Geopolitics, soft power, and influence of cinema: Can Bangladesh nurture it?

Name a few of the greatest villains in movies. The current Gen Z, and even those not members of this generation, will name Thanos, Doctor Doom, Magneto, Joker, and many more, which are part of the fantasy series movies of the contemporary entertainment universe. Some may go beyond this genre and name Voldemort, Darth Vader, Hannibal Lectre, and others. These movie characters are well-known for being ruthless. Still, others in this category represent a different genre, intention, context, and objective.

Let's consider the most popular Bollywood and Hollywood film industries. Both have had their share of villains originating from specific backgrounds and origins.

For Hollywood, Russia has given it some of the greatest villains - Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, Ivan Vanko in Iron Man 2, Viggo Tarasov in John Wick I, Yuri Komarov in A Good Day to Die Hard, Sergei Podovsky in Rambo 3, and a plethora of Bond villains, i.e., Xenia Onatopp, and Rosa Klebb. Russians have been depicted as antagonists even in animation movies, like the Muppets. Even The Avengers has Natasha Romanoff as a Russian Assassin. Since the inception of the Cold War, Russians have been a go-to image for "bad guys" in Hollywood. Portrayals of Russians changed in specific ways as the Cold War evolved and became more complex. The Russian as a villain waned after the 80s, with a recent resurgence in Hollywood. But in the interim, there was the trope of Muslim villains, a prominent stereotype after 9/11. They had also been targeted during the 70s, with oil and control of the Arab Peninsula as a clear and priority agenda for the US Government. Author Jack G. Shaheen, in his book Reel Bad Arabs and Guilty: Hollywood's Verdict on Arabs after 9/11, extensively discusses the inhuman depiction of Arabs on-screen. A large number of Hollywood films perpetuated a demeaning image of Arabs and contributed to generating several cultural misconceptions. Similarly, Tim Semmerling, in his analysis of three Hollywood films produced in the seventies (The Exorcist, Rollover, and Black Sunday), underscored the misrepresentation of Arabs served to stabilise Americans' feelings of superiority and control that started to shake after the oil crisis in the seventies. In 2021, USC's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report found that almost 54 per cent of Muslim characters in 2017-2019 movies were victims of violence, and 39 per cent were perpetrators. Movies helped the US Government immensely to influence opinion in favour of and sanitising the US war on terror. The US used cinema most effectively during World War II to garner and sustain the support and sympathy of the US people for the US engagement.

Between 1942 and 1945, the US Government reviewed 1,652 scripts and revised or discarded anything that cast a negative shadow on the US. This included material that made Americans seem unaware of or against the war.

In Bollywood, Pakistan or Pakistanis have primarily been depicted as villains since the 1990s. The Tiger film series, starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, navigates India's troubled and nuanced relationship with Pakistan. Shah Rukh Khan's Pathaan, Sunny Deol's Gadar, and Gadar 2, all great successes, had prominent Pakistan narratives-and there are a plethora of movies that show Muslims as destructive, anti-national antagonists. One study analysed some Bollywood movies and opined that Bollywood depicted the fact that Pakistani people's government, state, and military are undemocratic. In the movies studied, the story arch had a shadow of military intervention in public and governmental affairs and entertainment. The Chinese are also depicted in the same light in a few movies. Still, the obsession of Bollywood with Muslims and Pakistanis is overwhelming. Bollywood movies have often mirrored the political climate in India. In the 50s, the films reflected the optimism and romance of the newly independent country. In the 70s, the hero was portrayed as a disenfranchised individual fighting against powerful and corrupt forces. In the 90s, films depicted affluent young professionals working abroad, partying in London, and driving fancy cars. In recent years, since the rise of Narendra Modi and his right-wing BJP, Bollywood has shown a noticeable embrace of his political ideology, and Muslims and Pakistan are back in the crosshairs of the movie's protagonist. America's far-reaching influence extended beyond its borders. The 1954 Doolittle Report, commissioned by President Eisenhower, advocated for creating an aggressive, covert, psychological, and paramilitary organisation. This organisation overthrew elected governments in Iran and Guatemala and shaped global public opinion. One striking example is the CIA's secret purchase of the film rights to George Orwell's "Animal Farm," which was then used as a propaganda tool with a revised ending that depicted the overthrow of the communist leaders. The ending is entirely revised, showing that the pigs, who represent communist masters, are overthrown by the other animals on the farm.

The creation of enemies in Bollywood and Hollywood, in cinema industries that expand across regions, changes over time. The change is affected by the situations in the respective countries of cinema origin and the contemporary geopolitical realities.

