Thursday, May 03, 2007

Gorilla in the mist

One of the few benefits of going in to a newspaper office a couple of times a week is that I get access to a plenitude of very entertaining press releases. The most recent of these began with the following text centre-aligned and in bold:
HBO CELEBRATES MOTHER'S DAY
WITH an exclusive PREMIERE OF
KING KONG IN HINDI
Such an apt choice, probably inspired by the maternal gleam in Naomi Watts' eye when she's skating on the ice with the big monkey. Doubtless, mothers around the country will gurgle in delight when they watch the scenes with the three-foot-long man-eating cockroaches and hear NY cops shouting to each other, "Bandar jail se bhaag gaya hai!" But the release goes on to say:

King Kong in Hindi is a special Mother's Day gift from HBO to its viewers. We received a tremendous response from the Indian audience for our offering of The Mummy, The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King in Hindi a few years ago. We hope to regale our viewers once again...

The most delightful thing about this is that the person who wrote the press release almost certainly failed to note the connection between Mother's Day and "The Mummy Returns". It's pure serendipity. Incidentally the release mentions that the channel will be screening Monster-in-Law as well. Maybe they can show The Towering Inferno on Diwali.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Jai,

    An apt comment on the quality or lack of it on the ads in our print media. We celebrate mother's day, valentines and father's day or whatever without realising that the whole concept has been designed for the occident , where "probably" the family culture is falling apart. How King Kong realtes to Mother's day is best left to the homely "Mataji" to decide.I still long for the delicious "Utterly Butterly" and 'Roshni Deta Bajaj' probably my childhood memories but still ads that connected left a leaving impression still wonderfully simple.

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  2. Not just print - I've seen HBO advertising King Kong on TV!

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  3. Just as long as no one comes up with the idea of showing Three Colours for Holi. Can you imagine? Papa, Mummy, Chunnu and Munnu putting aside their pichkaris to watch Juliette Binoche in Blue.

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  4. @ shwet awasthi,

    Given that Mother's Day has been celebrated in England since the 1600s and Valentine's Day in Italy from 1400s, I can't see how they were designed to save the 'crumbling' family culture in the west. Surely they weren't THAT pessimistic back in the days?

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  5. Artemis,

    Exactly what are you trying to state , "magic realism or phantasmagoric myth. Jokes apart pessimism and optimisim have never been exlained so lucidly then now , so let's meet over a drink and discuss this.

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