Beauty and Fascist Aesthetics

By: Arshad Shah

The other day I happened to see an ad for Miss Manipur on I.S.T.V. The last time I watched a beauty contest was in 1999 when I was studying at C.C. and it was a throughly enjoyable one. Seven years later when I saw the ad, the ad instantly clicked a word in my mind that I thought is quite relevant discussing here: beauty. Like the Miss universe (“beauty with a purpose”) and the Miss World (“beauty with brains”), the Miss Manipur contest should serve as a serious oportunity for young manipuri ladies to climb on to a higher level of participation in the social process. And not just as an oportunity to showcase cosmetic appearances or talk such nonsense as “My hobby is Kirket”. For these things will reduce the contest to a mere coquetish delight and the it will come to be seen as some kind of an quick admission into glam. Why even the Miss Universe and the Miss world contests are being increasingly brushed aside as mere cosmetic.

WHAT IS BEAUTY?
Here I am not trying to define a word philosophers over the centuries have not ended defining. i am just trying to discuss what beauty generaly is in a way I think is most suitable here: a bit didactically. Suppose, dear readers, I show you my first finger and ask you what this is in terms of significance, what will be your answer?

your probable answer will be “oneness” or “singularity”. Can you then think of a mathematical term for this “oneness” or “singularity”? The term of course in Intezar. From Intezar, what can be the word that Iam trying to get at?

I-N-T-E-G-R-I-T-Y.
That’s the word. integrity. If I pick up a stone and break it into peices, the stone loses its integrity. Further, i pick up one of the pieces and grind it to dust, the piece loses its integrity. And so on. Integrity, it generally means beauty.

WHAT THEN IS UGLY?
Is ugly the opposite of beauty? The word ugly cannot be the opposite of beauty as is encapsulated in the age old cliche “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. In other words, whar is ugly for one may be beautiful for another. Isn’t then ugly your inability to see beauty?

HUMAN BEAUTY
in 2000, Denzel Washington and Michelle Pfeiffer were chosen as the most beautiful man and woman in the world.The criterion for their being beautiful was: SYMMETRY. A perfect proportionality in their physical structures-eyes, nose, forehead, body, height, etc.

Here one must note that the colour of the skin has nothing to do with beauty. In fact, ad film maker Prahlad Kakkar refuses to do any ads for “FAIR and LOVELY” because the name is unethical considering the fact that over half of India’s opulation are dark-skinned.

FASCIST AESTHETICS
Adolf Hitler in his build-up to the 1936 Munich Olympics entrusted Leni Riefenstahl, then only 17, to make a film about Germany, a Germany Adolf wanted the world to know about. Leni was of course one Hitler’s mistresses and had the full backing of the Fuhrer. She shot in Germany with 70 cameras and it culminated in two classics: Olympia and Triumph of the will.

The two documentaries projected a Germany that was splendid to the world at large, irrespective of the realities there. It was what Hitler wanted. After the war, in the early 70’s leni went to the African deserts and shot extensively the Nuba tribe. I have personally seen the photographic compilation ‘The last of the Nuba’ and I must say the photos are “mouth-watering”. So beautiful that it looks delicious. Leni of course had seen to it that the viewer should find beautiful what she thought, and projected as, beautiful.

Like before, in shooting the Nuba tribe she used only young men and women for her pictures, their bodies decorated with bright colours and paints.

Leni, it is said, used money, food and clothing to keep away the others including the old and the aged. in other words these old men and women would have ‘spoiled” the “beauty”. it was precisely for this reason that the famous expert on art Susan Sontag in her critique “Fascinating Fascism” labelled Leni’s photos as “FASCIST AESTHETICS”: You see beauty only in the way you want to. You see beauty only from a singular, rapid perspective. Beauty for others is what beauty is for you.

Tired of being labelled fascist, leni at the age of 80 learnt scuba-diving (!) and shot coral growths underneath the sea, challenging anyone to find fascism in those photos.

Both leni Riefenstahl and Susan Sontag died in 2004.
The whole point that Iam trying to make here is, if I keep saying “You are fascist”, “He is fascist” or “She is fascist”, then what do I myself become? Obviously, I myself become fascist because I keep viewing things only from this rigid, singular perspective - the “fascist” prism.

Likewise, if a Lalal or some other writers in the IFP bring forth their views only from the communal prism, what are they themselves? they themselves are communal. Iam referring to the case of IGP Thangthuam. The killing itself is condemnable, so is the people’s tendency to communalize the whole thing. If any act of any particular UG has to be associated with communalism or with a whole community at large, then where was everybody when at a time the state govt. was trying to figure out and appropiate reward for Mary Kom one particular UG group announced Rs. 1 lakh for her? I am not trying to defend the UGs. i am just trying to get readers to see things from a variety of angles, and not just from one inflexible (“fascist”) perspective - the communal prism in the present case.
It’s absolutely sickening that in this age our people’s intellect level should be so low as to interpret everything only on the basis of one word called communalism.

Refer to Lalal’s letter in the January 10 issue of the IFP. I don’t know what the guy was trying to discuss -whether it was the killing, whether it was the landmines or whether it was simply a ventilation of a hatred he had accumulated over the years. Otherwise where was the need for him to write under a pseudonym?
However one Sonnalal deserves credit for his letter dated january 13. he discussed the landmine issue in the right perspective-without any shades, tints or hues.

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