Sense and Sensibilities

No I'm not talking about that movie but about movies in general. Yesterday I watched KingKong for the first time. Yeah yeah I am quite slow to catch up on these things. So in the first hour of the move when the movie crew lands in the island you see all the natives who are barbarians. Nothing wrong here. But all the people are colored black. Now this triggers my thinking. Why is that in any hollywood movie, such barbarians are associated with black/brown color ?

Have the caucasians never been barbaric ? Who were the vikings and Huns ? Heck how about the Spanish Inquisitors who tricked and massacred millions of Mayans and other natives of latin america.

On the same note some time back I watched a PBS program on Jesus Christ. Precisely on how he might have looked. We all know that Jesus is portrayed as this caucasian dude with a flowing blonde hair and clean shaven face. In actuality, it appears from research, that he was brown, with not so well defined features and stubbled face.

Such potrayals may appear to be really minor in general but they have a sub-conscious effect on the looker. Barbarians are usually black/brown, Caucasians are the all forgiving messiah etc etc are indirectly and incorrectly conveyed by such potrayals.

On the contrary, the natives of India had the foresight to amalgamate all the population appearances in their pantheon. Vishnu and his Krishna avatar are said to be dark colored. While Kartikeya/Skanda/Muruga is supposed to be fair. Now if only we can cut across caste lines and allow everyone to take part in festivities of temples we would be a great nation.