This raises the question of why the villains have the exact origins more often than others in movies about countries with political and geopolitical issues with the depicted origins of the antagonist. It uses labelling as an effective strategy. Labelling is a dynamic process of defining a category of people by setting standards for others. Labelling is not something limited to evil Russians or terrorist Muslims only. Films have promoted or demeaned the stereotypes of various categories, as the case may be, i.e., the gay best friend and the black servant, and others have been introduced to movies. Suppose we assume that Americans or Indians are the good guys. In that case, Russians and Pakistanis, those who America and India see as threats, will be considered as bad guys. The audience will readily accept the suggestion due to existing geopolitical rivalries in other areas.

Cinema, film, and movies are among the most prominent forms of entertainment media in the world. It thrived directly after the World War I. Anyone can now watch films for a few hours and imagine themselves in a world between reality and fantasy. Hugo Münsterberg, a German-American psychologist in applied psychology, identified the four mental activities that the audience engages in while watching films - attention, memory, imagination, and emotion. Cinema serves as a platform for Collaboration, Cooperation, Cohesion, Coordination, and Convergence - the 5Cs of cinema. Internationally, cinema transcends barriers, surmounts challenges, and flourishes through the innovation of established and emerging contributors, adding a soft power dynamic and impact to global political spheres and power dynamics. Thus, films can stimulate emotional investments and demands for political action. The global presence of movies has been dramatically enhanced by streaming services, which have transformed film distribution. This has made it easier for films from smaller markets to reach a worldwide audience, greatly amplifying their impact. Films are a powerful tool for cultural diplomacy, reaching and influencing audiences worldwide. Certain films have entertained and educated, enhanced relationships, broken stereotypes, and transcended borders.

The vast space of cinema provides an opportunity to convey messages about the world that few governments can use or exploit, especially in exceptional circumstances and during wartime. That is why Hollywood worked with the Pentagon and other agencies, such as the CIA, to produce films that appear to support American views of wartime. The Defense Department funds movie projects that generally depict national and global security concerns, with geopolitical US enemy countries and individuals portrayed as the antagonists. Even US political commentator Candace Owens confirms that these movies' goal is to create and impact a specific narrative of the perpetual good guy in the US, fighting constant enemies of the US in the global order.

The same takes place in the movie industries of other countries. The institutions of power and, consequently, the countries and world powers have put cinema on their agenda to achieve their goals, including showing the distinction between friend and enemy. Cinema can play a crucial role in representing world politics and providing the basis for mass entertainment and storytelling. It is of great importance in popular geopolitics. Thus, the geopolitical power of cinema lies not only in its distribution but also in how it portrays events, people, and places.

Cinema can justify policies in the public mind by using popular imagination that is in line with the goals of political leaders. Popular geopolitical resources, such as films, have created and reproduced instances of geopolitical ideas and traditions that help preserve particular national views of governments. Popular geopolitics expresses how various societies and states try to show their world and position legally and logically. Thus, it is quickly used by the political elites as a powerful propaganda tool to demonstrate epic stories about the nation's formation and identity politics. Nationalism and concepts of international politics are constructed through a continuous iterative process of visual images. Since the invention of cinema, governments have relied on the power of the moving image to help create sentiment about national and international status.

Cinema transcends power structures by influencing public opinion and shaping international policies through captivating narratives. Movies are platforms for discussions and political analysis, sparking conversations that can drive societal transformation. Filmmakers and actors act as ambassadors with significant sway, using their works to facilitate cultural exchange and international conversations. The role of cinema in today's world is incredibly significant. It is a diplomatic tool and a compelling medium to communicate ideas through storytelling, influencing international relationships. Beyond its audience, cinema has a far-reaching impact on global leaders, policymakers, and communities worldwide. It acts as an envoy, spreading messages of peace, empathy, and solidarity through engaging stories that mirror the complexities of human life. There is no doubt that cinema now transcends entertainment in contemporary society. Nations, recognising the power of cinema to promote their agendas and perspectives on the world stage, utilise its importance in diplomacy.

The ability of film writers to use their characters as a means of representation to create genuine emotional connections between the audience and characters makes films so effective at addressing major social and ethical issues. We can discuss the impact of Tom Hanks' Philadelphia on how society viewed AIDS patients, Sanjay Dutt's Munna Bhai MBBS, a movie whose cinematic depiction of prioritising life over legal procedure led to the court ordering of treating emergency accident patients even before police case is filed, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's documentary film A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness that coaxed the Pakistani courts to ban honour killings in Pakistan.

