In a world where testosterone-driven, super-hero sequels rule the Hollywood framework, women and their choice of cinema become a “niche” rather than a holistically accepted choice of half our human genome sample. In a patriarchal society like Pakistan, the decisions of media production as well, unsurprisingly, rest mostly on males. Likewise, the projections of women in the media are corresponding to male expectations of women in the society whereby the single female is allowed to dress more sexy and provocative and the minute she gets married, she is wrapped in modest attire and immediately submissive to her man. She is always a source of distraction or an object of attraction. The only consistently respectful female figure in the media would have to be the "mother" as socio-religiously, she is considered close to God in Islam. To top it all, women's stories are not considered "commercial" enough because they lack the machismo. The root of superhero and machismo cinema, I beg to differ, is not the debatable splurge of the young male viewer, the root is in the decision making powers that be - males who have grown up loving the comic book, superhero, action genre. It is not a consumer-incentivized decision, it is a producer-incentivized decision that worked on the consumer level. Now it is about the profit margin that a big-budget film can make. The reality is that women's stories and women directors are going to be sidelined because their “brand” is considered a niche that many a executive are scared to fund because niches by definition don't make the same profit margin. So be open, don't tell me that no one wants to see women's films, tell me bluntly that they don't give you a pie big enough to stuff in your shareholder's portfolio folders.
I feel a certain level of elevation in my personal life, emotional maturity and my career...can't quantify it but let's just say that the intellectual wisdom of experience and age has clicked a full click...maybe a click that was in motion for the past couple of years finished it's cycle or a click for the next cycle started but there was definitely a click. Things seemed more obvious, people seemed painfully obviously fake...or not (I wonder if they realize how easy it is to tell and if they even care that it is easily told about them). Life and death made a more emphatic appearance. I lost a dear friend in a tragic, unfair car accident and that made me realize how important my time here on Earth is. That led to a few positives and a few negatives. Positives: I started shaving off people I knew were dead weight in my life, no mutual benefit of being friends...pure time sucks...parasites which you can accumulate a lot of living in LA. I became more aware of working on my passion projects, including my family and the absolute loves of my life. I became more impatient with things needing to happen sooner rather than later...after all, it might all just end so soon. But then my mother, as always chimed her voice of reason, "if it ends, then you won't need all this that you are vehemently working for anyway!" Simple. Straight. To-the-point.
I received recognition from film organizations as a writer/director. My work climbed a notch of professionalism. I was sought after based on my work and not on my personal vouching of my work. That could be for various reasons...either I had paid enough dues for someone to bother to take me seriously...or my finessing of my projects finally caused them to give the odd sparkle...or I had just been around long enough for the searching eye to land on me in its usual probabilistic search sweep. I guess I started believing in the myth of "stick around for a while, and it will happen". I don't know whatever it was, all I know is that I was grateful but I also realized how much farther I had to go. That further caused a few more worries: When will I get to the metaphorical "there" and if I do end up somehow getting "there", will there be a further "there". I realized...of course there will be. I somehow knew it but it "clicked" more definitely just now and I have to admit, it makes me uneasy.
I always knew I had signed myself up for a harder, envied by most and supported by few, 'follow your dreams' career. I implicitly knew that the struggle would be for a lifetime in one essence or another but now I wonder if I am really up for so much inertial motion that filmmaking is all about. It seems that it doesn't really get easier for your 2nd or 3rd or 4th film...eh...I figure I might as well make the 1st before over-analyzing but I tell you folks, that is a small eddy current somewhere in the back of my over-stressed and under-worked brain.
I did get patient in other ways. In collaborations, in friendships, in expectations but I do have a long way to go.
I collected many a wonderful moments in 2009 so the regrets are not too many. Here is what I want from 2010:
- a quantum leap forward in my career in that I want to have the luxury of being able to put my all into my upcoming film JOSH, in terms of time and energy
- more time with my family and closest friends.
- maintaining my health-conscious diet but including more workout.
- not losing my loved ones.
- enjoying life. Just stopping and breathing. Smiling and really feeling. That's something I feel I never do enough of...I know it but I just don't practice it as much as I would like to.
- not giving a flying **** about people who never really cared about you. Flipping off bad karma and bad energy.
