Age and Beauty
I've received some emails complaining about my character design for Sita. Specifically, her babe-aliciousness offends some sensibilities, like Sendhil's:
....please do not portray Mother Sita in a skinny robe like an arabian belly dancer. It is insulting to us Hindus. I also went through all the letters of appreciation you have received from everyone Indians and others. I can only assure you that they are idiots who have not understood the meaning of Ramayana.
Sita's bodacious bod is in fact based on a grand tradition of devotional Hindu art. This tradition is pre-Mughal, but then so is the Ramayana itself. As for Sita being a mother, well, here's a pre-Mughal mother goddess. No shame in the female form; fearing and hiding it is an idea imported to India relatively recently.
Speaking of ancient history, another correspondent, Suresh Kumar, would like you to know that the Ramayana is many millenia older than the 3,000 years I gave it. He's referring to whatever actual events the story is based on, not when it was written. I myself peg it closer to Valmiki's estimated era, since I'm working from Valmiki's version. Your mileage may vary.
If you'd like to gawk at more pre-Mughal ideal feminine figures, here are some pictures I took at the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday. They're all blurry, because the galleries had extremely low lighting and flash was verboten.
Comments:
Oh Nina... do you not know? All mothers are definitely 'sex-free'... in most cases they are actually virgins.
Nina, your work is amazing. I've been a fan since Fluff (I used to work for Ctoons.com years ago) and you're just the best. Thank you!
Hi,
I looked at your interpretation of Ramayana. It seems you have put in a lot of effort in creating your film and have been duly awarded for it. I also saw, people have raised objection with your representation of Sita Mata, and your counter argument to it.
I think you are right in thinking that pre Mughal representation of women in Vedic India was different than post Mughal. We Hindus have never felt ashamed of our body, male or female, whether it is Apsaras, temples of khajuraho, or Shiva lingum, but we are just as respectful of the ‘mother image’ of a woman. You have shown Sita Mata side by side with an Apsara. An Apsara would not be a correct representation of the image of Sita. The only similarity between both would be that they (or their image/stories) are from the same region. But the similarity ends there. Just the way it would be wrong to group all the Caucasian women of the present times in one bunch, by imagining them all to be like Pamela Anderson, (be it her or mother Teresa), it would be wrong to use the image of a erotic seductress to represent motherly goddess.
Though even Hindu goddesses images are shown with evident breast, they are not emphasized to evoke eroticism and/or lust, images of Apsaras and/or couples in intimate poses on the other hand are meant for that very purpose.
I think you have made a great attempt in giving a modern twist to Ramayana, but I believe you would have not compromised any of your objectives by creating the image of Sita Mata more true to her image produced for thousands of years.
One small quibble--one could make the same argument about, say, a fairly unclothed Aspasia or Artemisia based on ancient Greek sculptures, or even the Julias based on some Roman works. But based on written texts, we have a pretty good idea that the ancient Greeks were just as paranoid about keeping their women folk covered from head to toe--and the Romans even more so--as their more famously restrained descendants. There are plenty of nudes hanging in our galleries, but nude is hardly our common state of being.
Just sayin'.
Thanks Saheli. Speaking of written texts: in written texts, Sita was a babe. Utterly devoted and in love with Rama, but babeablicious nonetheless. In fact it was Sita's beauty that Rama cited as justification for rejecting her in Lanka ("Ravana was aware of your beauty").
Hey, does anyone have any sources on pre-Mughal images of Sita? I just did a Google search and found
this one from Cambodia (12th c.), but that's it. Anyone?
Oh absolutely. As the Goddess of Fortune She would be the very definition of Babe. But I was talking about her clothing, not her form. :-)
I find your clothing choices pretty reasonable. The prevalance of the sari from north to south, east to west, its lack elsewhere, and its citation in fairly ancient scriptures from the Mahabharat to the Puranas makes it seem like the garment of choice for depicting ancient heroines and goddesses. It can be worn in many styles, varying from skimpy to burka-like. (Old Bengali women have an amazing ability to make a complete covering out of a sari--and nothing else.)
The part that strikes me as possibly unrealistic enough to be notable is the long flowing curly hair. Sita was from Mithila, which is present day Nepal, and women from that area tend to have long flowing straight hair. More important, however, I just can't see a neat princess letting her hair down like that in the forest. It would be too hot and messy. Even the nude goddess you post has her hair bound up. When Sita dropped her hair ornaments from Ravan's air-chariot, it was a big deal, and her resulting state of disarray is frequently contemplated for its wrongness.
Fair enough, Saheli. In fact I hardly even gave her hair ornaments, and I know how important it is that she dropped them for the monkeys to find.
I also sometimes wonder if my making Sita fair was a mistake. When I started, I had not yet read criticisms of the Aryan Invasion theory, and I assumed a princess from the ancient North would be fair. Now I'm not so sure. But many devotional paintings of Laxmi depict her as fair, and many Mughal miniatures depict a very fair Sita, so I was taking inspiration from those too.
I'm also taking inspiration from classic American animated cartoons, which is the real explanation for Sita's appearance. If you were to cross a chaste Mughal miniature with Max Fleischer, Warner Brothers, and Hanna-Barbera, you might get something like my design. I know it disgusts Hindutva types to think about, but "Sita Sings the Blues" has an American side too. Sorry! I strongly encourage everyone who's grossed out by this to get to work on your own Ramayana retelling. The more the story is retold, the more blessings it confers, so get to work.
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