The film industry of Bangladesh, better known as Dhallywood, has been a vibrant film industry since the mid-1950s. The dominant style of Bangladeshi film is dramatic, which developed and continued from 1947 to 1990. Initially, In Bangladesh, the industry developed into an important one, given the attention and admiration of ordinary people. However, things turned wrong during the 90s and early 2000s, which is best not discussed. In the later years, improvements began to emerge. However, some argue that film-making in the last two decades can be best described as "needs improvement." Despite advancements in technology, significant financial investments, shooting in exotic overseas locations, and increased international opportunities, the quality of the story, performance, music, lyrics, and dialogues have taken a plunge. The most significant difference can be seen in the unnecessarily loud and obscene music and language, followed by weak storylines and shallow scripts. Having about 150 million ardent viewers in Bangladesh, filmmakers have the opportunity to reinvigorate the art of film. A few young and talented filmmakers make critically acclaimed films for those who still have a zest for film, perfect ones. However, these are few and far between. Over the last few years, there were apparent signs of a spectacular revival of the Dhaka film industry. True to the expectations of the movie industry, viewers returned to the theatres in droves. Successful movies continued to be released with the entry of a new breed of venturesome producers and distributors in the filmdom. Many were made under the banner of Bangladesh-India joint ventures, and a veritable rejuvenation dawned on Bangladesh cinema.

Countries like Bangladesh do not have global or regional enemies and thank God for that. However, they do have the global baggage of being members of the Global South, the less developed. Geopolitically speaking, hard power will not be readily available and attainable for Bangladesh. However, it can acquire soft power through conventional and non-conventional trade and geopolitical partners. It is not that we have not had our share of stereotyping in regional and global cinema. There are several TV shows and cinemas that have mentioned Bangladesh. A recent movie titled Extraction created quite a stir in how Bangladesh was portrayed. Some may not see it as wrong and argue it is just an imaginary, creative media portrayal. However, the above discussion underscores that such portrayals can have undue impacts. Even India has depicted Bangladesh as a country in distress in 1971, and the Indian protagonist, the government's agent, comes to our rescue. At the very least, it deprives Bangladesh of its due credit in the Liberation War to those who do not know much about the country.

A senior scholar in Bangladesh once told me that a civilisation is built collectively, and a culture is built through individual efforts that accumulate in the cultural mosaic. We may not have the state sponsorship for making movies as scaled and functional as the US. Still, our filmmakers can partner with other countries and build a more robust soft power and cultural exchange, eventually building on it gradually. We usually look towards conventional markets such as the US and India for these collaborations. However, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Middle Eastern countries, Central Asia, and others in South Asia have a robust cinema culture and industry. Bangladesh needs to expand its outreach for partnered projects with these countries, where it can have a far better impact. Bangladesh filmmakers and storytellers can adopt story arches and cinema more culturally grounded in our identity and cultural fabric. The conventional masala Indian commercial movies have their niche. Still, Bangladesh needs to stamp its own cinema identity domestically and abroad. Domestic efforts are falling short for now by all means and standards. Expanding beyond the conventional partners in this regard and exploring options in unconventional industries is prudent. It will add to our technique and creativity while cultivating newer ground for our cinema industry.

Bangladesh is challenged with expanding its trade outreach mainly due to a lack of diversity in products and markets. Conventional markets are squeezing down available opportunities, while unconventional markets have remained largely unexplored. Cinema and even TV show collaborations can be an effective strategy to open up newer avenues in these unexplored frontiers, not only for the entertainment industry but also to build a foundation for creating soft power in these comparatively unexplored countries. Soft power is necessary in this complex, multipolar world of geopolitics.

This is explicit in one anecdote - Kabir Khan, a famous filmmaker from India, began his career as a documentary filmmaker before entering the mainstream commercial film industry. In an interview, he once said that his decision to come to commercial films was triggered by his realisation of the soft power of Indian cinema. He once had travelled to Afghanistan before the US invasion for a documentary. There, a Taliban member did not kill him upon seeing him with cameras; instead, he helped him because the Taliban member had watched Indian cinema. The Taliban member sang a song when Kabir Khan identified himself as an Indian, "Mere sapnoki rani kabayegitu..." from the film Aradhana. Kabir Khan says that is when he realised the soft power of Indian cinema. The popularity of Shah Rukh, Salman, Aamir, and numerous Hollywood stars depicts the immense soft power cinema can impart and inculcate for a nation.

Bangladesh also needs to begin efforts to inculcate the same, and the beginning can be through partnered projects, not with conventional but unconventional industries.

The writer is a political and international affairs analyst.

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