Any which way but loose.

The Mule (2018)
Director: Clint Eastwood

It may not score high in the dramatic storytelling department. Neither would it be of high octane action nor of unpredictability tally. Nevertheless, the viewers are left pondering on the subtle message that it questions.

Clint Eastwood, now at almost 90 years young, after donning his rugged cowboy persona and uncompromising cop images at the height of his acting career, understandably assumes a more sedate role here. 'The Mule' is a straightforward tale of a Korean War Veteran, Earl Stone, who, after having put his work way ahead of his family all his life, to go back to his family upon foreclosure of his horticulture farm. In his heydays, he had won many awards in flower shows. 

Toughie of spaghetti westerns

His business went out of flavour after the internet business became popular. He is scorned by his family members, including his ex-wife and daughter. His granddaughter, with whom Earl is close, is getting married, and Earl has to help out. A chance meeting of her granddaughter's guest draws Earl to smuggle drugs across states. Somehow the pull to perform more trips just keeping on mounting as every turn of events becomes a reason to get more money - his dilapidated truck needed changing, the War Veteran Centre needed repair and so forth. His luck finally ran out, and Earl is apprehended. What does he have to do in prison - do his favourite pastime, gardening!

It makes one wonder what is actually the role of the father here. If he spends too much time outside the family circle working, i.e. to provide for the family, can he be blamed for missing all the so-called family time and skipping 'memorable events'? Conversely, if the parent decides that spending quality time with family rather than raking moolah for their wellbeing is more important, will the rest be happy? Can strengthening familial bonding be a substitute for wealth to prosper in life? 

@ 90 years old.

Either way, the father is going to be at the receiving end of it all. He may be accused of being an absent parent if he is not around and be taken for granted if he is seen everywhere in the household while not providing the bacon. Amidst all these, one wonders where the needs of the father go to? Is he supposed to quash all his happiness, immerse himself in providing for the family and find joy within the ambit of his familial achievements? Is his fate sealed once he utters 'I do'?

Nursing a dying tiger back to health is no guarantee that it would not pounce on you at the height of its hunger pangs. With the empowerment and wisdom imbibed upon the downlines, they use the very same new-found knowledge to attack the hand that fed them. They blame all their misgivings and failures in their lives on their perceived sub-optimal parenting. 

(P.S. 'Any which way but loose' is the title of Eastwood's 1978 movie. The title soundtrack was sung by Eddie Rabbitt. The title is an abstraction from the phrase 'you turn on any which way but loose'. The girl turns him on but cannot turn (cut) him loose, i.e., release him or give him back his freedom.)

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

It's so easy to fall in love?

Krishna and His Leela (Telugu, 2020)
Netflix

Even though this film has just been released, it has kicked up such a storm over the cyberworld. Hashtags like #BoycottNetflix and #KrishnaAndHisLeela are trending. People are calling @NetflixIndia Hinduphobic, citing many of its latest productions apathetic to the Hindu sentiments. Films like Sacred Games, Bulbul, Ghoul, Delhi Crimes and Leila have allegedly denigrated the Hindu deities. In this offering, is it a merely by chance that the main character's name coincides with the protagonist of the epic Mahabharata? Krishna in the movie is an indecisive chap who conveniently two-times his two girlfriends whose names just happens to be Lord Krishna's two of His eight queen-consorts, Radha and Satya. There is a third girl whose name sounds similar to Rukmini.

The fact that the protagonist pushed the boundary of public 'Indian' decency that ired viewers more. In most Indian movies, the story of a hero is only allowed to be engaged in relationships with more than one partner only when it is a comedy film or for actors in villainous roles. Still, engaging in sexual relations with more than one is taboo. Sex is revered a special status that is only reserved for that one true love. If a hero sacrificing his true love to marry someone else to defend social mores, that is alright, but not a wilfully two-timing. Characters with godly names and pushing the social boundaries is a tad too much for the public liking.

Ashtabharya (8 consort-queen) with Krishna -
19th Century Mysore painting.

