Comments on Mitali's Fire Escape: What Book Publishers Can Learn From Disney

Interested in hearing your thoughts on the film. I...

2008-08-28T23:33:00.000-04:00

Interested in hearing your thoughts on the film. I saw it as well.

Indian culture is so highly misunderstood in the U...

2008-08-28T03:14:00.000-04:00

Indian culture is so highly misunderstood in the U.S. that I'll take any depiction so long as it doesn't solely revolve around a) being a doctor, b) being a taxi driver, or c) being a 7-eleven owner or gas station owner. Not that there's anything wrong with these professions, of course, but the perception and understanding of Indians has to transform and expand a bit. Unfortunately, we may be stuck with the Bollywood/exotic/colorful depiction for a while....

Yes, I am thrilled that Disney has come this far f...

2008-08-21T14:44:00.000-04:00

Yes, I am thrilled that Disney has come this far from the India of the Jungle Book. It's not as far as we might like, but it's movement.

Besides, everything is hyper-sweet and packaged neatly in the Mouse world, so why should this movie be any different? That's their brand -- squeaky, tween clean, and easy to consume. Nothing wrong with that.

I'll reserve my final judgment after I watch tomorrow, though, and take your words of caution into account.

Are you really thrilled, Didi? All I see here is "...

2008-08-21T14:37:00.000-04:00

Are you really thrilled, Didi? All I see here is "Ohhhh, exotic!" and "Ohhhh, colorful!" and South Asian (a Bollywood-ized, saccharin-ized version) culture being packaged for easy consumption. How is this *any* different from anything we've seen in the past few years?

I think Disney has made a smart, profit-driven move to reflect what's selling in the marketplace. (Elephants, lenghas, bhangra, oh my!)

Sorry to be the crotchety one here - Monsoon Summer was thrilling; this is "meh" at best.