- being around less fake people and being even more fine with speaking my mind.
- having faith...in Allah, existence, karma and all the amazing things about being alive!
Ok, I know that with the dawn of TiVo and DVR, people are forwarding through ads, there aren't as many “eyeballs” and there are no ad dollars anymore at upfronts and internet advertising is a pain and blah blah blah but...“Send groceries online to Pakistan”?!!!! Give me a break. Really. You know that scary stalker feature on gmail that suggests to you something exactly related to your email argument with your friend the other day? Like say you were having a conversation about rape and somewhere there you mentioned Belgian chocolates, the next day Gmail would have a header on your email advertising the best “Belgian chocolates”. Well I sure had some twisted combinations of conversations and Mr AdMan had this horribly wrong idea that I wanted to send groceries online for my mother in Pakistan, who is still blessed to have hormones skip her fruits and veggies and eats chickens that genuinely still have a head and two legs and don't add up to the size of a lamb leg.
I know I am rambling but I have just been paying attention to ads and getting infuriated. Everything is suddenly “organic”, “america's favorite”, and since it is America's favorite, must be the “world's # 1 choice”, “the healthy choice”...like the other day, I was in Starbucks (I haven't yet gone on a strike on all corporations...yet...though God grant me the courage to do so at some point in my life. At the moment I am feeling pretty shitty about buying into the car finance crap and paying Toyota my entire paycheck every month)...anyway...back to Starbucks. I saw this ad of Ethos water and how buying a..check this out...buying a bottled liter of water could give money towards a “great” cause in a third world country. So think about it. You pay money to a corporation that bottles water (don't know specifically about Ethos but most of the other ones) by privatizing water lakes and taking a free public resource and hardly increasing the water quality and selling it back to you (for those who haven't seen it, check out the documentary “F.L.O.W.”), so a company profiting on your free resources, a company stealing from your backyard YOUR property and selling it back to you is promising you that they will give a cut of their profit towards charity. Does that make their wealth halal...I don't know! But WHY on earth would I give to Ethos and not directly to a charity that gives ALL my money to that specific cause and then just drink a nicely filtered glass of tap water? Beats me. Maybe because, “Ethos is helping children get clean water” by bottling it in huge corporations and taking it away from them where they could have had it in abundance for free. I know I am hating but it just feels wrong. You know the old, “trust your instinct” which I am a BIG fan of.
It is like, I could have gotten all my produce healthy and “organic” if these horrendously blood sucking corps didn't come in the middle and hormonize all my food to multiply their profits. So now my only access to “organic” foods is twice the price of the generic stuff which is just unnecessary. And who knows what that “organic” stuff is anyway? How did we get here? So looks like capitalism is serving us really well. People decided to make businesses, these businesses got bigger, people got greedier and decided to increase profits beyond the normal, honest level and had to obviously cut something...so they cut quality, not caring a bit about the impact on population. They overtook all the supply chains so people had to depend on them. Now the smaller, honest, farmers and suppliers are competing with them and have to be more expensive to survive (or maybe they are cheating us too). I don't know anymore. It just all feels wrong.
And then those radio ads...the ones that read an entire page of “fine print” dialogue in 30 seconds. WHAT IS THAT? Who came up with that. Can they say less and say it audibly or does all the legal jargon that still hasn't seen an axe from the “paperwork reducing act” that has been in the works for all these government terms, not let them? I mean some things in America just plain shock me. They are sooooo foreign to me. Really. The first time I heard those speedy ads, I thought my radio had some wiring fault. But no. People really do that. Cram it down their throats. Let them figure it out. Throw volumes of junk mail in their boxes, insert millions of pop up ads, rack 52 types of bread on the grocery aisles, box everything to be confusingly similar to the next. Just let them figure it out! Let's compete, surely they want choices. Who doesn't like having all options?
But you know, too many choices can sometimes only confuse and stress. Like when I came to this country the first time and got my first mailbox, I was SO excited that I had been “pre-selected” for a special credit card from WAMU and I received a “special” rate on my cable. Can you imagine if I had not listened to my roommate and seriously followed up on all those pretty genuine letters (atleast pretty genuine to a foreigner)? I probably would still be on hold 9 years later with an intellectually challenged customer service representative who at first would be artificially friendly like she were a neighbor and then would repeat the same answer no matter what I asked her?
