论文总字数：33138字

摘 要

影片《三个白痴》是2009年印度最受欢迎的电影之一。电影以倒叙的方式开始，在两个好朋友寻找多年不见的好兄弟兰乔的过程中展开，讲述了三个工程学专业学生兰彻、法汉、拉朱如何奋斗实现梦想的故事。故事情节跌宕起伏，兼有幽默讽刺的喜剧特征。论文从印度传统教育的弊端、等级观念的残余、高自杀率以及女性低下的社会地位等方面讨论印度社会问题，并在此基础上挖掘导致这些问题的深层次社会根源，帮助人们更好地了解印度社会和文化。

关键词：《三个白痴》；印度；社会问题；根源

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Synposis of Three Idiots 2

4. Social Problems Reflected in Three Idiots 4

4.1 Malpractices of the Traditional Education in India 4

4.2 Vestiges of Hierarchy 6

4.3 High Suicide Rates 7

4.4 Inferior Social Status of Female 8

5. Causes of Indian Social Problems 9

5.1 Causes of the Malpractices of Traditional Education System 10

5.2 Causes of Vestiges of Hierarchy 10

5.3 Causes of High Suicide Rates 11

5.4 Causes of the Inferior Social Status of Female 12

6. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

With the implementation of China’s reform and opening-up policy, foreign films begin to flood into Chinese market at a high speed. In recent years, the foreign films and TV series have enjoyed more and more popularity among foreign language learners of all ages in China. Not to mention their improvements in foreign languages’ listening and speaking abilities made by watching foreign films, they also learn a lot about the cultures of different countries.

At the same time, with the quick development of internet and communication technologies, the interactions between different countries have become more and more frequent. There is no exception for China and India. For a variety of reasons, sometimes cultural differences between the two countries become barriers to cross-cultural communication. For us Chinese, understanding Indian culture will help reduce unnecessary misunderstandings and disputes.

2. Literature Review

In recent years, many researchers have devoted themselves to the study of intercultural communication and made abundant achievements. Concerning Indian social problems, people always talk more about ethnic issues, religious problems and polarization of wealth. In fact, there are other serious problems in the Indian society worth our attention. Here India film Three Idiots will be chosen as the case for the further discussion on Indian social problems.

Unlike the original novel, the film Three Idiots received highly positive reviews upon its release in India. Subhash K. Jha (film critic and author of The Essential Guide to Bollywood) states: “It’s not that Three Idiots is a flawless work of art. But it is a vital, inspiring and life-revising work of contemporary art with some heart imbued into every part. In a country where students are driven to suicide by their impossible curriculum, Three Idiots provides hope. Maybe cinema can’t save lives. But cinema, sure as hell, can make you feel life is worth living. Three Idiots does just that, and much more. The director takes the definition of entertainment into directions of social comment without assuming that he knows best.” (Three Idiots) Nikhat Kazmi of the Times of India suggests that, “The film is a laugh riot, despite being high on fundas.” (Three Idiots) Mayank Shekhar of the Hindustan Times comments that “this is the sort of movie you’ll take home with a smile and a song on your lips.” (Three Idiots) Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama states: “On the whole, Three Idiots easily ranks amongst Aamir, Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s finest films. Do yourself and your family a favor: Watch Three Idiots. It’s emotional, it’s entertaining, it’s enlightening. The film has tremendous youth appeal and feel-good factor to work in a big way.” (Three Idiots) Kaveree Bamzai of India Today argues that: “it’s a lovely story, of a man from nowhere who wanted to learn, told like a fairy tale, with the secret heart carrying its coded message of setting all of us free.” (Three Idiots) All of these scholars speak highly of the film. They consider it as a flawless work of art, entertaining, enlightening and inspiring.

In China, previous studies on this film usually lay emphasis on the enlightenments to Chinese education as well as to college students. For example, Chen Lei’s thesis, “Reflection on the Indian’s education system”, illustrates the problems in Indian society from the remaining stratum consciousness, the cramming system and the brain drain. Wang Haiyan’s thesis, “Challenging the traditional education system --- A report on Three Idiots”, first illustrates the importance of interests. Then the author analyzes the traditional education in India. The other social problems and their causes are rarely discussed.

Therefore, this paper will conduct a case study based on the film Three Idiots to make further discussions about the social problems from aspects of malpractices of India’s traditional education, hierarchy, high suicide rates and inferior social status of female, and explore the causes of those problems in Indian society.

