principal taxonomic grouping that ranks above order and below phylum or division, such as Mammalia or Insecta.
2. 2.

   the system of ordering a society in which people are divided into sets based on perceived social or economic status.

   "people who are socially disenfranchised by class"

   synonyms:

   social division, social stratum, rank, level, echelon, group, grouping, income group; More social status; datedestate; archaiccondition "the middle class"

   • a social division based on social or economic status.

     "the ruling class"

     synonyms:

     social division, social stratum, rank, level, echelon, group, grouping, income group; More social status; datedestate; archaiccondition "the middle class"

     
     
   • archaic

     the rich or educated.

     plural noun: the classes
   • informal

     impressive stylishness in appearance or behavior.

     "she's got class—she looks like a princess"

     synonyms:

     style, stylishness, elegance, chic, sophistication, taste, refinement, quality, excellence "a woman of class"

     
     
3. 3.

   a group of students who are taught together.

   • an occasion when students meet with their teacher for instruction; a lesson.

     "I was late for a class"

     synonyms:

     lesson, period; More seminar, tutorial, workshop, study group "a math class"

     
     
   • a course of instruction.

     "I took classes in Indian music"
     
     
   • North American

     all those graduating from a school or college in a particular year.

     "the class of 1907"
     
     

verb

verb: class; 3rd person present: classes; past tense: classed; past participle: classed; gerund or present participle: classing

1. 1.

   assign or regard as belonging to a particular category.

   "conduct that is classed as criminal"

   synonyms:

   classify, categorize, group, grade; More order, sort, codify; bracket, designate, label, pigeonhole "the 12-seater is classed as a commercial vehicle"

adjective

informal

adjective: class

1. 1.

   showing stylish excellence.

   "he's a class player"

   synonyms:

   classy, decent, gracious, respectable, noble "a class player"

 

 

Class. A word which entails activities or structures in which we all hate. Everyone hates being in class, in school, most people don't like their group with which they participate in classes with, everyone hates stuck up people, people who are lower-class hate being lower class. It's a universally sucky word. Nothing good really ever follows, aside from when you say, maybe, say, "first-class." Other than that, our mind thinks "school," "ugh," "ew," "procrastinate," "ugh," or "school." 

And when you watch Days and Nights in the Forest . . . yah. You think some of those. You see middle-class men, treating both upper- and lower-class men and women rather poorly. They have little money, mooch off of others, have high aspirations, and little to no resolve to actually go and do stuff. They are cared for by butlers, who are treated awfully and not thought of as human beings. This is normally considered the lower class. The upper class are the people such as the "Conservator." This person tries to kick the men out of the inn they are illegally occupying. Does he manage to? It remains to be seen - the movie doesn't explain. But what we do know is that the middle-class men don't give a darn.   

It's not a bad portrayal. The middle-class don't give a care and do mostly what they want, the upper-class try and keep everyone in check while they sit on their high horses, and the lower-class grovel at everyone's feet. 

. . . Isn't society great?

The 60s

 This is from an interview with my mother on the 60s, going point by point using the list supplied on the class blog.
 

