Authenticity & Reproduction

            The two versions of the music video “Jai Ho” I will be discussing are the original Hindi version written for the film Slumdog Millionaire and the subsequent version recorded in English by the Pussycat Dolls. As was mentioned in class, the original version was created specifically for the film, one that takes place and was filmed in India, but is largely British-produced (including the director, Danny Boyle, and Dev Patel, the actor who plays the lead character, previously known for his role as a pill-popping religiously conflicted teenager on the television series Skins), and so Walter Benjamin’s article, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” is difficult to apply to the two videos in full. While Benjamin states, “the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition,” (1936:3) the original “Jai Ho” video is already outside the domain of tradition before having been reproduced and remixed by the Pussycat Dolls. Slumdog Millionaire is not what would typically be considered a Bollywood film, as the dance scene takes place at the end of the film rather than being incorporated throughout, as is the norm in Bollywood cinema; the scene is spliced together with clips from the film to form the video.

            From the perspective of Appadurai, the Pussycat Dolls’ re-envisioning of the music video could be considered deterritorialization, which he describes as something that “creates new markets for film companies, impresarios, and travel agencies, which thrive on the need of the relocated population for contact with its homeland” (1996:49). The people to whom this movie is legitimately relatable, on a more tangible level than simply the love story, are displaced all over the world and perhaps form the sort of relocated population Appadurai speaks of. The film reached a number of audiences worldwide due to its success with both critics (it won several Oscars) and the public, but it is arguable the Pussycat Dolls envisioning of the video furthered this in that it expanded the impact of the film to non-viewers. Appadurai later asserts that “one of the principle shifts in the global cultural order, created by cinema, television, and video technology (and the ways in which they frame and energize other, older media) has to do with the role of the imagination in social life,” (1996:53) which could easily be applied to the Pussycat Dolls’ version insofar as it adapts the original version produced for the film for another, even broader audience. Perhaps the original version cannot quite yet be considered “older” media, but the film clips and dance scene in it have been exchanged for a group of American girls dancing in revealing clothing. The dance in the train station in the original video is perfectly mimicked in the Pussycat Dolls’ version, but it has been updated with product placements (cell phones and mp3 players) and has been injected with the sex appeal it was formerly lacking. “The new power of the imagination,” notes Appadurai, “in the fabrication of social lives is inescapably tied up with images, ideas, and opportunities that come from elsewhere, often moved around by the vehicles of mass media” (1996:54). The Pussycat Dolls’ “Jai Ho” does exactly this, in that it infuses new imagination and ideas into a previously established piece of media.

            Of the updated version of the music video, a relevant thought from Benjamin is, “mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses towards art” (1936:8). The video, I would argue, changes the art and so does not directly reproduce it. Indian culture is prevalent in Vancouver, but I imagine for someone living in another area, the Pussycat Dolls’ remaking of “Jai Ho” would provide exposure to an unfamiliar culture.