So Mr Ad Man, I know you are Uncle Capitalism's twin brother, but please spare me the clutter, spare me my eyeballs. I need my time and space to....weigh my options, to make some choices!
I was at the dentist’s the other day and during the “wait despite having an appointment” wait-time, I was subject to the barrage of sensationalized news on American TV that I otherwise avoid. The most informed and well-rounded source of news for me are the (NY Times of course http://www.nytimes.com/) and the (BBC world news http://news.bbc.co.uk/). Surprisingly, I came across a program on CNBC, called “Who are the Super Rich?”, that engaged me on some level of economic catharsis. It talked about the rise of billionaires in America, from just 13 in 1985 to more than 1000 today. Amazing, shocking. I have to admit, as the shock subsided, a trickling anger and disgust began to surge. Some of the people on the program talked about how their biggest challenge in life was how they could accumulate more and more billions. I was frustrated not at rich people but what happens to their psyche when they do get rich. And yes, this might be a generalization but one that I have observed with a lot of truth to the cliché. Some sort of twisted addiction to wealth has to explain the increasing divide between the wealthy and the barely home-ful.
To me, an immigrant of about roughly 8 years now, life in America seems like one is stuck in a vicious cycle of employment, career choice, compensation, and expenses. Once in one cycle, you are stuck and getting out is purposefully made so difficult. Maybe it is the peace of mind with which people pile on stacks of credit: I will buy a car, a home, everything on loan and somehow I will be stuck for the most of my life repaying it, but that’s ok. Too many strings attached. For instance, the other day, a filmmaker peer of mine commented on how “the cost of living is so high that in trying to satisfy the cost, we are forgetting to live.” And that somehow describes my experience with life here in the States in a nutshell. The high cost of living and the incessant distractions and desire to replace simpler, relationship desires and spirituality with material objects seems to be what I see everywhere.
Anyhow, back to the billionaire point. The rich are getting richer and in fact, being bailed out for being rich—the beast of corporations is hard to shun apparently—and it is all being done with complete ignorance of the long run and solely for the short-term gain. I shouldn’t be that surprised though, given we all know the nature of human greed. The hardworking engineer is an intellectual, who went to a hyper-challenging college, and is making 60K, while many of those who went party-schools and became finance guys ended up raking in the big bucks. I don’t get it. The hike in salaries of the technology guys is so slow and so low whereas the service and finance industries are comparatively out of bounds. And then we wonder why no high school kid wants to do science in this country. Value of life and satisfaction of concrete contribution to society aside, how about putting a fair price to the worth of scientists and teachers and engineers? Or are we punished for our inelastic desires to serve the country? My engineer peers are slowly creeping up the salary curve but they will always be trumped by the wall street types, the bankers and the investment people. All their lives, they will get the cheaper house, the lesser vacations, the cookie cutter life that engineers before have been made to have. This is for you and this is how it is done. If you want to break out of this mold, this vicious cycle, you have to expend all your energy and take mountains of risk to maybe catch the mirage that is called the American Dream.
All this aside, do we really feel that the economy or the social crisis has any impact on the rich? I am sorry in sounding so aggressive but is it just me who feels that the rich have an obligation to giving back? It could be my Islamic upbringing since charity or Zaka’at is one of the pillars of Islam. Around 2.5% of your wealth is delegated to mandatory recirculation into the society. I see money as a zero sum game. If you have negotiated the same money that belonged to others through normal moral business or tricky, high lawyer fee games, and are hoarding it, then something is wrong. Money is not to be hoarded but again, are we surprised given that human greed element we just talked about?
I mean, the economy didn’t just fall like that. Clearly, there was some hoarding going on. The money is somewhere, it didn’t disappear overseas. But there are no laws when it comes to high payouts and CEO compensations and trickeries of investments, whereas there suddenly are laws when Obama asks to reverse compensations or when people start talking of charity, higher taxes for the rich or payback time. This system is bound to fail at some point; a lop-sided scale will eventually break.
