Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!bbncca!rrizzo From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) Newsgroups: net.motss Subject: Crown Jewels: Heat & Lust in the Raj Message-ID: <1264@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Tue, 15-Jan-85 18:02:03 EST Article-I.D.: bbncca.1264 Posted: Tue Jan 15 18:02:03 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 05:32:34 EST Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 28 Caning, anyone? Nasty Ronald Merrick (aka Timothy(?) Piggott-Smith) is available for house calls. Just turn on the tube to PBS Sunday (or Saturday for the instant replay) night, and receive a sound psychic thrashing from the saucy folks of Masterpiece Theater. What do net.motss readers think of the "villainous homo" glue of The Jewel in the Crown? Quite frankly, Piggott-Smith is the only Brit, male or female, in the entire production with any sex appeal, even though he's saddled with the often stupidly conceived & written role of Captain Merrick (how many ways can one portray obtuse malice?). (The erotic show-stealers are Art Malik's Hari Kumar, & perhaps Kasim & the nawab, the latter played by ??? Jaffrey.) Although I suspect the TV series is much better than Paul Scott's Raj Quartet tetralogy, a Canadian correspondent who may've seen some of the upcoming episodes tells me the homophobia only increases later on. Recent movies about India dwells almost solely on the British Raj & reactions to it (GANDHI, HEAT & DUST, A PASSAGE TO INDIA) & are often taken up solely with colonial preoccupations. India & Indians themselves are lost as a result. Now PBS adds a dash of that wonderful Victorian atavism, British homophobia, as if to emphasize the parochial aims of the Indian locale. The whole spate of books & films might well be labeled "Why did we (UK) lose India?" Ron Rizzo