A utopia in a woke world?

Encanto (2021)

Director: Jared Bush and Byron Howard

Something is unsettling about this Disney animated musical. Sure the animation, the colour, and the music are spellbinding; it is the story that makes me think.

When I overanalyse the story, the more I feel it must surely be a wet dream for the proponents of the woke culture (or nightmare, depending on how you look at it). Colombians running from their motherland from atrocities (which they think were perpetrated by the US) were ushered in almost magically into a land of magic. In this magical land (the US, maybe), they were all given special powers (read special preference) to help each other in a Colombian only community. Perhaps others (non-Colombians) do not matter.

The next generation all grow up expecting to have special treatment - all the siblings and their siblings. They feel entitled to be treated differently. They deserve the magic that their predecessors received, even though their circumstances were different.

When these doors are not opened, they feel cheated and refuse to do their duty to the community. The community also needs to be blamed, for when someone reminds them of the rotten system and their imminent collapse, he is labelled as a traitor, an outcast, and put in cold storage. For a bit of semblance of sanity to prevail, the whole rot has to be purged away for new building blocks to be put in.

Maybe in not so your face manner, this musical tells the story of a matriarch who flees Colombia to be saved by a magic candle that builds a house for them and nurtures her children and grandchildren. The family and the rest of the community surrounding the shape-shifting mansion just make merry and dance all day through, unaware of the decay in the house's structure. The protagonist, a teenage girl who does not get her dues, goes on a crusade to find the real gift that she duly deserves.

Of course, it is not like that. Mind my wild imaginations! Did I mention the many biracial couples and the fleet of seemingly clueless and docile male characters? They form the woke narrative - payback time for all the toxic masculinity over the generations!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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A bigger agenda?

Diriliş: Ertuğrul (Turkish, Resurrection: Ertuğrul; 2014-19)
Season 1-5, Netflix.

They say it is all planned. Work has been on ever since the sick man of Europe crumbled at the might of the West. When the enemies stabbed their coup de grace into the heart of the pinnacle of their laurels, they knew they had to take matters into their own hands. The fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 heralded the Khalifat movement in India which subsequently saw the development of an Islamic State, Pakistan. But work was not complete, until and unless the glory of their past is resurrected. Leaders came, and leaders went. The world saw them all shrivel up and cosy up to the swaggering fingers of the enemies.

My realisation into this topic was triggered way back 40 years ago. I had just read about Mustafa Kamal Ataturk in my Std 6 history books. Yes, there was a time when the Malaysian Education Ministry actually thought that students need to be exposed to more things than just Islamic history. Discussions with my nerd friends a few years later made me realise that not everyone was happy with Atartuk’s modernisation endeavours and his female empowerment stance. They felt that he and the Young Turks were puckering up to the Non-Believers. Ataturk and the Young Turks could be the Abu Dajjal, the mythical Anti-Christ in the Islamic eschatology. 

This miniseries has taken the Islamic world by storm. It has also been referred to as the 'Islamic Games of Throne' - the halal option to the raunchy storytelling of Tinseltown's 'Games of Throne'. Followers insist that one can get all the fun with their clothes on. In GOT, strategies and deceptions are often planned in compromising positions whilst in the latter, they are done in a poetic language under the tent of the nomadic tribes. It has even a more significant following in Pakistan than in Turkey where it was made. Look around the cyberspace, and you will find only positive reviews. Evaluations coming from Islamic nations are only glowing ones. They are happy that an Islamic country can show Hollywood how to make movies without unnecessary exposure of flesh and commodification of the female body. Women empowerment is present, the Islamic way.

The miniseries, over five seasons and 448 episodes, tells the supposed tale of the father of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, Osman I. Apparently literature on Erdugul, father to Osman I, is scanty and only fills a single page. Still, the screenwriters have taken the liberty to expand their imaginations to come up with this smasher. A nomadic tribal Turkish tribe combats the Crusaders in a saga of sorcery, masculinity, great outdoors, swashbuckling violence, deception, pretty women, love, obedience to tribal mores and the worship of God Almighty. With each episode taking almost an hour to view, one will take eternity completely digest the whole story!

Detractors are mumbling that this offering is Turkey's way of announcing to the world that they mean business. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after elevating himself to the post of President, perhaps has secret ambitions of making himself the de-facto leader of the Muslim (Sunni Muslim) world, akin to the Caliph or Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Erdoğan is forming an allegiance with Pakistan, Malaysia and possibly China to see the fruition of his plan. At the same time, he would like to see Saudi Arabia, whom he accuses of sleeping with the enemy to crumble. Iran, who spurred the imagination of the masses that an Islamic Republic is even possible, simply cannot take the helm for their deviant ideology. Even the Pakistanis are finding more commonalities with their Turkish brothers than the motherland that they have carved away in a frenzy preceding the Partition.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.