Cultural Identities and
Canadian Multiculturalism
in Sriniva Krishna’s
Masala (1991)
Related work: MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE
(1986)
Outline
1. The first generation: Grandma and Lord
Krishna
2. The second generation: misfits and
opportunists
3. The third generation: more choices
(The use of dream sequence and symbols)
4. Canadian Racism: institutionalized and
personal
5. The film’s subtle ironies
6. Masala’s importance & Sriniva Krishna
The three generations of
the Indian Community
1. Grandma,
2. Lallu Bhai Solanki and his wife, Bibi,
cousins
Mr. Harry Tikkoo,
sisters
Krishna’s father & mother
3. Krishna, Sashi & Rita Solanki, Anil, Babu,
• The others:
– Lord Krishna & Balrama,
– Whites with drug: Lisa
– The sikh revolutionary: Bamadour Singh
•
Question: What are their senses of value, or
cultural identities?
Multiple plot lines
• The grandma’s wish to get money for her
son; and Mr. Tikkoo conflict with the
Canadian government over the stamp.
• Lallu Bhai’s dream of global sari industry;
Krishna’s search for a job and his sense of
identity;
• Rita’s dream of flying;
• Anil’s wet dream of sexy women;
• Sikh’s revolution, trying to turn Punjab to
Khalistan
The first generation: Grandma
and Lord Krishna
• Grandma: adapting to the new environment
by combining Canadian and Indian cultures
in her own way.
– “We are outsiders here; no money down real
estate”
– interested in kitchen gadgets.
– Pray to Lord Krishna through a video
Lord Krishna: his adaptations &
gradual loss of power
people need gods because the world is unfair.
• Adaptations;
– “Why can’t a god be like man?” Can work with Jesus; clip 2
– Call his believer, show miracle within the TV box; clip 4
– As a hockey player; clip 5
• Loss of power: “We are losing our minds” clip 6
– Fly the plane awkwardly, clip 15
– Cannot cross over to Canadian “jurisdiction area”; cannot
talk to justice jack; clip 13
– Tired of the country, want to leave after the Rath Yatra clip
14
– Grandmother calls him “troublemaker”; ask to get her
granddaughter back; clip 16
– Cannot order the sikh people. Clip 17
The second generation: misfits
• Krishna’s parents: “beaten up” and decide
to go back; clip 14
• Harry Tikkoo: “turn to a different person
after being beaten up”; in financial dilemma,
interested in stamps
The second generation:
opportunists
• Lallu Bhai: his success dream clip 8
-- a sexist and womanizer;
– makes use of Sikh revolutionaries;
-- wants to monopolize the sari business
(going global) clip 8
• His dream of being a self-made man
• What does Sari here symbolize? Consider
the beginning of the film, too. Clip 2; clip 14
The third generation: Krishna
• Far away from his namesake god; clip 7; clip 20;
• Don’t feel anything clip 10
• Cannot work anywhere: post office, travel agency,
(Cannot play by the rules.)
• Wants money (“Do you have 800 dollars?”) and a
house with swimming pool but no neighbors.
• Resist racism (I’m not Paki); Try to rescue the boy
but gets himself killed.
• Symbols of the air plane: in front of the post
office; when having sex; driving with Anil;
The third generation: Anil, Rita
and Sashi
• Rita: her dream to fly—clip 3;
• Rita’s difference from Sashi, who hates
Indian men clip 12 –stereotypes?
• Anil: about his career – his mother: “My
husband wants gynaecology, but I want
heart surgery.” His wet dreams and
masturbation.
• Babu: wants to be a real estate agent.
Racism: institutionalized and
personal
• Individual assaults by the “big white boys”
• Canadian government’s strategy of
containment: Opening talk: shows Krishna
as an outsider
• The minister of multiculturalism: the
importance of “playing by the rules.” clip
20
• Respect or disrespect of the other cultures?
Clip 18
• the importance of the beaver stamp
The film’s subtle ironies
• Anil’s sex scene –female contortionist?
• The final clash between the parade and RCMP’s
• The Sikh, “What is there to suspect?”
– Toilet paper –product of the Western world; “something
imported to elevate you out of your Third Worldiness”
(Krishna in Bailey 44)
• “Is the temple for god, or for the minister?”
• The last scene: the “Canadian” National Museum
of the Philately; the fittest survive, the ethnic
colors in the kitchen, and the thinker cannot feel
anything.
• Multiculturalism as Masala – Sari, Parade, Temple,
Masala’s importance
• As a second generation of Canadian subaltern
cinema
• “Using the conventions of disaffected youth drama,
Hollywood musical, Hindi musicals, European art
cinema, and Canadian satire, Masala moves
beyond the cinema of duty by decentering the
whole notion of center-margin as a driving force
in the film, and by making representation itself a
concern.” (Bailey 38)
Criticism of Masala
• Krishna about the Vancouver Film Festival (400
out of 600 audience were Indians) “[an elderly
woman said:] ‘I just want to say one thing. Indian
women do not marry for homes and Indian men do
not marry for fucks. And I don’t appreciate this
bad language.’ And then the screaming started.
Four hundred people screaming at each other. I
was holding a microphone and screaming and you
couldn't’t even hear me.” (Bailey 42)
• At Sundance festival “[American audience]
calling the film misogynist, homophobic,
heterophobic, and racist.” (Bailey 44)
Krishna’s own views
• This is a film about home. The Air India
plane six years ago had exploded over the
Atlantic, I knew people on that plane. . . .
What it began to mean to me was that there
is no going home. . . “