A friend from NYC told me that the rich have special back door service in some shops in the city now snince they are embarrassed to carry their PRADA and GUCCI bags out the front door in the economic crisis. I say, at least they are sensitive to it! I might be quite aggressive here, but I feel that when you are holding hoards and hoards of society’s and the economy’s bloodline, then you are bound to be socially-conscious when you think and spend. Shop, buy what you want but in that massive piggy bank of yours, give back selflessly a bit as well. There is no one-way artery for the green bill, and that is something hard for some of us to digest.
Very often, for being honest and straightforward, (even on demand for being honest) I have gotten the following vibes:
"She is too busy/cool/good for you."
"What a bitch?!"
"Who asked for her opinion"
"Wow, she thinks she is so smart."
"That is so not true. She is just saying that to make you feel bad."
"She thinks too highly of herself."
I cannot fathom why people get offended if you are genuinely busy and excuse yourself for not being able to deliver on something rather than faking it, committing to it and then not delivering anyway because you were so busy in the first place and you knew you couldn't deliver but you continue to lie to make them feel content and dream on even though in the heart of heart, even they know you are busy...am I making any sense?
So then, it seems like the system is set up to bruise and burn the truth-tellers even on the simplest levels of daily life. But I protest...I will try to keep myself from the fakeness as long as I can.
In this town, we, or better yet, even you would rather that we give you a sugar-coated poison pill than point to a jar of poison pills and warn you...because in the end it is not about you or your agenda or your dreams, it is just about getting you out of the way but still keeping you in and around just enough so that tomorrow, if you are someone we might NEED to know, we have access...
...so play with the bone, my dear puppy!
This post is dedicated to Kenny who urged me to quit complaining and write a bit.
Young, mid-twenties, blond haired woman: “Two for Slumdog.” Old white man in his Southern accent: “Hi, I would like four seniors for Slumdog Millionaire please.” I heard old, young, white, black, brown, most people in this long holiday line at an indie theatre in Pasadena chant for the latest “Danny Boyle” flick. What about Slumdog is different, is new, is so catchy that Hollywood is responding in such an unexpectedly devout manner? Is it A) Danny Boyle B) India C) Bollywood D) The new hip thing to do or E) All of the above. I wonder if Jamal Malik would get this answer exactly right.
I saw the film at a Fox sneak preview and was also enlightened by a not so enlightening Anil Kapoor who could only rave about his correct judgment (or rather his son’s correct judgment) of his participation in the film. Let’s just say that any detailed thought was just not within reach of his inspection of the film which, amongst other things, melted a childhood hero in front of my eyes.
During the last month, just silently observing filmmakers, peers in and out of the industry reacting to Slumdog Millionaire, I have been wondering what exactly about the film has translated to the West. I had a couple of control cases, what if some unknown director from India directed the flick; would it be as much of a sensation? Well, maybe they would direct it in Hindi and work with actors who subsequently were more accurate in their dialect and depiction of slum people. It would certainly be more “authentic” but would it be more popular? Clearly, by now you can guess that I think not. Danny Boyle, who I admire to the core as an adventurous filmmaker, clearly has the pull and the built-in fan audience to create the seed audience for the film and clearly his involvement is what has caused the initial snowball to form, the other factors which I will mention later, were in my opinion the grease for the snowball effect.
Hollywood is vastly interested in Bollywood these days. Whether it is Will Smith’s Overbrook investing or Yash Chopra’s Roadside Romeo cooperation with Disney or the Ambani-Spielberg-Dreamworks venture, there is clearly a foresight in the business titans of LA that India has and will be a big player in the movie business owing to the die-heart loyalty of film fans. They thought that Hollywood would probably not replace Bollywood films in India in terms of popularity, so why don’t we stark taking a bite out of the Bollywood industry, whether it is Saawariya or Singh is Kinng or Chandni Chowk to China Town? Smart I say. So the occasional eruption of the Bollywood or Bombay or Mumbai or India or Hindi or Yoga or Ashthram effect is clearly surfacing and resurfacing for the American audience and so here comes a film indulged in just enough authenticity of the “true” Bombay and just enough of a Bollywood style in terms of the love story and the shockingly much appreciated end credit song gag and just enough of logic to make it digestible to a self-taught and more knowledgeable audience, and boom, the volcano erupts, the fireworks are unleashed!