It seems portrayal of Jesus Christ as a nose-ring bearing lesbian woman by Paris Jackson (daughter of the King of Pop) in a new movie 'Habit' is not okay. We all know what happened to Salman Rushdie when his satire 'Satanic Verses' mocked the Prophet. The Hindus are the harmless punching backs. Even the local stand-up comedy scene is bountiful with jokes with all religions except Islam for fear of being accused of being Islamophobic and of bearing the brunt of the rage of its believers.

A few new trends are seen in the lifestyles of the young adults as the norm, as suggested here. Once one is of a certain age, there is a strong compulsion to explore and prove their sexual identity as well as to fulfil their sexual appetite. Living off their relatively well-heeled parent(s), they do not need to think of their essential day-to-day survival needs. Maybe sexual prowesses has become another basic tenet to prove their existence. Their future is the last thing they consider. Time just passes by as they search in vain their passion, their raison d'être, as they drag their sorry ass slugging through one frustrating task after another. Did I mention alcohol flows like a river at every insignificant moment of their life? True, they drink occasionally, but every occasion is a reason to get drunk.

Overindulgence in intoxicants is not seen as a sign of being irresponsible but of living life to the max. At least that is what the media and celluloid pseudo-world seem to glorify. It is as though they deserve it, they earned it for all the troubles and difficulties they go through in modern life. Every generation thinks they had it tough and the generation before and after them had it on a platter.

Maybe this is the subtle way how the East India Company with its Scottish doctor-trader, Dr William Jardin, defeated the mighty Chinese around the time before the Opium Wars. They basically weakened the Chinese bureaucracy and machinery into becoming drug addicts. Like a bacteriophage, the British took over the driver's seat and the whole car, i.e. Hong Kong as the entire Chinese machinery was paralysed. In their subtle way again, the entrepreneurs of the world have made beer-drinking and football game revelry synonymous. Is this a secret ploy by the anarchist to weaken mankind and turn us all to obedient automatons.

The movie also questions that perhaps the male gender, often accused of showing its toxicity through its patriarchal set of social rules, have gone all mellow. To conform to political correctness, not to rock the status quo or create ripples in a perceived stable society, they have to just take dictation to what the fairer sex recites. Yes, you can; no, I feel violated; I will tell you when; stop means stop are the buzz words that define the dynamics of modern boy-girl relationships.

Me, glad the rat race is ending as I set into the horizon.

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

First generation millennials with first world millennial problems

Master of None (Season 1-2; 2015-now)

At one look it may look like a satire of non-Caucasians trying to act and to fit in into contemporary American society. It is not. It starts with the story of four friends, Dev Shah (Aziz Ansari) as the first generation Indian American; Brian, son of a Taiwanese immigrant (Alan Yang); Arnold, a white friend who enjoys eating and Denise, a black lesbian lady and a childhood friend.

Unlike most American TV shows which put down the Indian actors as social misfits to find it difficult to blend with the American society, here Brian and Dev, being born, bred and educated in the American system, blending is not the issue. Their predicament is mostly the first world kind. Dev still goes around thinking that he is discriminated against for his ethnicity. The question is whether it is just his perception or is it just what the society wants. Being a part time advertisement actor, he goes on life working occasionally, still waiting for his big break.

He feels the bane of the millennials - too many choices to choose from! Unlike, his father who just followed the path that came his way- (Dev's father is a doctor who migrated from Chennai, worked hard, married the first girl that was arranged for him and found happiness), Dev is at wit's end trying to decide what to do in his life. He is thinking of a change in vocation, but what? He likes his girlfriend, Rachel, but is he committed to spent the whole of his life with her? He likes children but a weekend with his ex-girlfriend's kids stirs the doubt of his opinion about kids! In another episode, he discovers about growing old and the hardship one faces as they go into their twilight years.

An entertaining half-an-hour per episode sitcom which just went into its second season as Dev and Racheal go separate ways for a journey of self-discovery. Dev heads to Italia to learn pasta making and Rachael goes to Japan.

In the second season, the first episode, being done of his escapades in Italy, is shot in black and white, based on the classic 'Bicycle Thief'. Only this time, the thief runs away with his mobile phone. One of the controversial topics that he tries to cover is the issue of religion, fasting and consumption of pork. Dev and his family are Muslims and naturally, his parents want him to portray a nice image in front of their family friend. The episode ended amicably by a surah which is quoted as saying, 'for you is your religion, and for me is my religion'.

