India’s Oscar Win, And The Colonial Hangover

The Ukraine Factor

There’s another compelling reason why this song is the toast of the western world. It was filmed on the lawns of Mariinsky Palace in Kyiv, Ukraine, the official residence of the country’s president, just a few months before the Russian invasion began.

The math is a no-brainer. Since America is on Ukraine’s side, the Oscar management perhaps felt tempted to give mileage to a song whose picturisation shows war-rattled Ukraine as a stark reminder of ongoing Russian aggression in that country.

So, there you go. With the geopolitical factor added to the colonial hangover narrative, the Oscar certification was only waiting to happen for Naatu Naatu. Notice the roll of honour for the RRR song in the build-up to the Oscars. Critics’ Choice Awards, Golden Globes, Hollywood Critics Association – all are best original song trophies, and all of them are American. And all of them were showered upon the makers of Naatu Naatu while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was underway.

Many Indians are nowadays busy googling up ‘Naatu Naatu’ and watching the film song with renewed interest because what many see as the western world’s highest cultural office – the Oscar factory – has given the Indian song a stamp of approval.

It’s important to break the bad news to delirious Indian fans: this song-and-dance piece from the Telugu film RRR smells of racism, insulting visuals, and a colonial hangover. It’s perhaps these very ingredients that charmed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences into recognising Naatu Naatu as the best original song at the 2023 Oscars in Los Angeles.

Naatu Naatu isn’t just another peppy Indian movie song with colourful picturisation. It shows a dystopian colonial setting in which a couple of Indian men are seen desperately trying to impress civilised British men and women at a cocktail party.

The song is less than five minutes long. But its storyline is appalling enough to write an entire thesis on how West-loving Indians still enjoy narratives hailing the ages-old theme of civilised westerners trying to discipline uncivilised Indians.

Let’s first revisit the song’s stereotypical storyline.

Two Indian guys walk into a fancy British party. One of them loves a British woman. So, to impress everyone at the party, the two guys taunt the British men and break into an energetic dance. The British men find it annoying. One of them rudely yells at the Indians, saying he’s “had enough of the nonsense”, and orders them to leave – “You two — out!”

At that moment, a British woman intervenes and calms the angry British man down. She then teasingly tugs at both the Indian guys’ attire, and playfully tells them to resume dancing. Their spirits lifted by the Englishwoman’s friendly gesture, the

Indian duo starts dancing, only to be again told by the angry British man that it’s “disgusting”.

Shallow as the storyline sounds, the Indian men continue to dance, later joined by the angry British men and the happy Englishwomen. The Indian duo emerges on top as better dancers than the Britishers, eventually impressing the higher mortals – the disciplined British – with their rustic and native (“Naatu”) performance.

For any self-respecting Indian, this kind of narrative, be it a high-quality artwork or a cheap stunt, is a reminder of the days of colonial India. The song’s visually cliched setting brings back memories of when the western invaders occupied the Indian subcontinent from 1499 to 1947.

Essentially, the song appears to bluntly promote the idea that marginalized, none-white people should continue trying to impress the more advanced western people to win them over.

The Oscars have a dark legacy of often awarding artwork along geopolitical lines or to push certain western narratives. Take the latest winner of the best picture award, Everything Everywhere All at Once. The racy film is unlikely to tickle the palate of connoisseurs. But it won the biggest prize perhaps because its fantasy storyline promotes the new concept of metaverses, which the Big Tech industry is trying to familiarise the world with.

There are many other examples of agendalaced best picture wins at the Oscars, such as Argo. It paints a misleading picture of innocent Americans constantly suffering at the hands of demonic Iranians, and portrays the pleasant city of Tehran as hostile towards all outsiders.

Then take The Hurt Locker for example. The movie glorifies the lives of western soldiers serving in interventionist foreign missions.