With the right timing, the right ingredients and the proper distribution plan, Slumdog Millionaire is easily this year’s favorite holiday cookie. It might even find itself an Oscar nomination or wow, even a win. Not to say that it is the best movie of the year, but clearly the most popular because by this time all you young ones hopefully know how the world, the industry, politics and its ranks work.
And for the few of us who wished that exhibition dollars aside, the film was in Hindi or Dev Patel worked a bit more on his accent, who cares. It is not about being perfect, it is about delivering at the right time with mostly the right ingredients and you have a happy film cast and crew, a happy studio and a happy American family returning from the theatres chanting, “Wow, I never saw that side of Mumbai, I guess they keep that away from the tourists.” To which I thought, “Taj to the dark limousine to Goa to the dark limousine to spas and yoga and massage to the dark limousine to the airport will certainly make you miss that side of Bombay…but then again, who cares and who is listening anyway!”
- health and respect and love
- not my loved ones in pain or illness or death
- more "change" from Obama
- less of Pakistan in trouble
- less violence all over the world including the Congo, Zimbabwe, Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, France, every---freaking---where...you get it? :o(
- more tolerance and co-existence
- apologies and long-lasting reunions amongst estranged friends and family
- more time to relax and be with myself
- more expression of feelings all over
- more opportunities to get paid directing
- less STRESS
- more moments with my mother
- healthy and not fighting parents
- my nephew grow up to be a healthy and happy boy
- my personal challenges resolved
- my first feature get moving!
- a nice professional meeting with Shah Rukh Khan!
So I heard Mr Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown's counter-terrorism expert talk about how after the Bombay attacks, "we will be studying the terrorist methodology" in West Point and we have to RETHINK the whole terrorism planning strategies because they have surprised us.
My questions are:
- What the **** have you been doing with all this defence money and wars and military and intelligence if the terrorists still take you by surprise every single time?
- It is like their plan is working and they are putting the entire world to war, making the entire world spend on defence and research as they continue to move ahead and strike while we are too busy talking and strategizing and pointing fingers in all wrong directions.
- There was also mention of counter-terrorism has to rethink strategies in nuclear and biological warfare and the Obama administration will have to think of "germ warfare". Is this really what we have evolved to? Is this really what we have spent so many resources on to develop machinery to go out into space, discover life on Mars to end life on Earth? We the humans...the "so-called superior" race are going to self-eliminate our brilliance, our achievements. Oh, let's learn to clone beings, let's do stem cell research to save people so we can kill them with germ warfare!!!
- All I can see if there is a potential Indo-Pak war (which would break my heart as I love my country and respect India and Indians many of who are an integral part of my life), is that the enemies of both countries will conquer..yet again...whoever they might be, Islamic extremists, Hindu extremists, Jewish extremists or extremists period.
Why then can we not rise above this finger pointing and really think who is to gain from all this? Neither country, right? Or are there some possible gains which anyone is welcome to point out to a blind and disillusioned Iram this morning?
All I can see is that whatever this terror beast (which disheartens me is using the name of my enlightened faith) is WINNING every time.
After 7 freaking years of bloodshed and war, America has still not defeated Islamic extremism in Afghanistan (well that's because daddy Bush needed to take personal revenge from Saddam and distracted the whole wild world from the issue at hand again). What about all those innocent people, those young soldiers (many of whom don't even personally agree with all this anymore) who die and those brainy experts who sit and analyze these political acts day in and day out? Do you not also feel fooled like I do every morning? Do you not think there is a bigger plan at work which none of us are explained? Do you not feel there is a BIG BEAST behind the curtains laughing at the way we react and the way we are destroying our own incredible races?
I mean the Pakistani taliban chief, Behtullah Mehsud (who in the news was dead a couple of months ago!) resurfaces to tell Pakistan to shift its army towards the Indian border as the Taliban will ceasefire to sit on the sidelines and the bleachers and cheer on this war? I mean it is INSANE...doesn't anyone else see the absurdity? How can enemies just "peace out", call a "timeout" and talk about something entirely separate but not call "timeout" to talk about their matters. It is all such a DRAMA! How can al-Qaeda declare in the news that we did or didn't do this attack but when it comes to finding them, we are at loss...they access us all super easy thanks to ITech but we can't use all our tech to access them. There is such an ironic chaos yet organization in everything. I am going insane with the ironies!!!
