When humor convinces: Michel Foucault Meets Rajkumar Hirani
Published at Patkar College, Goregaon (w), Mumbai, in UGC-Sponsored Two-Day National Seminar On HUMOUR: TEXTS & CONTEXTS
This article is an
attempt to understand Hindi film director Rajkumar Hirani’s films through
Michel Foucault’s theoretical framework concerning power and resistance. These
films are:
The purpose of this
study is to:
-
Understand the discourse present in the
three movies
-
Examine how those discourses had an
effect on individuals through institutions, which illustrate Foucault’s concept
of power
-
Provide examples of Foucault’s concept
of resistance by looking at how the binary oppositions found in the discourses
become the subject of satire and how the techniques of satire are used to
resist mainstream culture.
“Cinema
is all about entertaining. My principal motto is, ‘I shall entertain’. Nobody
walks into the theatre to be preached to or to learn something. So I have to be
sure that whatever I do, even when I have a message to deliver, it must be done
in a manner that is highly entertaining. Cinema is storytelling and storytelling
is about entertaining. At the same time, it is a commentary on reality.”
-
Rajkumar Hirani, in an interview[4]
Humor, something that
people all over the world share, can serve different functions. While humor is
used for entertainment purposes, it can also be used as a tool to critique
society, politics, culture, ideas, etc. Satire is an important humorous
commentary on various pressures to follow traditional values that make a place
for us in the mainstream culture. Satire, when it challenges the acceptable, is
called what French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault calls resistance (Rabinow,
1984)[5]. In
other words, satire is a form of resistance; resistance to the society,
religion, education, government, etc. Within Foucault’s framework, resistance
seeks to undermine power, which is also the overall objective of satire (Pickett,
2006)[6].
According to Foucault,
power is visible in the mores of laws, government, society, family, and sexual identity,
and they pressure people to conform. Power Discourses are used by society to
label, separate, and pressure individuals to accept what has been determined to
be acceptable and normal (Rabinow, 1984), through institutions such as
churches, schools, hospitals, prisons, government, and family. While exerting power
in every level of an individual’s life, discourse gets controlled by society
and culture, and also becomes the tool through which society and culture
exercise control.
In the three films
under survey, Hirani’s characters can be broadly divided into three categories,
as a broad referencing from Foucault[7]:
1.
The Authoritative Figure:
Personified by Dr Asthana in Munna bhai M.B.B.S, Kkhurana and Lucky Singh
in Lage Raho Munna bhai and Viru Sahastrabudhhe in 3 Idiots, the authority attempts to
control the lives of individual people through rules, language and discipline
in institutions such as hospitals, schools, or in society at large. In other
words, they are custodians of the state power and would go to extreme levels to
maintain the status quo.
2.
The Resistance Hero:
The hero challenges the authority and provides resistance from within the
system. The hero here does not conform to the ‘given’ and is usually outside
the power hierarchy. Munna bhai, a
local don in first two films, provides with a delusion of being powerful (in
the use of physical might), but is not a part of the ‘system’; and Rancho lives at the mercy of his
employer, gets a degree for his son, and is satisfied with ‘learning’ and
‘discovering’. Munna bhai also
resists power in his use of tapori
language.
3.
The docile characters: The
docile characters- Swami or Dr Rustam in Munna bhai M.B.B.S, Victor
D’souza and Kkhurana in Lage Raho Munna
bhai, or Chatur, Joy Lobo, Raju
and Farhan- all have adhered to and are subjected to the
guidelines created by authority figures. Under pressure to be compliant, they
place their personal desires further down as other issues of career, appearance
and demeanor take center stage. There is rarely any connection between personal
desires and those of authority.
Let us look at Munna bhai M.B.B.S. to begin with. Munna bhai, serving as the main hero of
Foucauldian resistance, begins his first day in college with asking how one
signs a form if he is on his death bed. And he asks the same question in his
next class, provoking the ire of Dr Asthana, who threatens to ‘not’ teach
till he goes out of the class. This process of questioning the ‘authority’ takes
interesting turns- when Munna bhai gets
his own ‘body’ for another class, or when he refuses to treat Anand as a ‘subject’ and takes him out
in sunshine and shaves his beard and gets him his own bed (to save the
‘hospital’s bed’), or gives ‘jaadu ki
jhappi’ to those who need it or as a gesture of gratitude. Of course, he
cheats in his exams, but he makes friends with everyone across the hierarchy-
in the matron, the sweeper, the students, the teachers and the patients, who have
all acknowledged the other means of treatment- love, care, tenderness and
interaction.
