Everyone’s heard of Coldplay and how they dropped a single over the weekend, right? If you’re thinking, “Oh wow I really loved that song. I thought the video was beautiful. Coldplay is the best” (or anything along those lines), I’m sorry to break this to you: that music video is NOT okay. Coldplay not only promotes harmful stereotypes about India and Indian culture, but also appropriates Indian culture while hiding behind Beyoncé. Oh, and there’s also a problem with representation.
Sonam Kapoor is a pretty famous Bollywood actress. She’s the face of L’Oréal in India and one of the country’s leading fashionistas. She’s also had various appearances at Cannes (a point of pride for India). Her father, Anil Kapoor, starred in the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, was in the TV series 24 and also had a role in Mission Impossible 4. That’s all good, but what has that got to do with the video? Sonam Kapoor is in it. That’s right. Coldplay had an actual Bollywood actress play a part in their music video, but decided to use Beyoncé to portray the role of the Bollywood actress in the music video. When I first heard that Kapoor was going to be in the video, I was very excited. Indians rarely get representation in western media, and I was even happier that this was an actress I knew, whose father I grew up watching. I immediately felt great about myself. And then I remembered…if she’s playing an Indian in the video, she was going to be clad in extremely traditional Indian clothes and be paid to look “exotic.” If you’re thinking, “Well, I guess that’s what would probably look great on her,” here’s a picture of her slaying at the Cannes festival (in what most definitely is not Indian clothing).
I was willing to get past that, probably because Coldplay’s “Paradise” is one of my favorite songs. However, all hell broke loose when I found out that Beyoncé was going to play an Indian actress. This was immediately a red flag for me. Not only does this throw Indian representation down the drain, it also appropriates culture. Beyoncé clearly isn’t Indian, has nothing to do with India and as far as I know, doesn’t have a lot of knowledge about Indian culture. Yet, she is in traditional Indian attire, which obviously has a lot of cultural significance. In some shots, several bindis adorn her eyebrows. All of these closely resemble Indian bridal wear and traditions. Adding to the cultural appropriation is misrepresentation of our culture as she wears what looks an awful lot like chain mail on her face, and labels it as Indian jewelry. All of these not only make our clothes and jewelry look more like costumes, but also make it (I assume) difficult for her to do her apparent exotic hand gestures, which they tried to pass off as Indian dance. And this brings me to a very complicated question: are people okay with this, or not calling Beyoncé out on it because she’s not white? Or is it because it was “Queen Bey” that it was okay?
Unfortunately, there are more issues with this video. Like most other western media portrayals of India, there are children on the street, running around and throwing colors. There are weed-smoking sadhus on every nook and corner. I really wish this was the case, trust me; I love dousing color on people as much as the next person. Unfortunately, Indians also have to do other normal worldly stuff. Like going to work, or maybe studying in school. People, however, seem to forget this. They assume that every Indian woman sits at home clad in a saree (ha, if only they could see me writing this while wearing PJs and eating chips with queso at 2 in the morning) while the men go farm. So, obviously, children find color and throw it at each other. Also, on the topic of sadhus, there aren’t as many as you’d think! In some parts of India, yes. Varanasi has a lot of sadhus, but cities like Mumbai and Hyderabad don’t. I wish this was the case; I’d personally take a high old guy telling me life stories over a college boy in jeans trying to look cool at a mall. But I promise you, this is not the case. And please don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that there are no slums or that Holi isn’t a big thing for us. I’m saying that there is more to India than the so called “exotic” and spiritual life that western media seems to limit us to. We are one of the fastest developing countries in the world, our technology and infrastructure are as well developed as any other, yet we are dismissed off as the land of snake charmers. India isn’t beautiful because we have colors and sprees but because we have managed to mix both our traditional values and western influence to create an amalgamation of cultures.
Things like this need to stop. It is 2016 and Indians are still being made fun of for their accents or marveled at for speaking in English. It is actually very insulting to come from the country with the largest English speaking population in the world and be asked, “How do you know such good English if you’re from India?” Or be told, “For an Indian, you speak very good English.” Our food and clothes were made fun of, our country is still constantly labeled poor, dirty and underdeveloped. But suddenly, when we’re needed for a music video, everything about India is beautiful, cultured and spiritual. Indians are more than “exotic.” We are more than just yoga. We are more than just curry. I promise you, we are more than just another stereotype.