When Oscar Shit the Bed: Gandhi (1982)

When I was much, much younger and full of the sort of idealism that fostered unending binaries – good vs evil, right vs wrong, stupid goddamn whores vs chicks who might fuck me – I was in love with Gandhi. Not the man, mind you – though I did read several volumes of his writings that summer after high school graduation – but rather Sir Richard Attenborough’s Oscar-winning movie that swept the 1982 Oscars. Sure, its running time was somewhere between an ass-numbing coma and the better part of a long weekend, but I was deeply green in those days of hope and naivete.

Here was a man who, it was said, not only changed the world, but inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. and any number of social justice warriors to follow. I was so committed, in fact, so devoted to being good and doing good that I cranked up the VCR one lonely morning at 8am sharp, just to prove that heavy eyelids were no match for the humble warrior in a loincloth. It was the budding romance I needed, and about the only one I was ever going to get.

As my early twenties beckoned, Gandhi remained on my Top 10 list, crowding out previous teenage favorites like Rambo III and Robocop, if only to prove that I was no longer a brainless twat and instead, a refined man of principle. Action movies – even those of the beloved 80’s variety – were the childish things I needed to forego in order to embrace my budding humanity. Sure, I still got a little stiff in the face of exploding cars and bullets lodged in temples, but what were they compared to the saint who saved India?

This was a film with depth and heft, a pathway to inner greatness that no chase scene was ever going to bring about. I felt strong, reasonable, and mature at last, and I never failed to bring up the glory of Gandhi in any conversation. “Gotta see it,” I’d huff, my arrogance softened only by my insistence that your life too could be changed. “It’ll make you want to be a better man.” Sure, wanting exactly that used to be a worthwhile goal, but after actually living – not rent free with mom, but, you know, paying bills from my own checkbook – I started to sense that something was amiss. Maybe the Mahatma didn’t have the answers after all.

So yes, many years passed. Decades, in fact. I was older, wiser, and less apt to give two shits about colonialism or the freedom of non-Europeans. More thoughts entered my brain. Sure, England’s rule in India was hardly a spring day amidst daffodils, but it didn’t appear that bad, especially when we consider what followed. Once British boots took leave, we had the partition. And with it, mass murder and sectarian slaughter. Muslims, always the force for peace and restraint on the global stage, formed Pakistan and harbored terrorists. East Pakistan was also in the mix and decades hence, became Bangladesh, which led to more bodies in the streets. It also happens to routinely lead the world in death by typhoon. It was (and is) hideously poor, powerless, and worst of all, at sea level, so go figure when a little rain wipes out two million souls. But hey, at least they had their independence. It was like arguing in favor of incarceration because you no longer had to carry a mortgage.

Admittedly, Gandhi didn’t shy away from the post-1947 chaos, but regardless of the mayhem, it always circled back to the grace of Gandhiji. Everything great and glorious depended on dislodging the Crown, and if there was more death and destruction than ever before, at least it was theirs. Firing squads, assassinations, and mass starvation suck the big one, but a little less so when those behind it all share your skin color and spirituality. At least that’s what they say. And Gandhi, make no mistake, says exactly that. But since Gandhi was himself murdered in 1948 – not by snooty Brits, but his own people, it bears repeating – most of the film’s colossal running time was devoted to the run up; how a modest lawyer went from South Africa to India to show the world how non-violence could usher in, well, the exact opposite reality. How proud the ghost of Gandhi must have been when his homeland secured an atomic bomb.

So how does all this mean that Gandhi is an example of Oscar shitting the bed? Maybe Attenborough is to blame. Or the Academy, for once again equating bloat with beauty. I mean, eight Oscars are nothing to sneeze at. But it all comes down to methods. Fine, reducing a life to three measly hours is hardly fair, but let’s take what we have and jump to a few, even more unfair conclusions. I begin with the hunger strike. If the Mahatma stopped eating once, he did so a dozen times, and it’s always when he wants a sea change in the law. Or when the riots begin. Or just to be a dick. Humility, my ass. I mean, when you announce to an audience of one billion that until everyone minds their manners, you will consume only water with a bit of lemon, it sets new standards for nerve.

