\u201cMonkey Man,\u201d Dev Patel\u2019s directorial debut action thriller that he also stars in, wrote and produced, opens with a tale familiar to Hindus around the world. <\/p>\n
A child listens as his mother tells him the story of Hanuman, the anthropomorphic monkey god. In his hunger, young Hanuman mistook the sun for a juicy mango. As Hanuman went to take a bite, the gods punished the mischievous deity for overreaching by stripping him of his powers. <\/p>\n
This mythology is the foundation of \u201cMonkey Man,\u201d which hit theaters on April 5. Now an adult living in the fictional Indian city of Yatana, Kid (played by Patel himself\ufeff) remembers the legend of Hanuman and uses it as inspiration as he plots revenge on the corrupt forces that raided his forest village and killed his mother. <\/p>\n
An underdog in a society divided by caste and class, Kid mirrors the simian god in more ways than one. Meanwhile, the film\u2019s villains \u2014 as movie critics have noted and as Patel has alluded to \u2014 look a lot like India\u2019s right-wing, Hindu nationalist government. In recent years, party leaders have taken actions that critics say marginalize minorities and embolden extremist groups. <\/p>\n
\u201cReally, it\u2019s a revenge film about faith and how faith can be a beautiful teacher,\u201d Patel said in a conversation at SXSW. \u201cBut at the same time, faith can be weaponized. Faith can be monetized. And you see that in the opposing end.\u201d <\/p>\n
By invoking Hanuman \u2014 one of the most beloved Hindu deities \u2014 in a critique of Hindu nationalism, some critics and viewers say \u201cMonkey Man\u201d does something novel. <\/p>\n
It attempts to reclaim Hinduism from those who fan the flames of division, presenting another vision of what the <\/strong>religion stands for. <\/p>\n \u201cMonkey Man\u201d is stuffed with references to the ancient Hindu epic the \u201cRamayana,\u201d which includes the story of Hanuman. <\/p>\n Like young Hanuman, whose story we hear in the film\u2019s opening scenes, Kid is initially reckless in his fearlessness even as he pursues a just cause. Patel said in an interview at SXSW that he wanted to use that story as a social commentary on caste and inequality in India. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen you put those [mythologies] into context of the caste system and the idea of the 1% against the elite or being scolded for reaching too high or aspiring too big, I was like, \u2026 \u2018I can distill it down and give it some real social weight,\u2019\u201d he said. <\/p>\n In the film, Kid dons a monkey mask and earns his living as a fighter at an underground boxing club. But his true aim is to avenge the death of his mother: When Kid was a child, he and his community of forest-dwellers were forced out of their homes by the police chief Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher), who was acting on behalf of the spiritual leader Baba Shakti (Makarand Deshpande). <\/p>\n Kid eventually gets to Rana by infiltrating a luxury brothel called Kings, where he also encounters a sex worker named Sita (Sobhita Dhulipala) who is trapped in a seemingly hopeless situation. The sequence is a clear parallel to a story in the \u201cRamayana,\u201d in which Hanuman helps the god Rama rescue his wife Sita from the ten-headed demon king Ravana. <\/p>\n For some viewers, the aspects of Hanuman that weren\u2019t included are just as notable as the aspects that were. <\/p>\n Hanuman is perhaps best known for being a devoted servant of Lord Rama who, in turn, is known for his adherence to the path of righteousness. But in the fictionalized India depicted in \u201cMonkey Man,\u201d there isn\u2019t an analogue for the god Rama, says Sailaja Krishnamurti, an associate professor of gender studies at Queen\u2019s University. Instead, Kid inhabits a world without a clear moral center. <\/p>\n \u201cTo take Rama out \u2014 to say \u2018What\u2019s left when there is no hero deity?\u2019 \u2014 (suggests) that we have to become our own heroes,\u201d Krishnamurti said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a really intriguing premise.\u201d <\/p>\n Whether or not Patel\u2019s decision to omit Rama was intentional, Thrisha Mohan, operations and events manager for the group Hindus for Human Rights, found the deity\u2019s absence striking for another reason: In recent years, Rama has been a key feature of Hindu nationalist rhetoric. <\/p>\n In January, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a Hindu temple at the site of a 16th century mosque that was demolished by Hindu hardliners in 1992. The temple, named the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, is believed by some Hindus to be the birthplace of Lord Rama, and was a cornerstone of Modi\u2019s right-wing Hindu nationalist agenda. For India\u2019s Muslims, however, the temple was another sign of religious divisions that have become more pronounced under Modi\u2019s rule. <\/p>\n \u201cIn my mind, a lot of contemporary narratives of Rama are one-and-one associated with Hindu nationalism,\u201d Mohan said. \u201cSo to erase that aspect of Hanuman\u2019s character in order to tell a broader story is really interesting.