• Poor family, on "welfare" which meant they got a commodities shipment once a month - a great big box of groceries: dried egg yokes Velveeta cheese, flour, sugar, stuff like that. Free "lunch" at school. Every morning, the teacher would hold roll-call, and students had to answer by saying hot or cold - cold meant you brought your own lunch from home, and hot meant you were buying the school lunch. But neither applied, because she was getting free lunch because she was on welfare. But that didn't matter, because the teacher would never call her name. When they lined up for lunch, she had to go to the end because she was getting it free. 
•  She lived in a rural small town, her dad worked in the city, which was about a 45 minute to an hour drive away. There was no person of color in her whole grade school, except there was a girl who was half-Japanese, and her brother. They never saw a black person. She was likely over twelve before she even saw a black person in real life. Very white. As for religion, mostly Lutheran and Catholic, she was Baptist and felt really out of place. People used racial slurs without even batting an eye. Her brothers would call people "wops," or "Jews," or they would say "you're trying to Jew me," which meant you were trying to finagle someone's money. 
• Her brothers knew they had to keep away from cops, and not be a hoodlum, not engage in any petty crimes. They knew that if they were going to make it, they had to make it on their own.   
• No supervision from parents. You could go out an run around whenever you wanted. In the summer she would leave at 10:00 in the morning and walk to her friend's house, which was two miles away. She would call her up, and they would meet halfway, go home, or go to the beach, get candy at the store, and wouldn't be back until suppertime. The girls had dolls and the guys had army guys, balls, they would play with sticks, and BB-Guns. The boys never really considered college - she and one of her sisters were really the only ones who considered college. There was a boys bedroom and a boys bedroom - with nine children, three guys were in one room, two boys in another, and all the girls in one room. Dating was a big deal; most people dated in high school, all her siblings dated in high school. On of her sister's dated in Junior High and got married at 16. 
• Her sisters had Ricky Nelson posters, but they weren't really into the Beatles, but they had posters of the Everly Brothers too. As for TV shows, they had Laugh-In - a "variety show," - music and comedy acts for an hour. It was apparently the funny one, with cutting-edge comedy no one else was doing. Goldy Hawn was there - she would dress in go-go boots and go-go skirts. The Mamas and the Papas were huge towards the end of the sixties. 
• Adults, for fun, would just go to the bar, unless you were a Christian, in which case you didn't do anything. Fishing and picnics were huge. The young'uns watched Tarzan every Saturday night, but at the same time everyone had a bath, so they missed fifteen minutes of the movie. The teenagers would have keggers, illegal beer parties. There were dances, too, every Saturday night at the Community Center. 
• Everyone was, surprise, surprise, afraid of nuclear bombs and Communists. The draft too. Not really much hope or aspiration in her town. Just get married, have a family, die. 
• She remembers when JFK was assassinated - she was at school, and they announced it over the PA. They wheeled a TV into every room and let them watch the news coverage. She remembers the funeral coverage. Her brother Dan was drafted and went to Vietnam, her brother Dave joined the Navy so she wouldn't have to get drafted, and the Navy didn't see much action in Vietnam. Her brother got drafted, but he didn't pass his physical, so he got sent back home. As for favorite objects, they had a good collection of cheap trolls, with the sticky-uppy hair.             

Hovercrafts and revenge

  A cool Hindi and a cool Bengali phrase I found.

  This gentleman will pay for everything . यह श्रीमान सब कुछ चुकता करेंगे. Yah śrīmān sab kuch cuktā kareṅge.

  My hovercraft is full of eels. আমার হভারক্রাফ্ট কুঁচে মাছ-এ ভরা হয়ে গেছে. Amar hobharkraft kunche machh-e bhora hoye gechhe.

Why saying so?

  It's probably irrelevant that this movie gave me the inspiration for two story ideas, but, well, it did. A Romantic Comedy with two brothers, with lots of money that they don't know what to do with, live in a quaint little house. They are constantly told they are worthless. They eventually both meet women and fall in love. But, thinking they are worthless, pretend to be different than they are, and each time they bring the girls over to their house they decorate the house differently. Queue hilarious scene where both the brothers are decorating the house, unknowing that the other is there. Also a YA drama. A villain studies people from around the world, chooses the best, most morally good people, kidnaps them, wipes their memory, and puts them in a village, letting them all be nice and have fun. The latter needs a lot of work.

  But anyways. The movie. The movie was entitled "Indrani." We watched said movie. 

  The movie shows a couple shunned by their families for marrying each other - the two being from entirely different castes. While it didn't seem clear to me, it seemed the woman, Indrani, was a higher-class, maybe a Brahmin, and the guy, who seems to have had several names, was a much lower class who was not only shunned because of his marrying Indrani, but earlier because he "didn't work."   

 The film is clearly not a propaganda film, but rather an ideological film. It very nicely portrays what it's ideal world is. One where everyone works for the benefits of everyone else, and there is no discrimination, and no elites, and if you take away all outside help, s long as everybody worked together, everything would be fine.  

  The movie shows Indrani and the dude's relationship struggle to remain stable - much like the relationship between the high and the low castes of the time. The lower castes were becoming restless with feeling so useless and segregated, but the higher castes remained mostly oblivious.

