Don't You Mean Mumbai?
There are so many ways to be accidentally racist. Backing into a synagogue, that’s one.
(Start again! – Editor)
There are so many ways to be accidentally racist. Recently on 3RRR’s On the Blower, someone called in to complain about the phrase ‘Eskimo Pie’.
‘Do you think that’s offensive to the Eskimo people?’ I asked.
‘You mean the Inuit people,’ corrected the caller.
I hadn’t been aware of that change; I’ve been saying Eskimo for years. Actually, that’s not true. I don’t think I’ve ever said Eskimo. There’s been no need. The topic’s never come up. In fact I couldn’t even tell you what country the Eskimos live in. Eskimovia? Or should that be Inuitania? Is there actually such a thing as an igloo, or is that just something from cartoons? Does the Eskimo/Inuit really sit cross-legged just outside the front door bit, fishing through a perfectly circular hole in the ice? Aren’t they up the North Pole, these people? Is that a country? Do they have a parliament building made entirely of ice?
‘So, the Eskimo Pie is an insult to the Inuit people, is that what you’re saying?’
‘That’s what I’m saying.’
‘What if we changed it to Inuit Pie? Would that be an appropriate gesture? A first step toward reconciliation?’
Fortunately, the next caller wanted to talk about the new version of The Dam Busters, where, as with both the original film and the original mission, the Captain’s dog is called ‘Nigger’. I found myself rather self-consciously saying ‘the N-word’ on air, rather than actually using it. The film’s producer David Frost, we learnt, has suggested that calling the dog ‘Nigsy’ might be less offensive. Nigsy? Imagine, for a moment, calling a black man ‘Nigsy’. Wouldn’t that be worse? Wouldn’t that be way, way worse?
***
Okay, I’ve just looked on Wikipedia and it seems all of Greenland is Eskimos. Nothing but. Once again I am reminded of my ‘damn fool ignorance’, to use a saying of my grandmother’s, usually in reference to the woman at the butchers.
It’s like the whole Bombay/Mumbai thing. That, too, had completely passed me by. Whenever I heard people using the word ‘Mumbai’ – those who had just come back from there always gave it an extra Richard E. Grantish gush and hair-flip (‘Oh, you should have seen Mumbai!’) – I simply assumed it was some exciting new tourist destination, like Ibiza, where people went to take drugs and photographs of themselves having group sex on their phones. I had no idea it was plain old Bombay they were talking about. Although, I had been wondering why so many people would bristle at my occasional use of that word, ‘Bombay’. Why they were staring at me like I was seconds away from a ‘Birdie Num Num.’ I didn’t know I was supposed to be saying Mumbai. And what about Bombay Rock? Should that be Mumbai now?
This week at Mumbai Rock: Inuit Joe and Nigsies With Attitude.
***
I blame Slumdog Millionaire. It’s become India’s Crouching Tiger. Everyone will be Mumbai-mad for about three more months and then it’ll become like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a film you can’t believe you once slept with.
But, for the time being, try to slag off Slumdog Millionaire in mixed company and see how far you get. Most people simply won’t hear of it. Suddenly you’re a Slumdog Millionaire Scrooge.
‘But didn’t you just love it?’ they say. ‘Didn’t you leave the theatre feeling just great?’
Why? Because of the scene where the kid’s having electrodes attached to his testicles? Actually, come to think of it, that was the most enjoyable part of the movie. Because he’s a liar, this kid. A dirty, no-good cheat, if you haven’t seen it, who scams his way to the final round of Millionaire and is rightfully collared by the Mumbai plod. Oh sure, I’m prepared to believe that everything mentioned in the questions actually happened to him in real life, but in the exact same fucking order? What do you take me for, a gormless boob from the sticks?
This is a film so grimly realistic that it features children being blinded as a plot point, but also in which someone falls from a train, dusts themselves off and, hello, there’s the Taj Mahal. It’s Casino one minute, Princess Bride the next. And it’s a film where we’re supposed to care about someone we know absolutely nothing about, apart from the time he once fell into a long drop dunny and got completely covered in shit.
By this point everyone hates you.
‘But what about the fabulous Bollywood dance number at the end? Surely you liked that? Didn’t it make you feel like getting up and dancing yourself, right there in the cinema?’
You mean where the kid is grooving about on the railway platform completely unaware that his own brother has just been machine-gunned to death in a bathtub full of money? This is our happy ending? When exactly is someone going to tell him? At the end of the number?
Cos I’m a Slumdogggggg….
‘Um, sorry to interrupt, but your brother’s just been machine-gunned to death in a bathtub full of money.’
…Milliionairrrrrre!!!!!!
It’s about now that they ask you to leave. Only using the word ‘Bombay’ could make things any worse. And even the joke about how because it’s in rupees, the Mumbai version should be called Who Wants to Win $28.50? will fail to win them back.
My theory is this: people just really like the idea of going to the movies to watch an episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Because when I saw it, that was what people were most interested in; what was going on in the game. How much he was going to win. I’m telling you, if they did a film of Deal or No Deal the queue would be round the block. Maybe set it in Greenland, let the Inuits get a slice of the action. After all, they’re going to need it. I may not know much about them but I do know that the earth is heating up and that their houses are made of water.
Tony Martin is the Melbourne-based author of ‘A Nest of Occasionals’ and ‘Lolly Scramble’. Podcasts of his radio show ‘Get This’ are still available for free download at iTunes (type in: ‘Get This: Richard Marsland Lives’). He is currently directing new episodes of ABCTV's ‘The Librarians’.
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