\u201d <\/p>\n As \u201cMonkey Man\u201d tells a quintessentially Hindu story, it also makes thinly veiled references to Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and India\u2019s wider political landscape. <\/p>\n \u201cIf there is an allegory to be made, it\u2019s clear that the many heads of Ravana are the police chief and the politician and Baba Shakti \u2014 the triumvirate of politicized Hindu nationalism,\u201d said Krishnamurti. <\/p>\n As Krishnamurti and Mohan see it, the villains are amalgamations of various leaders and figures in the Hindu nationalist scene. The fictitious Baba Shakti calls to mind right-wing spiritual advisers and politicians in India. Rana, the chief of police, could be seen as a stand-in for bureaucrats and administrators who critics accuse of emboldening extremists and stoking sectarian violence. <\/p>\n \u201cMonkey Man\u201d even briefly incorporates footage from real-life protests against the policies of the Modi administration, though it\u2019s never explicitly addressed in the film. <\/p>\n For others, Patel\u2019s critique of Hindu nationalism wasn\u2019t entirely successful. <\/p>\n Siddhant Adlakha, who reviewed \u201cMonkey Man\u201d for TIME, said he took issue with how the film rooted Kid\u2019s violent rampage against the elites in Hindu imagery \u2014 to him, it fell into the same trap as Hindu nationalists who use the faith to justify violence. He also didn\u2019t think the film effectively conveyed the political ideology driving the villains\u2019 greed and corruption. <\/p>\n He continued, \u201cHis character ends up embodying all the things that Patel the filmmaker is trying to fight in the real world.\u201d <\/p>\n But in Krishnamurti\u2019s view, the hero\u2019s violence mimics the violent nature of many stories in Hindu mythology. It\u2019s also a nod to movie genres and stars from which Patel takes inspiration: Amitabh Bachhan in Bollywood, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan in Hong Kong cinema and Keanu Reeves in Hollywood\u2019s \u201cJohn Wick\u201d franchise. <\/p>\n Perhaps what is most powerful about \u201cMonkey Man\u201d is how it offers a vision of Hinduism that is inclusive and welcoming, Mohan said. <\/p>\n Kid is a champion of India\u2019s underclasses, and the film contains numerous references to the country\u2019s marginalized communities. When Baba Shakti and Rana overtake Kid\u2019s community of forest-dwellers, it\u2019s an allusion to how Adivasis (the Indigenous peoples of India) and Muslims have been evicted from their lands under Modi\u2019s rule. Another key scene recalls the myth of Ekalavya from the Hindu epic \u201cMahabharata\u201d \u2014 a parable about caste discrimination in which a forest dweller is made to cut off his thumb because his archery skills posed a threat to a prince. <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s refusing very one-note narratives that have come out of the way that Hindutva has framed what Hinduism is and who it should be practiced by and who it loves and who it doesn\u2019t,\u201d Mohan said. <\/p>\n \u201cMonkey Man\u201d is also notable for its portrayal of hijras, India\u2019s third-gender community who consider themselves neither male nor female, said Krishnamurti. While hijras are typically depicted in Western media as sex workers, this film casts them as allies and warriors. When Kid bungles his first attack on the nightclub and is shot by the police, he\u2019s rescued by Alpha, the leader of a hijra community that is under threat from Baba Shakti\u2019s political movement. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat I found really powerful was that if we have a landscape in which there\u2019s no Rama, in which Hanuman is on his own in the form of Kid, the place he finds respite and finds care is in the temple of the hijras,\u201d Krishnamurti said. <\/p>\n Alpha tells Kid about Ardhanarishvara, a deity combining the god Shiva and his consort, the goddess Parvati, to represent masculine and feminine energies in harmony. It\u2019s a powerful image for queer and trans people who have been battling the patriarchal power structures of Hindu nationalism, Krishnamurti said. Alpha and the other hijras in the community are also pivotal to the film\u2019s final battle scene. <\/p>\n While \u201cMonkey Man\u201d has a lot to say about Hinduism and Hindu nationalism, there\u2019s a more universal message at its core, said Bedatri D. Choudhury, the arts and entertainment editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer. <\/p>\n The tensions that the film presents \u2014 between Hindus and non-Hindus, rich and poor, those who use religion for just ends or violent ends \u2014 aren\u2019t unique to Hinduism, but are present in societies around the world. \u201cMonkey Man,\u201d then, is a warning about what can happen when people are oppressed and disempowered for too long. <\/p>\n \u201cIn its own imperfect ways, it is trying to criticize \u2014 if not directly the Indian government \u2014 the kind of society that takes shape when religion and government become one,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cMonkey Man,\u201d Dev Patel\u2019s directorial debut action thriller that he also stars in, wrote and produced, opens with a tale familiar to Hindus around the world. A child listens as his mother tells him the story of Hanuman, the anthropomorphic monkey god. In his hunger, young Hanuman mistook the sun for a juicy mango. As Hanuman <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} \u2018Monkey Man\u2019 is a twist on a classic Hindu tale<\/h2>\n
The film takes aim at extremist forces<\/h2>\n
It presents a loving vision of Hinduism<\/h2>\n