The later episodes in the second season are a reflection of the meaning of life, of sorts, and it takes on more serious subject matters, albeit in a lighthearted manner. The storytellers, in most cases are Ansari and Alan Yang, tackle plights of the minority, including LGBT, the minor religion practitioners, the hearing impaired and many more. The recurrent theme of this show is to show the superficiality of the modern society. It shows the extent that people who go to be politically correct and how much of the minority group would demand 'others' to show them respect. In their own way, they seek recognition in society. Affairs of the heart are depicted as meaningless as everyone seeks for that elusive perfect love. An entertaining show that makes you think. Life used to be so simple!

It's time to say no to our pampered student emperors

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/12073349/Its-time-to-say-No-to-our-pampered-student-emperors.html

The Rhodes statue row can be blamed on a generation raised to believe that their feelings are all that matter

A student wears a sticker calling for the removal of a statue of Cecil John Rhodes from the campus of the University of Cape Town Photo: Reuters/Mike Hutchings

By Harry Mount

5:45PM GMT 29 Dec 2015

1750 Comments

The little emperors have grown up. The babies of the late 90s – mollycoddled by their parents, spoon-fed by their teachers, indulged by society – have now reached university. Some of the brighter ones are now at Oxford, demanding that the Cecil Rhodes statue at Oriel should be torn down, because of his imperialist, racist views.

"Universities are reaping the whirlwind of two decades of child-centred education"

We shouldn’t be so surprised. If you’ve had a lifetime of people saying “yes” to you, of never being told off, you remain frozen in a permanent state of supersensitivity. I wasn’t offended by the Rhodes statue when I was at Oxford 20 years ago. But, even if I had been, I wouldn’t have thought my wounded feelings should be cured by tearing apart the delicate fabric of a beautiful university.

Universities are reaping the whirlwind of two decades of child-centred education. That whirlwind has imported imbecilic trigger warnings – when academics have to warn students that western European literature, from the Iliad on, is full of sex and violence. It has also brought the pernicious idea of “no-platforming” – when students refuse to give a stage to anyone who doesn’t fit with their narrow view of the world.

We shouldn’t blame the student emperors for all this. Their warped supersensitivity is the fault of the generation above – the teachers and parents who have so indulged them. I first noticed the disaster of child-centred education six years ago. Near my childhood home in north London, there is a late-Victorian school. According to the noticeboard outside, it didn’t have a headmaster. Instead, Mr MJ Chappel was called the “lead learner”.

The implication was clear. Mr Chappel wasn’t placed in authority above the children but was ranked alongside them. Children have as much to teach the teachers as the teachers have to teach them – an idiocy that’s difficult to attack because it sounds so charming; and because people like me sound so evil when we disagree.

  Photo: PA

That idiocy is now endemic through the primary, secondary and tertiary education sectors. I resigned from a provincial university lecturing job recently, when the disease struck my department. My colleague said it was my fault if the less clever, less hard-working undergraduates did worse in exams than their brighter, harder-working contemporaries. I was told not to penalise undergraduates for bad grammar or spelling mistakes. And I had to dumb down the exams.

The last straw was when I was told to cut down on facts in lectures. “You’re here to teach them how to think, not what to think,” the head of department told me. The tragedy was that the undergraduates weren’t little emperors. They were longing to learn facts, spelling and correct grammar but they had had precious little exposure to these things at school.

And so they sailed on serenely into the world of work, blissfully unaware that employers would throw their applications straight in the bin because of their bad English. I saw the final punishment for child-centred education a decade ago, when I worked on the Comment desk of the Telegraph. One of my jobs was to keep an eye on the interns.

Ntokozo Qwabe and the Cecil Rhodes statue on Oriel College in Oxford Photo: Rex  Photo: Rex

A charming bunch they were, too. What was astonishing, though, was how some of them took to having their grammar corrected. Because they’d never been told off about bad grammar at school or university, they logically assumed it didn’t matter; that I was some dreary old pedant, enforcing a code that died out some time in the Middle Ages.