On the other side of
the binary opposition is Dr Asthana who
teaches his students that the patient a body that needs to be treated and made
‘dis-ease’ free. In all his conversations with Dr Asthana, Munna bhai uses satire and that gives attention to the
part of the binary opposition that has been declared off limits by society by
poking fun at the half of the pair that has been labeled as acceptable. In this
process, he has also developed an alternative vision of a doctor as a friend
and guide. His resistance has provided an alternative solution to the
authority, to the government and the system.
While Foucault connects
modern medical practices with the transformation of states and their capacities
to exercise powers of surveillance over their populations, the film translates
this philosophical standpoint for common understanding by asking serious
questions in a humorous fashion; at the end of the day these are fundamental
matters.
Lage
Raho Munna bhai is a film which reached out to all
social groups, while representing a national fantasy accessible to all classes
and ages- through the recuperation of Gandhism as an Indian way of thought. The
film has an interesting take on Foucaldian analysis of madness and rationality.
When we see that Munna bhai reads about Gandhi and imagines him
to be with him, we immediately relate it to hallucination. Through the use of
hallucination as a cinematic device, Hirani recreates Foucault’s comments on madness
and passion v/s reason; reinforcing that when fantastic images are true, they can
be used as pieces of resistance. Lucky
Singh, the unscrupulous builder uses this information to humiliate Munna bhai in front of everyone in a
press conference- so as to protect the society from his ‘pagalpan’. However, the tables turn when Lucky Singh ‘sees’ Gandhi
in the library, in the film’s end. The use of words such as bimar, pagal, ICU case, to describe both
characters interchangeably, point to his dexterity for (mis)-creating an inextricably
unity of order and disorder.
In ‘3 Idiots’, Rancho is the Foucauldian hero of resistance to Viru Sahastrabuddhe, the dean and
epitome of knowledge. He, like Munna bhai,
questions the system, through many episodes- What is the definition of a machine, in various arguments with Farhan, Raju and Piya, in changing Chatur’s
speech, and later in founding the school at Ladakh. Rancho emerges as a famous scientist at the end of the movie in
spite of giving away his engineering certificate to the real Ranchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad proving
that if a person is knowledgeable, certificate does not matter.
Hirani’s films show
that once people are aware that there are other choices to how they choose to
live their lives, an alternate option emerges beside the previous lone option
of docility. The constant connection of the Foucauldian “docile body” theory in
these films instigates an awareness of social obedience, and provides for a
move towards individuality and change.
An undercover concept
of authorial influence is rooted in the minds of viewers that creates a sense
of stress and anguish and mad momentum, that’s both exhilarating and
terrifying. The male leads in all films provide hope for individuality, personal
choice, and bodily freedom.
So when I say that
Foucault meets Hirani, I also mean that, in some forms, Hirani has provided
some insights into Foucault’s concepts of power and resistance. His movies
illustrate Foucault’s concepts of power, discourse, human identity, and
resistance by the use of satire in his films. These films have been successful
because they deal with many provocative issues in Indian society in a humorous
way; to encourage people to resist conforming to the pressure to fit in that is
found throughout society.
Satire’s humorous emphasis
allows people to become a part of the small act of resistance. When criticism
provokes laughter, it reminds people that alternatives can be created and
possibly providing a spark of inspiration for a better future. The tussle between
following orders and their own desires stirs emotions in moviegoers, unleashing
the concept of freedom in the pursuit of personal aspirations. Once people are
aware of other choices to lead lives, an alternate option emerges apart from docility.
These films are a statement indicative of broadening of an awareness of the
role of humor in giving people a voice to resist power, to express criticism,
and to begin to work for a better society.
[1] Murli Prasad
Sharma is a local goon in Mumbai popularly known as 'Munna bhai'. He has kept
his real identity secret from his parents, who think that their son is a
doctor. Munna's parents arrive in Mumbai for their annual visit and his father
meets an old acquaintance Dr. Asthana by chance. They want to fix Munna's
marriage with Dr. Asthana's daughter Suman "Chinky" Asthana. But Dr.
