Mirror, Mirror: a Visual Treat 

By Sadia Ashraf April 04, 2012

(http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/11862872-mirror-mirror-a-visual-treat-by-sadia-ashraf)

Mirror, Mirror (2012) may not stimulate the gray matter but will certainly delight the eyes. Directed by Tarsem Singh, the movie employs his customary visual extravagance that is a gastronomic eye-feast, resembling his other films Cell (2000), The Immortals (2011) and The Fall (2006). In his films, story is often sacrificed for spectacle. Singh’s trademark imagination overcomes the story in this surreal retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Singh is a true renaissance man who shows his Indian heritage in Mirror, Mirror infusing it with his western upbringing and merging it with his love of classical art. The anachronistic film jumps through time, language, architecture and attire as easily as a circus lion jumps through hoops of fire.

With disregard to an actual period setting, the film's architecture mixes the Baroque period with transitional décor in the queen's castle which has gigantic balconies overlooking bucolic and blue painted-by-Rubens-skies; Hollywood glamour style mirrored and crystal furniture; Rococo gilded opulence in its pillars, thrones and ceiling; and even Arabian style gold turrets.

The film relies on Flemish paintings for its imagery. The aristocratic class in the film seems derived from Van Dyck and Vermeer paintings while the working class dioramas seem to be the handiwork of Brueghel. The costumes— designed by the late Eiko Ishioka (who has worked on most of Singh’s films) — are timeless masterpieces that are equally Vermeer as they are Dior and John Paul Gaultier. The gravity-defying, brightly hued, taffeta and silk creations might even earn Ishioka a posthumous Oscar nomination.

While its costumes have been universally admired, critics have bashed Mirror, Mirror’sslim storyline and awkward screenplay making its box office debut no fairytale. The fairytale genre has become Hollywood’s cherished new trend with successful TV shows such as Once Upon A Time and Grimm; successes like Tangled; a few misses like the rendition of Little Red Riding Hood; and the highly anticipated Snow White and the Huntsman that looks like an apocalyptic version of the tale.

Mirror, Mirror takes liberties with the original Grimm’s fairytale, with a revisionist and female-empowered plot that transforms Snow White from being a helpless heroine who need rescuing, to a Jane Eyre-ish character who becomes emancipated, leaves the limited confines of the castle and learns the way of the world; ultimately rescuing the male protagonist—physical and spiritually. Lily Collins—slightly reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn and bearing no resemblance to her father Phil Collins— plays the congenial Snow White.

Snow White comes of age when she encounters poverty and grim reality in the village. The political and economic parallels between reality and fable are evident in her discovery of back-breaking taxes levied at the common man and how the queen rules them with tactics of fear and suppression—not unlike America’s war on terror. Snow White discovers that the exorbitant queen has been secretly crafting fear—with a monster she unleashes at will— to oppress the masses and then justifying the taxes as expenditure necessary for their security.

Julie Roberts displays a virtuoso ease with which she plays the affable, yet odious stepmother. Though carrying off the superlative costumes in dazzling backgrounds with queenly aplomb— she never quite convinces us that she is evil to the core, with her lighthearted bantering, incessantly humorous gaze, and a love-sick preoccupation with securing the attention of the handsome prince instead of a single-minded motivation to kill Snow White.

At one point, looking into the magic mirror, Roberts utters, “These are not wrinkles they are merely crinkles,” as the film also aspires to critique a beauty industry that equates pain with attractiveness, and urges women to pump themselves with silicon and Botox. Roberts struggles in a painful contraption that squeezes her into a whalebone corset and undergoes agonizing procedures that include a face mask with bird feces and getting her lips plumped with bee stings while maggots, scorpions and snakes inject her with venomous cures.

As with most Hollywood actors playing European roles, Roberts vacillates between an artificial British accent and a befuddled American falsetto, though, she does deliver a few comical lines—like her rebuttal to Prince Alcott’s extolling of Snow White’s beauty: "Blah blah blah, her hair is not black, it's raven and she's 18 years old and her skin has never seen the sun, so of course it's good." The prince says "I think Snow White is the most beautiful woman in the whole world" and the queen quips, "Agree to disagree."

Armie Hammer—whose breakthrough role was playing the buff Winklevoss twins in The Social Network (2010)— plays prince Alcott in Mirror, Mirror. The plot tosses him back and forth between Snow white and the queen, depending on the amorous upper hand. In the film’s subverting of the male-female protagonists’ traditional roles, the prince is defeated by Snow White in verbal and actual sword play and becomes a human love-slave puppy to the queen.

