The binary structure of this documentary, showing the contrast between a Hindu nationalist camp for girls (Old India) and a boot camp for the 2012 Miss India finalists (Modern India), allows for insight into the motivations,contradictions, and aspirations of young Indian women seeking to forge their identity,live up to expectations, and make a success of themselves, in a country with a deep and ancient culture facing rapid but uneven modernization and westernization.
Both paths are shown to have their pitfalls. The girls being indoctrinated to defend Old Mother India are taught discipline, modesty, and a certain fierce self-empowerment. But they are also taught violence, hatred of Muslims and Christians,devaluation of education for women, and strict limitation of their lives to the role of wife and mother. The beauty contestants believe they can achieve all that they want, and if successful, will have fame, fortune and influence, but are also victims of objectification, sexism, and unrealistic beauty standards. Most of us already realize that a woman can be simultaneously empowered and denigrated by a beauty contest, and listening to the individual stories of these very articulate young women reinforces that; but their stories, including that of a past Miss India winner, also bring home the fact that a particular woman could view such contests as completely empowering, based on her particular background, life story and goals - how the pageants helps her to move away from what she wants to shed and towards what she wants to accomplish.
Unfortunately, some reviewers of this documentary have taken it to represent the situation of all the women of India, when it was in fact specifically intended to reveal two extremes - the ends of the spectrum and not the vast middle ground of the millions of women in between. I note that one reviewer even said that she no longer wishes to visit India after viewing the documentary! That is always the danger of highlighting any negative or extreme aspect of a culture. Very often it becomes synonymous in the viewer/reader's mind as representing the entirety of that culture.
Both paths are shown to have their pitfalls. The girls being indoctrinated to defend Old Mother India are taught discipline, modesty, and a certain fierce self-empowerment. But they are also taught violence, hatred of Muslims and Christians,devaluation of education for women, and strict limitation of their lives to the role of wife and mother. The beauty contestants believe they can achieve all that they want, and if successful, will have fame, fortune and influence, but are also victims of objectification, sexism, and unrealistic beauty standards. Most of us already realize that a woman can be simultaneously empowered and denigrated by a beauty contest, and listening to the individual stories of these very articulate young women reinforces that; but their stories, including that of a past Miss India winner, also bring home the fact that a particular woman could view such contests as completely empowering, based on her particular background, life story and goals - how the pageants helps her to move away from what she wants to shed and towards what she wants to accomplish.
Unfortunately, some reviewers of this documentary have taken it to represent the situation of all the women of India, when it was in fact specifically intended to reveal two extremes - the ends of the spectrum and not the vast middle ground of the millions of women in between. I note that one reviewer even said that she no longer wishes to visit India after viewing the documentary! That is always the danger of highlighting any negative or extreme aspect of a culture. Very often it becomes synonymous in the viewer/reader's mind as representing the entirety of that culture.