  Indrani is busy with work and never spends any time with her husband, who subsequently gets angry with her. He tries to find work, but is repeatedly shunned, so finally he leaves her to help start up a village far away.

 Upon hearing of this, Indrani comes to him, gives him a lecture about how grown up he suddenly is, and then the village is struck by lightning and burnt to the ground, and in the aftermath the two embrace, and roll credits.

  The film has quite a few songs in it, and, when you get past the horrid translation, actually still don't really make a lick of sense. 

An example of horrid translation from Bengali to English. "My heart is a crane, spreads its wings for fly to the unknown invitation." Yikes. 

  Sure it all sounds well and good, but when you dig in it doesn't really do that much. "The stars and moon are drunk." Okay. Yup. What does that mean?
  There were some tidbits here and there that made sense. Something about giving up everything for love.
  Sacrificing elitism for equality? Maybe. Dunno.

  It was a decent film, but honestly - is Indrani, the namesake of the movie, I might add, the villain? Cause she seems that way. A lot of the dude's hardships are her fault. For Pte's Sake, they were married, and she refused to sleep in the same room. (Is it some strange Indian cultural thingamajig?)

Nucluear bombs, aliens, irradiated bugs, and more aliens - who *wouldn't* want to watch something like that?

 Invasion of the Body Snatchers

 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Sounds real hilarious don't it?   So does

Invasion of the Mind Swappers from Asteroid 6!

  But the trick is that both sound equally interesting. As stupid and dumb and hilarious and hilariously stupidly dumb as both of these sound, don't they also sound really darn interesting to you? Don't you want to know more? That's the trick to all these 1950s-1970s Horror movie names. No games, no subtlety, no beating around the bush, just simple, long as heck, and straight to the point. In this day and age, you sure as heck wouldn't see a horror movie called Attack of the 50-Foot Woman. No freaking way. Instead, it's be called The 50-Foot Woman,  if we were lucky, but more likely it would be named either by the place in which the fifty-foot woman (who knows, in this modern era, sexism might bend it into a man) makes her "attack," or by the woman's (or, again, man's) name. 

  Them! is probably the shortest title you'll ever see plastered onto a 50s era movie, or really any movie, for that matter, considering it's one syllable. The shortest movie titles ever actually belong to two movies knows as Z and M. But that's off topic. 

Them!

  Not only is this the shortest title of the many irradiated monster movies  spawned by the 50s, but it's also one of the least descriptive. With other movies, we have War of the Worlds, pretty self-explanatory, considering we only have one world, thus alien invasion, duh-doy, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, also pretty darn self-explanatory, so does The Day the Earth Stood Still, It Came From Outer Space and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Sensing a pattern? You should.

  Enough about titles though. Why were all these classic, much-loved horror movies all cranked out in the Cold War era? What do they all have in common? Both of those questions can be answered with one question. 

  Above: Self-explanatory. You are not five. This is an 

article aboutthe Cold War. You see before you a red 

explosion in the shape of a mushroom. Extrapolate.

  

   If the answer you took away from that was "mushroom" or "cloud" or even "mushroom cloud" then I'm afraid I've got bad news for you: you're wrong. Yes. I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The correct answer is "nukes," or "nuclear bombs." Five points from Gryffindor.  

  In Invasion of the Body Snatchers, we see alien "seedpods" from outerspace landing on Earth, growing perfect replicas of the human beings in the town of Santa Mira. When the person whom the pod is growing a replica of falls asleep, they are replaced by the doppelganger. One could easily point out that this is almost blatantly trying indoctrinate Americans with the idea that this is indubitably what will happen in the event of a Communist or Soviet (God forbid, both) takeover. 

   The film seems, hilariously like it is trying to subtly convince the watcher that this is indeed the only outcome of socialist rule. We see mindless drones walking about like zombies towards the end of the movie - clear symbolism of the brain-dead nature of those, ahem . . .

  . . .  who are dominated by Communism. The movie seems to want to convey that, in the event of Soviet takeover, human beings will become, as portrayed in the movie, mindless drones. 

  The moral? 

  

You Communist fool!