The prince is also emasculated by the seven dwarves in several skirmishes. They accost the landed gentry as highway bandits and are not hardworking miners as in the Disney version of Snow White. They are the ideal comical foils to the lackluster prince and will be enjoyed by children as Mirror, Mirror a rare family film. The film is supported by actors Nathan Lane who plays a butler/not-quite-evil henchman to the queen and Mare Winningham who is superb as a submissive and subversive servant.

While Mirror, Mirror may not be intellectually stimulating it is a fun caper and a visual treat the whole family can enjoy together.

Middle Eastern Americans transcend politics with humor 

by Sadia Ashraf  03 April 2012
(My Article in Common Ground News)
http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=31215&lan=en&sp=0

 Los Angeles, California - A motley crew of diverse Arab, Persian and American comedians is making audiences laugh and unravelling stereotypes at the same time. With their own comedy brand, sold-out worldwide tours, documentaries and frequent appearances as commentators on major news outlets, Aron Kader, Maz Jobrani, Maysoon Zayid and Dean Obeidallah have built transnational bridges through humor.

Before 9/11, the comedians struggled in a cutthroat environment where club owners, agents and promoters didn’t see the potential of this new-fangled Middle Eastern comedy. But when the media spotlight turned to their countries of origins after 9/11, their work began to generate tremendous interest. The exponential growth of their comedic output and audience— from the United States to the UAE— led to their global success, culminating in the formation of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, a satirical title alluding to the term former president George W. Bush used to describe the countries he believed supported terrorism.

Their material is based equally on the cultural whimsies and political dilemmas of the Middle East. In a Los Angeles interview I asked if their subject matter was a creative choice or if they felt obligated to be ambassadors of their heritage. Tehran-born, California-raised Maz Jobrani explained that they did not deliberately set out to deconstruct stereotypes about Arabs and Persians. “That's not why I became a comedian. The moment you do material based on what's expected, you give up your artistic voice.”

The comedians soon discovered that in difficult times, comedy is a persuasive tool for peace. Jobrani cited a specific example of a man who had a revelation after laughing at the Axis of Evil performances. “He emailed me to say he had hated Middle Easterners after September 11th and that he started to [change his] mind as time went by. He said that seeing the TV special helped in that process.”

During the peak of the Iraq war, however, there were times that Jobrani was heckled by audience members for criticising the Bush administration. “I took that in stride, as I believed in what I was saying.” In his routine, he emphasises the realities of everyday life in Iran. “On TV they show us angry— burning flags. Just once I wish they would show us baking cookies, because in Iran we do have cookies.”

Dean Obeidallah, co-star of Comedy Central's The Axis of Evil television special, is a Palestinian Italian from New Jersey who is currently producing a documentary about Arab American comedians, The Muslims are Coming. For him, comedy raises socio-political issues in impactful ways. Citing influences like talk show host Jon Stewart and African American comedians Richard Pryor and Chris Rock, he hopes his “comedy dispels some misconceptions Americans harbour about Arabs and Muslims.”

Collaboration with others led Obeidallah to form the Stand up for Peace Tour with Scott Blakeman, who says his Jewish faith compels him to speak out against stereotyping. At the same time, Obeidallah’s Arab Comedy Festival co-founder, Maysoon Zayid, is busy deconstructing myths about the “oppressed Muslim woman, the blood-thirsty Palestinian, and the poor pathetic cripple”. A Palestinian American comedian, she is also an activist for cerebral palsy— a condition she lives and laughs with.

Building bridges is a two-way street. While these comedians are challenging the status quo of Middle Eastern misconceptions in America, they are also winning hearts and minds in the Middle East, where they have performed in front of thousands, delivered workshops, mentored budding talent and, as Obeidallah added, been witness to “the rise of stand-up [comedy] in the Arab world, performing in English and Arabic”. Kader reflected that “in America I feel obligated to inform an audience about the Middle East and there I am an American with an obligation to describe what Americans are feeling.”

Sarah Palin, Muammar Gaddafi, Iran’s Twitter revolt, Egypt’s uprising, racism, country music and cerebral palsy: no topic is taboo for these comedians as they easily straddle multiple cultures in their comedy routines. “Make it funny, give it levity, use humility so it's easier to digest and discuss divisive political issues”, said Kader attesting to the ways Middle Eastern American comedians are debunking myths and transcending politics with humour. This multicultural comedy is nascent but necessary in a world that is rapidly evolving in the way it communicates, entertains and informs.

This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews). Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 3 April 2012, www.commongroundnews.org Copyright permission is granted for publication.