When airlines get stricter, a terrorist plants a shoe bomb
When the entire world's shoes are taken off during security checks, they start mixing fluids to make bombs
When the entire world is not allowed to take a deoderant or perfume on board, they figure something else out!
They are clearly AHEAD and we are nipping not even at their heels. What then I ask will further war and escalation achieve but give them victory after their so called sacrificial deaths? Go on, let's give them more victory, let's make them win even after we feel we have defeated them by killing them which in their eyes is personal and spiritual victory anyway...
When this race started, I was not a big fan of Obama or his Pakistan-bashing statements. I voted for Hillary and still would if it were between him and her. However, once she was out of the race, I started paying more attention to him and started seeing the impact he had on people. The frequency of his voice, the stature of his hands, the posture in which he stands, the words he selects and the sincerity in his eyes, which are all refreshing and infectious. Plus I would support him anyway because he is democratic and the better choice between him and McCain.
A lot of political commentators say that Obama seems like a boring man behind closed doors, away from the crowds, despite his charisma and public pull but he seems to be a man of sensitivity, intelligence, goodness (as much as a Politician can) and realism.
Yesterday, I was at the Pasadena Hilton with 800 people in the room screaming at the top of their lungs. They cried, laughed, yelled, danced, sang. They were white, black, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, women, men, children, old, young, gay, straight, Republican, Democrat...all colors, all shapes, all sizes and all dates...and they were happy, surprised and jubilant.
It was overwhelming and I couldn't stop my tears from streaming, my heart from beating fast and my hands from trembling. I had an internal smile. Quiet. Just observing, just taking it all in. Just grasping it all to relay to my generations beyond.
What was especially interesting was the renewed confidence I saw in every black person I saw in the room. It was personal to them, it was a "Now, talk to me!" sort of confidence. I had mixed feelings about that simply because I do not think Obama represents the African American sensibility of most African Americans who have the history of slavery on the back of their minds. He is half black and that too African more than African American (since his father was African). Yes he is American by his generation but the way he looks at Black America I feel, is slightly different from the African American friends and colleagues I know. So instead of making this just a win of race, let's make it a win of his person and his values and morals.
When we walked out of the hotel party, there were five African American men, drunk and dressed in a thug-like manner, personalizing his victory which again got me a little confused. Obama is up there because he is him and because he is not like you, I felt like saying. Being Black is just one of his characteristics and I hope that his being up there inspires you to be more like him or more like a lot of educated, polished, well-behaved black people I know of. I felt like saying that but of course, race is sensitive of an issue. Being a colored person myself, I do understand that and being Muslim and being discriminated against, I understand that a lot. Trust me...
Of course we cannot overlook the race aspect but today I wish we could congratulate Obama on his win not because of "the skin of his color but because of the content of his character". Let's not make this a personal victory over just race but over morality, viewpoint and hope.
Hey Everyone
So I have finally come by someone who is doing grass roots work in Pakistan that I trust and want to help. Her plight is that starvation and the lack of ability to feed oneself and one's children is the root cause of crime and depression in society. Her turning point in life was when she heard of a woman who had to kill her two children and then herself because she was unable to provide for them. Just imagine the plight of a mother...how desperate must she be.
In the month of this blessed Ramadan, I am starting this task to collect however much money I can to buy flour for Ms Parveen Saeed's Khana Ghar (Food house) and deliver it to her personally if I can, the next time I head to Pakistan (insha'Allah).
I am not making a group and inviting people as I don't want people to feel forced to do this but just think, even if you can donate a quarter or 50cents, I will take it.
$1 will feed 30 people once a day!
This woman is doing a remarkable deed in a time when our governments should be addressing these challenges.
Unfortunately there is no direct donation on their site but feel free to contact them directly. However, if you want someone you know to physically take their donation to them (which is how I often feel and which is why I am undertaking this), please contact me. Their website is:
http://hasan-saeed.com/
So either email me at parveenshahproductions@gmail.com or just facebook me or just mail me a check or give me your donation when you see me in person.
For checks:
Iram Parveen Bilal
120 South Chester Avenue, Apt # 6,
Pasadena, CA, 91106
Thank you for your time, positive energy and your donations.
Bless you all and bless people like Parveen who still inspire hope in this world.
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