3. Synopsis of Three Idiots

Three Idiots is loosely adapted from the novel Five Point Someone, the debut of Chetan Bhagat, a best-selling author in India. The film, a comedy directed by Rajkumar Hirani, has won Mumbai Film Exhibition Award for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Script and other four awards. Three Idiots is currently the 2^nd highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time. It also becomes one of the few Indian films to become a major success in East Asian markets such as China, eventually bringing its overseas total to US$25 million --- the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time in overseas markets.

The story depicts the life of 3 students, Rancho (Aamir Khan), Farhan (Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi) in Imperial College of Engineering, one of the best colleges in India, where there are 42 exams every term, the competition is fierce and the rate of suicide stays at a high level. They come to the college for different reasons. Farhan studies engineering to pursue his father’s wishes, rather than his own passion for wildlife photography. Raju, from a poor family, is to get his family out of poverty. Different from them, Rancho studies for his simple passion for machines. Rancho believes that one should follow excellence, not success, as success will take care of itself if excellence is followed. He uses his own words and actions to affect people around him. He takes advantage of what he has learned to teach the college director, Dr. Virus, a lesson in order to question his teaching methods; he breaks traditional thinking with his wisdom; he not only encourages Farhan and Raju to pursue their dreams but also persuades Pia, Dr. Virus’s daughter, to break up with her money-oriented boyfriend, Suhas. However, Rancho’s behavior annoys Chatur Ramalingm, a student known by the ICE community as “Silencer”, who believes in mindless memorizing over understanding in order to reach his goals of corporate status. He swears retaliation and bets that he will become more successful with his methods than Rancho. At last, Rancho becomes a world-class scientist with hundreds of patents. He realizes his dream and he’s being on his own. Raju works as an engineer and Farhan convinces his parents to allow him to drop out of school and follow his wildlife photographer dream. Chatur finally finds out that Rancho is the partner he expects to meet. When he finds out that Rancho, whose real name is Phunsukh, is the very person he wants to establish business relationship with, he falls on his knees, accepts his defeat and pleads his case with Rancho again and again. At last, Pia and Rancho rekindle their love. The film ends with a happy ending.

4. Social Problems Reflected in Three Idiots

India, as a country with ancient civilization, has experienced different historical periods. In 1857, it was conquered by British. From then on, it was a colony of Britain. It was not until 1947 that the India became independent. After its independence, India has gradually developed on the open road, whose democracy has also been elevated greatly. However, it still keeps traditions under the long-term effects of bureaucracy, colonial rule and semifeudal ideology infused before, which have profound impacts on Indian society then and today.

4.1 Malpractices of the Traditional Education in India

We all know that India has been a learning center since ancient times when the great scholars disseminate knowledge by oral teaching. Later, during the period of British colonization, India’s education was infused with distinctive European features. After its independence, its education became more and more religious and practical. Now great achievements have been made in the educational field, but there still exists serious problems when it comes to India’s traditional education.

4.1.1 Examination-oriented Education System

Examination-oriented education system refers to a kind of educational thought or behavior, which has deviated from the needs of social development and violated the law of somatopsychic development. Examination ranks first in this system. (Dong Caihua, 2013: 47) The students’ abilities have been severely limited when it comes to its education model and ways of teaching. For example, in this film, there are 42 exams per semester including tests and quiz. In order to pass the exams, the students have to repeat and remember the materials again and again just like machines.

Another example to be mentioned in the film is the definition of “machine”. When an engineering teacher asks Rancho to define a machine, he gives a simple answer and says that a machine is anything that reduces human effort. To him, anything that simplifies work, or saves time, is a machine. For example, it’s a warm day, and then you’ll get a blast of air after you press a button of the fan. So the fan is a machine. When you speak to a friend far away through telephone, then the phone is a machine…. But the teacher is almost out of patience and asks Rancho, “You will write this in the exam?” Then the “Silencer”, Chatur recites the definition fluently. The teacher praises Chatur and calls Rancho idiot.

From the examples above, we can see that with the effects of examination-oriented education system, teachers are just drilling students in how to get high scores in tests rather than encouraging creative thinking. In a word, under the pressure of the examination-oriented education system, the students are the machines that have lost their thinking, not to mention their creativity.