Asthana comes to know about Munna's real identity, reveals it to his parents
and humiliates them. Heartbroken, they leave for their hometown. Munna swears
revenge upon Dr. Asthana and embarks upon getting an admission in a medical
college to become a doctor. At the medical college, Munna bhai breaks every rules
and regulations and tries to treat with love, care and affection. Dr Asthana
has a change of heart, in the end and Munna bhai gets married to Suman
"Chinky" Asthana. Soumitra, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374887/plotsummary, December 12,
2014
[2] In order to meet
and impress radio hostess, Jhanvi, Murliprasad alias Munna Bhai, the don, dons
the guise of a Gandhian Professor, wins a contest, appears on the radio, has a
date with Jhanvi, gets to meet Jhanvi's family, consisting of six elderly
gentlemen who live at a palatial house called '2nd Innings', and wins a place
in her heart. While Murli, Jhanvi, and the residents go on a trip to Goa, '2nd
Innings' is taken over by Lakhbir Singh alias Lucky, who intends to give this
away as a dowry gift for his daughter, Simran, when she gets married to Sunny
Kkhurana. An enraged Murli is all set to confront Lucky and seize the house
back, but decides to do it the Gandhian way - by launching a peaceful
Satyagraha in front of Lucky's house in a bid to get him to change his mind.
Lucky does change his mind, organizes a press conference, gets Murli to admit
that he has been talking with none other than Mohandas K. Gandhi himself - and
as a result makes him look insane and lose all credibility. To make matters
worse, Jhanvi finds out the truth about Murli. ‘Gandhian values’, essentially,
are used in the film as pragmatic strategies to be employed in everyday life to
overcome small impediments like demands for bribes, hostile neighbors, etc.
Illegality, it appears, is an issue increasingly glossed over by Hindi cinema
in the new millennium. Soumitra and Rohit Pandey, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456144/plotsummary, December 12,
2014
[3] The film starts
with Farhan Qureshi and Raju Rastogi’s quest to find their long lost friend
Ranchordas Shyamaldas Chanchard, aka Rancho with the help of a college nerd
Chatur Ramalingam. While on the way to find Rancho, the film takes us to their
life in college where Rancho was an extremely talented student filled with out
of the mill philosophies. This made the college principal Viru Sahastrabudhhe’s
ire. The film portrays that Rancho has the capability to do the impossible
possible. He convinced his roommate and best friend Farhan to convince his
father to take wildlife photography as well as nursing his suicide attempted
friend Raju. He even befriends their principal’s daughter Piya and helps her to
realize that the guy whom she plans to marry is an absolute jerk. With plots
and subplots it was proved that Rancho can outsmart any student and won their
principal’s affection. However after changing everyone’s life after graduation
Rancho vanishes. Farhan and Raju’s quest begins here. As told earlier most of
the film is done in flashback but the present situations also bring a comic
relief. Anyways, after spoiling Piya’s marriage and tolerating Chatur’s
narcissist comments, the two friends finally met Rancho who is a famous
scientist Phunsuk Wangru. http://movies.funmunch.com/3-idiots/story.html, December 12,
2014
[4]
Ramachandran, J., and Mukherji, Sourav. ‘Creating
a successful cultural product: Interview with Raju Hirani’ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0970389610000728,
, December 11, 2014
[5]Rabinow, P.
(Ed.). 1984. The Foucault reader. New York: Penguin Books.
[6] Pickett, B.
2006. Foucault and the politics of
resistance. Polity, 28(4), 445-466. In Worapanyaporn Taranop, Dr. Suban
Kaewkanya and John Draper’s ‘A Discourse
Analysis of Satirical Resistance to Foucault’s Concept of Power in The Simpsons
Movie’. http://gsbooks.gs.kku.ac.th/55/cdgrc13/files/hmo13.pdf, December 12,
2014
[7] “Docile Bodies” comes from the larger
work ‘Discipline and Punish’, in
which Foucault argues that individuals are under constant surveillance and
regulation in ways that are often subtle and thereby seemingly invisible,
leading to normalization and acceptance of such systems. The other two
categories are an obvious extension.
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