Jai Ho

  

According to Walter Benjamin’s definition of an object’s “aura” as, “that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art” the authenticity of the piece in relation to life history and context legitimizes the piece’s aura (Benjamin, 1936). Therefore, from Benjamin’s point of view films themselves lack “aura” due to the fragmentation and process of filming and editing as well as the disconnect between actor and viewer as compared to theater (Benjamin, 1936). Likewise, I don’t think that any of the Jai Ho videos have and “aura” in this sense; technology mediates the experience of the viewer and thus the experience is not authentic (Benjamin, 1936).

Benjamin maintains that a reproduction detaches the object from tradition and the authority of life history and tradition is what gives the “aura” authenticity (Benjamin, 1936). The dance sequence itself could be authenticated and thus have an “aura” through its own context and history (Benjamin, 1936). However, since it’s not a Bollywood movie it is a mere adaptation of a Bollywood musical genre and thus lacks authenticity and “aura”.

If “aura” could be allocated in various degrees than the Jai Ho from the film would have a higher “aura” in comparison to the youtube productions, but the fact of reproduction in “youtube” take the dance/song out of its context and thus none of the versions have “aura”. They are vapid reproductions, especially in relation to the “Pussycat Dolls Jai Ho” version in which the background story is completely different and the video is much more sexualized Americanized to capitalist ends.

         In spite of their lack of “aura” the other versions of “Jai Ho” reminded me of Geertz’s concept of “blurring of cultures”(Moore, 1999). The dances portray a hybrid of Western and Bollywood music videos incorporating both. In Arjun Appaduri’s article, “Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology” he describes a de-territorialization of culture largely due to media and globalization (1996). Putting Jai Ho at the end of this movie that focused on some of the most impoverished people in India reminded me of Appaduri’s point that, “…even the meanest and most hopeless of lives, the most brutal and dehumanizing of circumstances, the harshest of lived inequalities are now open to the play of the imagination”(1996). The film portrays the link between imagination, media, globalization and de-territorialization which have become integral to everyone’s social lives connecting the viewer on perhaps a less visceral, but no less important level than “aura”.  

Links:

Official YouTube version of Jai Ho from the end of the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRC4QrUwo9o

Pussycat Dolls Jai Ho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc5OyXmHD0w

Slumdog Millionaire Dance Jai Ho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7AuQKFlhXI

Karan Khokar and Divya Ikara- Jai Ho Dance - Tamil Sneham - Tampa, Florida

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqWkFMoLocM

Bibliography

Appadurai, Arjun
1996. Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology. In Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Pp. 48-65. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. 

Benjamin, Walter
1936. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility. In Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 3: 1935-1938. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press.

Moore, Henrietta L.
1999. Anthropological theory at the turn of the century. In Anthropological Theory Today. Henrietta L. Moore, ed. Pp. 1-23. Cambridge: Polity Press.