4.1.2 Cramming Teaching Method

Just as its name implies, the cramming teaching method means that the teacher instills all knowledge into the students’ mind. Memorizing mechanically is especially emphasized. (Bai Xiaozhong, 1985: 489) Once the students are requested to recite some articles, they usually regard the articles as some tasks. What they need to do is just to finish the tasks. The most impressive plot in the film about the cramming method is that Chatur, in order to impress Dr. Virus and the Education Minister on Teachers’ Day, with the help of the college librarian, Dubey, writes a speech in pure Hindi. Despite the fact that he knows nothing about Hindi, he decides to memorize the speech and deliver it on stage. Rancho decides to teach him a lesson. Chatur, due to his lack of knowledge in Hindi, mindlessly memorizes the speech, of which Rancho had secretly changed a few words, e.g. “chamatkaar” (miracle/served) was changed to “balatkaar” (rape/screwed) and “dhan” (money/profit/funds/booty) to “stan” (breasts/bosom). Chatur delivers this speech in front of Dr. Virus and the Education Minister, and becomes the laughing stock of the night.

In fact, Indians are good at memorizing mechanically. In class, what students need to do are just taking notes and doing exercises rather than writing stories or doing some independent projects. In order to pass the exams, most students need to memorize substantial knowledge mechanically. Indian authorities speculate that this kind of leaning method has made the students less creative. Indeed, there are few worldwide products originating from India.

So we can see that in a sense, Chatur is the symbol of this cramming teaching method. Just like Rancho says in the film, cramming may see you through four years of college, but it will “screw” you for the next forty years.

4.1.3 Grading System

In the film, the Imperial College of Engineering is one of the most famous universities, where the only criterion to appraise students is the grade they get. After each exam, the students will be ranked according to their grades. The first one is called “good student” and the last one is called “idiot”. When a semester is over, all the teachers and students need to take a photo together. According to the rules, Rancho is arranged to sit in the first row and next to the college director because of his high grade, while Farhan and Raju are ordered to sit in the last row because they are so-called idiots. One day Rancho says to Dr. Virus that the grading system is like a caste system, in which A-graders refer to the masters and C-graders mean the slaves. It’s a kind of menticide which makes the students with lowest scores feel stressed and dispirited. Their personality and dignity have been insulted severely. Under this circumstance, students can hardly keep high creativity, which matters much to the development of the Indian society.

4.2 Vestiges of Hierarchy

India is a traditional hierarchical country with a deep-rooted historical origin. After it was invaded by Aryan, India formed a rigid hierarchy gradually in the transition from primitive society to slave society. People were divided into four classes: Brahman, Kshatria, Vaisia and Sudra. There were strict rules on social status, rights, obligations and life styles of each class. Though Indian democracy had been elevated greatly after the liberation, the vestiges of hierarchy still existed. Even today, students with privileged backgrounds are mostly from the upper class. In contrast, those from poor families could hardly have a promising future because of their low social and poor financial status. Studying hard and getting high marks seems the only way for them to get into the upper class and get the whole family out of poverty.

In the giddy world where the class status still has absolute predominance, most people want to struggle upwards and to be rich, so they compete with others in all aspects. In the film, the experience of Dr. Virus is a typical example. He is the most competitive man the students have ever seen. He couldn’t bear anyone getting ahead of him. To save time, his shirts have Velcro and his ties have hooks. He has trained his mind to write with both hands simultaneously.

Chatur uses tricks to be a good student. He believes that there are only two ways of topping: improve your own grades by working harder or decrease your opponents’ grades by distracting their attention. He is always jealous of other top students because of his second place. In order to sharpen his memory, he pops pills from a local quack. He studies 18 hours a day. On exam eve, he always distracts others.

Pia’s fiancé, Suhas, has studied Engineering, then MBA, and then becomes a banker in the USA, because those degrees can rake in more money for him. He has done everything he can to show that he is a rich man. Life for him is just a profit-loss statement. Pia is Dr. Virus’s daughter and she is a doctor in the making, which is good for his marriage, so he stays with her. What’s more, he is always showing off the price of his famous brand of clothes and shoes. All these plots show that the vestiges of hierarchy are obvious in today’s Indian society.

4.3 High Suicide Rates

We usually say pressure gives us impetus. Under proper pressure, people are highly motivated; but under excessive pressure, people feel frustrated and even end up in failure. In India, the stress for success placed on people has resulted in several severe social problems, such as suicide, mental disease and so on. For instance, in the school, examination may bring students both a promising future and endless pressure, which sometimes leads to students’ committing suicide.

In the film, Joy Lobo, who fails to graduate because of his failure in fulfilling the task in time, chooses to kill himself and put an end to everything. After he dies, Rancho says to the Director, “Look at these statistics: India ranks No.1 in suicides. Every 90 minutes, a student attempts to suicide. Suicide is a bigger killer than diseases.” When the Director asks Raju to type a letter for him to his father, telling him that Raju is rusticated from the Imperial College of Engineering, Raju is so depressed that he bursts into tears. While he is thinking of his father, who lives just to see his son become an engineer, he is out of control because he doesn’t want to make his father disappointed. Then he has no choice but to commit suicide under the stress of the Director.

