S Rajamouli, with ‘RRR,’ proved that he has a finger on the pulse of the audience. The movie was backed by a huge audience both in India and abroad alike and the incredible box office collection it did is only a testament to how far and wide the movie travelled. The film is set in the 1920s when India was under the British Raj and it highlights the atrocities carried on by the Britishers over Indians.
Given how movies work, the film, in its limited time frame, could only manage to show a fraction of the brutalities inflicted upon Indians by the colonisers.
However, a British historian named Robert Tombs thinks differently. The Professor of French history at the University of Cambridge wrote an article for ‘The Spectator’ where he claimed that the portrayal of the Britishers in ‘RRR’ was “unusually nasty and at the same time amazingly silly.”
According to The Spectator, in the letter, he wrote, “To portray British officials and soldiers roaming the country casually committing crimes is a sign of absolute ignorance or of deliberate dishonesty… So films like RRR do not reveal some hidden truth about the past, nor do they express genuine popular feelings. They try to stir up synthetic emotions…Netflix should be ashamed for promoting it."
The Spectator article was posted as a Tweet by a page called Spec Coffee House. “The British have long been fair game as film villains. But Netflix’s blockbuster RRR takes things too far," read the caption.
The British have long been fair game as film villains. But Netflix's blockbuster RRR takes things too far✍️ Robert Tombshttps://t.co/xBCGlAYlKi
— Coffee House (@SpecCoffeeHouse) July 19, 2022
Now, the historian is receiving backlash for his comments. Not just Indians but people from across the world are schooling the man.
“The thing about british people feeling justified to complain about things like this is that they do so because they can’t really imagine getting tone policed like this by their own oppressors, since the UK’s entire cultural identity is already built around loving your oppressors (sic)," commented a Twitter user.
Another person wrote, “If the british didn’t want to be seen as villains then they shouldn’t have colonised 85% of the world and they shouldn’t have made colonised people look like villains to defend their own brutal colonialism but alright,(sic)"
What others reacted:
if you think that we will ever take things ‘too far’ as depicting the british as villains after the atrocities and straight up genocide that the british have committed through their actions in south asia, think again https://t.co/bKMAFVwdVZ— sun (local gremlin) 🌸 (@faintlamps) July 21, 2022
the author of this piece is literally called rob tombs https://t.co/vJtcCt4qCu— gryphoneer (@OneRadChee) July 20, 2022
Masterda Surya Sen was tortured in worst possible manner .His teeth were uprooted. His limbs were broken . His unconscious boby was hanged . But yeah RRR made British as villians . The audacity 🙂. These are just documented ones . There are lakhs of undocumented ones like this . https://t.co/ArczNRP7Lu pic.twitter.com/GHOUuL7Mdc— Subham. (@subhsays) July 20, 2022
You can always hate on the British Empire, it is always morally correct https://t.co/TFfhJGvhGK— CEO Of Harper Row! OCTOBER 28! (@MayonettaMatty) July 20, 2022
Watching RRR trigger white people is sometimes even more entertaining than watching RRR https://t.co/ly0zTNWIq9— Rin (@GrinchReality) July 20, 2022
"The British have long been fair game as film villains"The British in 2012: https://t.co/1jSL13ZDXI pic.twitter.com/7CIXD8jGbK
— Social Experiment (@GoneWorse) July 20, 2022
Is it *too* on the nose for an article complaining about colonised nation's cultural depictions of Britian to be written by a guy called ROB TOMBS? https://t.co/3F19HaCn3v— Spice8Rack (@Spice8Rack) July 20, 2022
What do you think about the same?
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