I didn’t mind. It was no skin off my nose. But they should have minded – it was only the interns who either knew their grammar, or were chastened and informed by correction, who ended up getting jobs on the paper. Why should they have thought any differently? Throughout their education, they had been repeatedly encouraged to think their wounded feelings must trump the teacher’s, or employer’s, right to instruct.

"Every time the authorities are accused of racism, they bend over backwards to soothe the offended egos of the little, tinpot dictators"

The same applies to the row over Rhodes’s statue. The authorities at the university have, so far, continued to pamper the student emperors. Every time the authorities are accused of racism, they bend over backwards to soothe the offended egos of the little, tinpot dictators – rather than telling them that they, the teachers, are there to tell the students what to do; and not the other way round.

Harry Mount is author of How England Made the English (Viking)

Milliennial offspring of Helicopters

http://time.com/3154186/millennials-selfish-entitled-helicopter-parenting/

Millennials Are Selfish and Entitled, and Helicopter Parents Are to Blame

Nick Gillespie @nickgillespie Aug. 21, 2014

There are more overprotective moms and dads at a time when children are actually safer than ever

Peter Lourenco—Flickr RF/Getty Images

It’s natural to resent younger Americans — they’re younger!— but we’re on the verge of a new
generation gap that may make the nasty old fights between baby boomers and their
“Greatest Generation” parents look like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Seventy-one percent of American adults think of 18-to-29-year-olds — millennials, basically — as “selfish,” and 65% of us think of them as “entitled.” That’s according to the latest Reason-Rupe Poll, a quarterly survey of 1,000 representative adult Americans.

If millennials are self-absorbed little monsters who expect the world to come to them and for their parents to clean up their rooms well into their 20s, we’ve got no one to blame but
ourselves — especially the moms and dads among us.

Indeed, the same poll documents the ridiculous level of kid-coddling that has now become the new normal. More than two-thirds of us think there ought to be a law that kids as old as 9 should be supervised while playing at a public park, which helps explain (though not justify) the arrest of a South Carolina mother who let her phone-enabled daughter play in a busy park while she worked at a nearby McDonald’s. We think on average that kids should be 10 years old before they “are allowed to play in the front yard unsupervised.” Unless you live on a traffic island or a war zone, that’s just nuts.

It gets worse: We think that our precious bundles of joy should be 12 before they can wait alone in a car for five minutes on a cool day or walk to school without an adult, and that they should be 13 before they can be trusted to stay home alone. You’d think that kids raised on Baby Einstein DVDs should be a little more advanced than that.

Curiously, this sort of ridiculous hyperprotectiveness is playing out against a backdrop in which children are safer than ever. Students reporting bullying is one-third of what it was 20 years ago, and according to a study in JAMA Pediatrics, the past decade has seen massive declines in exposure to violence for kids. Out of 50 trends studied, summarize the authors, “there were 27 significant declines and no significant increases between 2003 and 2011. Declines were particularly large for assault victimization, bullying, and sexual victimization. There were also significant declines in the perpetration of violence and property crime.”

There are surely many causes for the mainstreaming of helicopter parenting. Kids cost a hell of a lot to raise. The U.S. Department of Agriculture figures a child born in 2013 will set back middle-income parents about $245,000 up to age 17 (and that’s before college bills kick in).

We’re having fewer children, so we’re putting fewer eggs in a smaller basket, so to speak. According to the Reason-Rupe poll, only 27% of adults thought the media were overestimating threats to the day-to-day safety of children, suggesting that 73% of us are suckers for sensationalistic news coverage that distorts reality (62% of us erroneously think that today’s youth face greater dangers than previous generations). More kids are in institutional settings — whether preschool or school itself — at earlier ages, so maybe parents just assume someone will always be on call.

But whatever the reasons for our insistence that we childproof the world around us, this way madness lies. From King Lear to Mildred Pierce, classic literature (and basic common sense) suggests that coddling kids is no way to raise thriving, much less grateful, offspring. Indeed, quite the opposite. And with 58% of millennials callingthemselves “entitled” and more than 70% saying they are “selfish,” older Americans may soon be learning that lesson the hard way.