C'est La Vie

Slumdog Millionare, a tale of an orphan in India who overcomes hardship (and falls in love with the Gorgeous with a capital G - Frieda Pinto who is pictured above in the gold Christian Lacroix gown that I disliked immensely) bagged four awards at the Golden Globes for Best Drama, Best Director (Danny Boyle), best Screenplay (Simon Beaufoy) and Best Original Score (A.R Rahman).

It was super exciting and a little disconcerting to see personalities that I recognized from Indian cinema mingling with the likes of Angelina Jolie and Sean Combs. For some reason I just found it incredibly cute when AR Rahman hugged Sean Combs (forever known to me as P. Diddy) upon receiving his award, and my mind flashed through what it would be like if both Hollywood and "Bollywood" were to join together more often.

Can you imagine Brad Pitt being nominated for A Curious Case.. and Shah Rukh Khan being nominated for Rab Ne...in the same Best Actor category? Or Angelina dancing alongside Akshay Kumar in an action flick, while Will Smith saves the world from robots with Aishwarya Rai? The thing with us Indians however, is that we would be watching both movies and thinking about what the West is thinking about Akshay and Aishwarya. Do they think they're good looking, do they think their accent is funny, are they going to be as popular as a regular Hollywood star now, are people going to accept them, are people laughing at our song and dance routines? It seems to me that the East is always seeking the West's approval. When Aishwarya Rai became the first Indian to be on the jury at Cannes, Indians all around the world waited on bated breath to see what she would wear and whether she would represent India well. If you ask any Indian who they think would represent India best internationally, there's a pretty high chance they'll say Aishwarya Rai. Why is this? Probably because she fits the West's mold of what is conventionally "beautiful". It's funny because most Indians don't look like her, so if she fit's the ever influential Western hemisphere's mold of what is beautiful, than most of us don't even qualify.

Even though the Indian Film Industry churns out more movies, has a wider audience than a Hollywood flick does, and has actors that are truly recognized worldwide, Hindi film actors still constantly gush about Hollywood actors. When Akshay Kumar met Snoop Dogg, you can bet it wasn't Snoop D-o- double G that was super excited . When Angelina presented at the Filmfare Awards with Shah Rukh Khan, all of America wasn't waiting and watching to see what she would wear, and if she would embarass America. Americans don't care, so why do we? When Shah Rukh Khan presented at the Golden Globes on Sunday, he mentioned something about pelvic thrusting. There were comments aplenty on youtube videos and various forums about how he "embarassed us". Honestly, I'm sick of Indian's all around the world overanalyzing what our celebrities do when they come into contact with anything Hollywood.

While I'm glad that AR Rahman was the first Indian to win a Golden Globe, I was equally glad when he won a Filmfare.