FILM INTERVIEW: GOVIND MENON
Head of Nuclear Mango Studios Seeks to Bring Hollywood, Bollywood Together
As far as Indian-American film producer Govind Menon is concerned, all romantic comedy films are the same. Not only are they predictable, but romantic comedies seem to be the same exact story time and again – boy meets girl at standard location, boy and girl fall in love, and voila, a match made in heaven.
It is that very lack of range amongst romantic comedies which made Menon generally stray away from the genre. In fact, probably the only way the producer would actually consider funding a funny bone-themed love affair of a movie is if he were allowed to revolutionize how such films are made.
Well, Menon thinks he found that breakthrough project in Love, Barack, which just completed filming about two weeks ago and is preparing to head into post-production. Starring Hindi film star Mallika Sherawat alongside Hollywood’s Brian J. White, Menon believes he has stumbled upon an untold love story ripe to be told, assuaging his romantic-comedy apprehensions in the process.
“Romantic comedies are not necessarily my favorite genre because a lot of it is the same thing – someone meets at an office or at home or on vacation,” the producer told Buzzine in an exclusive interview on the final day of filming in downtown Pomona. “I wanted to do a romantic comedy that was set in a different environment. We were looking for a different landscape for a comedy. No one has ever made a movie about a Republican and a Democrat falling in love before. It automatically becomes a very unique and marketable idea.”
It was a marketable idea Menon felt he had to pounce on before anyone else did, and he believed he had the perfect idea to make the story a reality – feature Sherawat and White as workers belonging to opposing political parties but romantically falling for each other amidst the 2008 presidential election between Barack Obama and John McCain.
“It’s kind of strange. I read this article in The Boston Globe about the Obama Baby Boom. It was about all of these campaign romances that happened during the elections,” Menon explained. “All of these young people would campaign all day then party at night, and all kinds of romances bloomed.”
It was the development and aftermath of such romances Menon wanted to highlight in Love, Barack, with the added twist that the love affair between his two lead characters were on opposite ends of the political spectrum – just like real-life examples of James Carver and his wife or Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver.
“The night of (Obama’s) victory, when he won, a lot of people just went berserk, started partying and had unprotected sex,” Menon continued about how the feature story he read on the Obama Baby Boom helped spawn his latest production. “Next thing you know, nine months later, there are a bunch of little Michelles and Little Obamas running around. I thought this was a great aspect of politics no one has looked at.”
Yet, to focus solely on Love, Barack as a comedic romance between a Democrat and Republican and set in the 2008 presidential election completely misses the point of the film, Menon says. Looking at the bigger picture, the Indian-American producer says Love, Barack tells a greater tale of what it means to be American.
“I think what this film does is hold a mirror to contemporary society. I just read in the newspaper that, for the first time this year, the percentage of babies born to minorities was higher than white babies, and by 2040, the minorities are going to be a majority,” Menon emphatically told Buzzine. “During this last election, a lot of people saw that. It was a youth election — a television election — and Obama brought out a lot of people who had (previously) been marginalized in politics, not just ethnically but even in age.”
The dense explanation was all Menon needed to state in explaining his true attraction to this film, as the producer added that cinema in general is a driving force for pushing people to create a greater, more egalitarian society in the United States.
Even more, Menon stated that the mere casting of Love, Barack speaks volumes of society rising above ethnicity and gender for the sake of storytelling and entertainment – and he believes audiences will fill seats to watch this film without paying heed to the fact that the lead characters are African-American and Indian — a casting anomaly in a Hollywood production.
To that end, Menon told Buzzine that the casting of Sherawat as the lead actress was perhaps the most revealing aspect of real American society.
“I think it’s going to be a really interesting experiment. No Bollywood actress has played an American before,” Menon pondered, adding that other foreigners, such as Sophia Loren and Charlize Theron have set a precedent for Sherawat. “That is tough, but America has been open to women of other ethnicities playing an American character.”
Such is Menon’s point and vision – being “American” is not limited to merely white people. Instead, the United States is a crossroads of ethnicities coming together as one, and he hopes his tale of an African-American Republican and an Indian Democrat will help deliver that message to audiences.
If Love, Barack indeed serves as that reflecting glass Menon said it was, then the producer definitely made a wise move in producing this romantic comedy, despite his general inclinations to avoid the subject altogether.