Another example to be mentioned is that when the Director knows that in order to help Raju pass the exam, Rancho breaks into his office to steal the paper. He beats Rancho with his umbrella. Then Pia angrily confronts him, revealing that her brother, whom their father have pushed to become an engineer despite his preference for literature, commits suicide after failing ICE’s entrance exam three times.

According to The Times of India, during the national exams for the10^th Grade and the 12^th Grade, many students commit suicide because they can not endure the pressure of exams. On the basis of the data announced by the Indian officers, 5857 students took their own lives in 2006. (Li Liangyong, 2008) That is to say, 16 incidents took place in India on average a day. In New Delhi, the capital of India, six students chose to take their own life in the last ten days of March, 2008.

Suicide does not happen only at schools. It is reported that more than one lakh people lost their lives every year due to suicide in India. In the last three decades (from 1975 to 2005), the suicide rates had increased by 43%. The rates were approximately the same in 1975 and 1985; from 1985 to 1995 there was an increase of 35% and from 1995 to 2005, the increase was 5%. (Vijayakumar, 2010: 291)

It is also reported that in India the male-female suicidal ratio has been stable at around 1.4 to 1. But there is a wide variation in suicide rates within the country. The southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have a male-female suicidal ratio of more than 15 to 1 while in the northern states of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir, the male-female suicidal ratio is less than 3 to 1. This variable pattern has been stable for the last 20 years. Higher literacy, a better reporting system, lower external aggression, higher socioeconomic status and higher expectations are the possible explanations for the higher suicide rates in the southern states. (Vijayakumar, 2008: 125)

From all of these examples and statistics, it is clear to find that more and more people choose to commit suicide after their failure in something. That’s a serious social problem that the whole Indian society should concern.

4.4 Inferior Social Status of Female

As one of the four ancient civilization countries in the world, India has a long history. Meantime, the history of India’s pervasive discrimination against women is also very long. Though women’s social status has been improved with the implementation of the opening-up policy, but things are not going well because of the deep-rooted traditional values. Take the traditional marriage customs for example. In India, a bride’s parents have to bestow riches on a groom to secure a marriage. (Chen Yongcheng, 2008: 84) Usually the amount of dowry determines the bride’s fate in the future. Maybe she will be abused and even tortured to death by her parents-in-law just because of lack of dowry. This kind of cases has been commonly reported in India. In this movie, the story of Raju’s family is set in a 50’s black and white environment. His older sister who has turned 28 is still single because the man who wants to marry her demands a car as dowry. However, Raju’s family can’t afford it. Then his mother says to him, “If you don’t study hard and earn money, how will she marry?”

Another thing to be mentioned is that just at the beginning of 2013 in New Delhi several violent rape cases occurred on successive days, which shocked people around the world. Both the Indian and world media criticized that India had been humiliated by these violent rape cases. As a matter of fact, there are more and more violent crimes aiming at women in India nowadays. According to the latest statistics released by Indian national crime research agency, there is one violent incident against women every 3 minutes, one rape case every 29 minutes, one death case caused by dowry demands every 77 minutes. (Stoker, 2002: 118) In men’s eyes, women are as dirty as lies. (Kennedy, 2013: 243) It is obvious that the Indian females confront with violence or threat all their lives. They have the risk of being killed by their parents when they are embryos. Growing up, they have the risk of being raped, abused and so on. Even when they grow old, they will be excluded by the whole society if they become widows.

Why the similar tragedies happened in this civilized nation time over time? According to the Atlantic Monthly, the source of the problem is the inferior social status of female.

5. Causes of Indian Social Problems

As a matter of fact, all of these social problems discussed above have their deep social and cultural reasons.

5.1 Causes of the Malpractices of Traditional Education System

As a developing country, India’s educational resources are limited. Its economic power is quite weak while its population is large. When Nehru was the leader of India, the authorities held that poverty was the root of Indian social problems. (Lin Chengjie, 2001: 446) No matter how we stress the importance of education or we say what a noble cause it is, lack of money is an important reason for the weak educational mode. No money means there are not enough schools for students. That is to say, the educational opportunities are unequal. As a developing country, exams are the best way to select personnel. In this way, examination plays an important role in this system. It is the grade rather than the quality of education that takes the predominant position. Therefore, examination-oriented education system is taken for granted. (Hooson amp; Postlethwaite, 2006: 442)

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