Perhaps it is appropriate that I respond to the Elephant Boy (1937). My research interests include the representation of the Indian diaspora within mainstream Hindi cinema and films made by emigrant Indians, as well as the presence of Indian characters (and actors) in mainstream "Western" media. One of the questions I constantly face when addressing issues of representation is whether no representation is better than misrepresentation, or vice versa. Furthermore, what qualifies as misrepresentation, and who gets to be the judge of that? Rashid (in Song of Sabu: Hollywood Cinema and the Displacement of Desire) makes the argument that while Sabu was a "colonial pawn sell-out," he was also a role model as a "Third World figure [who] had achieved fame and success in the West…" However, as I was watching Elephant Boy, I couldn't help but subconsciously link the film to any subsequent Hollywood films I had seen that had a prominent Indian character (or theme), and realize that the portrayal/perception has hardly evolved over time.
One of the most striking moments from Elephant Boy - very early in the film - is the blatantly obvious comparison of Toomai (Sabu) with the elephant and the monkey resting near him in the jungle. All three creatures act the same – turning over, scratching themselves, yawning, etc – and even better, are synchronized. In an effort to quickly and unmistakably establish just how in sync the protagonist is with the animals, Flaherty introduces Hollywood's first Indian actor with an exoticization so stereotypical (and racist?) that it sets the tone for all subsequent films starring Sabu. Having watched The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) the week before, I wasn't so surprised anymore with the portrayal of the "exotic" East in Elephant Boy. However, I found intriguing the difference in how the Chinese and Indians were portrayed in the films. It seems, at that time, the Chinese were to seen as savage and unpredictable, while the Indians were unswervingly loyal to the empire and didn't know any better. The era was, after all, when the European empires began limping in the face of rising nationalism in the colonies (and of course, devastating world wars), and thus had to re-assert their might and projections. Based on this circumstance, perhaps it was fitting then that Toomai was shown almost as a loyal pet to Peterson, eager to please and willing to entertain, and certainly providing the sense of exotic East that Hollywood audiences were craving.
Sabu's filmography shows that this characterization didn't change or mature much at all. It is, nevertheless, remarkable that he made it big in Hollywood and even lasted as long as he did at the time. He was, in Flaherty's first opinion, "rather pathetic looking and terribly shy" but soon enough Sabu convinced him that "it is quite impossible, the first time one sees strange types of people, to judge them correctly" (Mr. Flaherty and the Elephant Boy). This strange boy managed to consistently feed Hollywood's romance with the exotic fantasy, in films such as The Drum (1938), The Thief of Bagdad (1940), Jungle Book (1942), Black Narcissus (1947), and so on. Fast forward to more recent films and Indian actor Amrish Puri's role as Mola Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) continues with the exoticization, but this time adds a good measure of savagery to the portrayal as well. Other examples I recall include the character of Ramu Gupta in and as The Guru (2002) or actor Kal Penn's character in the Harold and Kumar films (2004, 2008). The latter doesn't necessarily exoticize India, but still plays into stereotypes associated with Indian people. Admittedly I have not seen each and every Hollywood film with an Indian angle. Therefore, just shy of making a broad generalizing statement, I would say that a more or less static representation of India/Indians by Hollywood has given rise to the independent diaspora films, i.e. the immigrants telling their own stories. The downside to this, of course, is that many of these diaspora films never reach the mainstream audiences, which means that films like Elephant Boy or The Guru are often the first contact American audiences have with popular representations of India.
Perhaps I'm taking too cynical of a view. As Rashid highlights when he describes his debates with his father, Sabu was seen as the example of an Indian immigrant becoming very successful in the West. It was, after all, the dream for many in post-colonial India. So can we then conveniently ignore the issues with Sabu's various roles in Hollywood films, and instead celebrate his success? After all, as Sadru, the father character in Rashid's docudrama Surviving Sabu (1998), asks his son, Amin, provocatively yet ironically: "What harm can a film do?"
- Pulkit Datta
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