It’s A Wonderful Afterlife

Hey all,

Life has been busy so I haven’t done much posting of late, but I wanted to mention a movie I just saw on youtube called “It’s A Wonderful Afterlife” because I hadn’t seen much about it when it first came out and because it didn’t do very well at the box office it wasn’t promoted very well afterward. When I actually saw it, it blew me away.

There are other measures of success in the arts than how much money is made of a project. I think the movie does some really good things, many of which have been discussed on this blog. I’m including a few of them, with a link to the movie, on this post.

1. Women Behind the Camera Gurinder Chadha, who also directed Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice wrote and directed this movie. I think there is strong evidence of a truly female-centric story coming through partly because of the director’s point of view. Unfortunately this may also be why this movie and others directed by women are so quickly dismissed as “chick flicks” without being given a chance.

2. White is Not the Default Color Disclaimer: I am a white woman who has grown up in majority white communities, so I am not a great authority on how accurately this movie captures experiences of people of color. I can say that seeing shows like Sex in the City and Girls that feature an almost exclusively rich, white, and creepily airbrushed point of view starts to look really fake and unoriginal. This movie does a great job of steering away from that, and offering an alternative. Too often I’ve seen shows that put actors of color in “sidekick” type roles that prevent them from really showing the depth of their acting talents. This movie actually tends towards the reverse and puts white actors in supporting roles. (Although you can’t really feel bad for Roopi’s best friend Linda since she gets to reenact the scene from Carrie.)

3. Body Acceptance Roopi is not a thin heroine, and this comes up occasionally as a theme in the movie. Again, I haven’t seen much trend away from the very thin body type in most romantic comedies, so this was nice to see.

4.A Complex Mother Figure Again, I have seen a lot of shows (and written a few characters) that fall into the typical mother stereotype–living entirely for her children and not for herself. While I see a grain of truth in the idea of mothers as devoted to their children, this is still a box that too many characters and real mothers get forced into. While many of Roopi’s mother’s adventures come back around to her love and devotion to her daughter, they create a second, complex storyline for the mother character that we don’t see enough of in romcoms.

It is true that parts of this movie are very cheesy, and I know romcoms aren’t every feminist’s genre of choice, so if anyone has seen the movie and wants to refute me on some of this, go for it. But overall I think this movie does a lot of the things feminists have been looking for in movies, and it deserves much more attention than it got.

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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