Or cheek, or whatever you want to call manipulating the emotions of the vulnerable. To do this, you’ve got to believe that an entire nation will so value your one little life that it will sacrifice everything to ensure that you live another day. Again, this isn’t a mass strike, it’s one dude. On a blanket, being fanned by untouchables. What seemed like righteous sacrifice became, with later viewings, deeply offensive. Frankly, by my mid-30’s, I half hoped they’d let him go and dump his heap in the Ganges.

And then there’s the single most ridiculous exchange in the entire movie, perhaps all movies. During an interview with photographer Margaret Bourke-White, she asks: “Do you really believe you could use non-violence against someone like Hitler?” Without missing a beat, the smug little runt spits, “Not without defeats, and great pain. But are there no defeats in war? No pain? What you cannot do is accept injustice. From Hitler, or anyone. You must make the injustice visible, and be prepared to die like a soldier to do so.”

Sure, it sounds so very wise from the comforts of a spinning wheel, but in reality, it simply means lambs before lions, and the entire country he claimed to love baking in ovens. Consider the Holocaust, a uniquely horrific event in the history of mankind. While it claimed over six million, it could have been far worse. It eventually came to an end, but only because the civilized nations of the world – including the white, meanie colonizers from Great Britain – took to the land, sea, and air with weapons of war. Hitler, then, and his entire system of death, was ground to powder by Gandhi’s philosophical opposite. Cram it, Mahatma.

In other words, if we are to, say, change the policy of a coffee shop, and maybe expand access to sea salt, marches and placards have their place. By all means, sing your songs and get the sympathy of the press. But if you want to vanquish true evil in your time (or any time), you’re going to have to use a flamethrower. Or a tank. Or a few hundred thousand troops. Gandhi’s way, and certainly the hippie ethic of the movie, won’t get you anything but dead. Good and dead. And when we’re dealing with fundamental religious differences, it’s a whole new ball of wax. India’s wildly diverse population united under Gandhi because they had a common enemy to vanquish.

Once expelled, Indians could go right back to hating each other for the cut of their cloth. One of the lessons of the movie – and history, to be frank – is that whenever religion is the top dog, the only thing keeping its excesses in check is a brutal, authoritarian rule. That can be Britain, Belgium or whomever. Ask Saudi Arabia about its Islamic radicals. Or Iraq under Saddam. When so-called liberation comes to call, the bodies start piling up. Freedom, in this sense, is simply the freedom to die under the thumb of a self-selected oppressor. And if Gandhi didn’t know that, he was even sillier than we thought.

None of this is Ben Kingsley’s fault, of course, and despite being saddled with an impossible role, he does just fine. I’d have seen fit to reward Paul Newman in The Verdict that year, or even Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, but we all know the Academy voters are so impossibly sanctimonious that when offered the opportunity to equate their silly gold man with a Nobel Prize, they’re going to take it. And when given an additional opportunity to set a record for most extras in a single film sequence (300,000 for Gandhi’s funeral), you just know we’re no longer after artistic integrity. It’s more a case of battering the audience into submission. Yes, yes, he’s so kind. Yes, yes, he’s so principled and selfless. Look at that devotion! And his ability to silence millions by simply clearing his throat! Cue eyerolls aplenty.

As a high school student, I was all in. I bought it. Maybe shed a tear or two. As a character says near the end, “He offered the world a way out of madness.” It seemed so, until I grew the fuck up. He offered nothing of the kind. And had the West adopted his tactics circa 1939, the whole thing would have gone up in smoke. I simply can’t abide our lust for saints, and hell, they usually let us down more than the sinners. Furthermore, I don’t want to live in a commune. Or be my brother’s keeper. Or share what I have with some nitwit down the block. Yes, Gandhi is just the film to inspire good deeds at twenty. But at fifty, it’s more apt to inspire indifference. Or the push to just be left the hell alone.. I no longer want to change the world and wouldn’t if I could. I just want to wake up without pain, have regular bowel movements, and write my caustic reviews in peace. I feel I’ve earned it.