The Maharaja reminds me of Donald Trump - Indian Summers (2015) Discussion

[–] krisciunas 8 years ago

Mark Shields (who appears on the Friday PBS Newshour a lot) said that early in his career he was involved in fundraising, which meant talking to a lot of rich people about making donations. He said that the prime thing he learned about really rich people is that too many of them have terrible behavior. He surmises that's because nobody ever tells them No. That's the case with the Maharaja, and also Donald Trump, I think.

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[–] InfoBabe 8 years ago

It is probably true of anyone who has power. When there can be no consequences, they let lose of all social or moral restrictions. Really disgusting.

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[–] krisciunas 8 years ago

No personal scandal surrounds Tony Blair or Barack Obama. And George W. Bush's bad stuff happened when he was 30, long before he was Governor of Texas. One guy way worse than the Maharajah was Rafael Trujillo, the President/dictator of the Dominican Republic (1931-1961). All the wives and daughters of the country were considered sexual options for him. People found out quickly that if you said No, everyone in your family would be murdered and fed to the sharks and your house would be burned down and bulldozed, like your family never existed. See Mario Vargas Llosa's novel The Festival of the Goat, or Junot Diaz's book The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, or the book or movie of In the Time of the Butterflies. Trujillo was one of the worst people of the 20th century.

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[–] InfoBabe 8 years ago

Funny you should mention Trujillo. My husband was in the DM when Trujillo was still in power. It was an aerial survey crew and one of the crew member's wife was being hit on seriously by an army officer and she had to crawl out a bathroom window to escape. She went straight to the airport and flew home. One of their pilots was murdered. He was going an a test flight and flew straight into the ocean. Sugar in the gas tank. They were all very young and didn't realize that this was a very dangerous place for them. They were under strict surveillance at all times though they didn't know it. Undercover was always striking up conversations trying to draw them out. Paranoid, they were. Peron was there too as he was just kicked out of Argentina. He was at their hotel.

I wasn't on the scene yet.

Your description sounds like Caligula, but it is all the same thing, isn't it?

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[–] mlaiuppa 7 years ago

Too many feel that money is a substitute for integrity and good manners.

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[–] angelosdaughter 8 years ago

The sleazy way most of the main characters behave is beyond disgusting: 'Ralphie' sacrificing his wife to spare his sister Alice whom the Maharajah would have preferred so that he has a better chance at the office he is going for, and she somewhat shocked at first, but after accepting the necklace, going along with it, then being disgusted afterward (but then Madeline was always a sleaze), "Ralphie' having the Mararajah's disgusting mistress while the Marajah is having his wife, his married sister Alice sleeping with Afrin, he playing both sides: budding nationalist with a terrorist connection and loyal British subject.
The only reason I am still watching is to see which suitor (if any) Sooni will choose. She and Ian are two of the few admirable characters in this series, although it must be said that all three of Sooni's suitors seem to be decent men. She has received three proposals, (and two of them unexpected) in one day!

I could be a morning person if morning happened at noon.

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[–] mme3924-1 8 years ago

Ralphie has no character, no standards, no morality, beyond his family and his own ambition, which is apparently derived from his father...who he now knows was not even his father. He sacrificed his wife for his own ambition and to protect his sister. He sacrificed Bhupi's son to protect his own son, Adam. He is truly an empty man. And yet occasionally shows a spark of humanity. I can't decide if this is realistic or if he's a badly written character.

I can't help comparing Indian Summers to The Jewel in the Crown, which I love and consider a far superior series about India and the Raj. I find Indian Summers quite watchable, but it, like Downton Abbey, descends into soap opera. The Jewel in the Crown, even with its most contemptible characters, always seemed realistic and believable in its triumphs and its tragedies and especially in its portrait of the British occupation of India. It was not a series that depended on a crisis du jour, as Indian Summers seems to. But, of course, it was based on The Raj Quartet novels by Paul Scott so maybe the source material accounts for it. Which prompts me to ask what has happened to writing in the UK? Same thing that has happened to it in the US?

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[–] InfoBabe 8 years ago

I agree. JITC was far superior in every way. I have it on DVD and watch it occasionally.

Downton Abbey was an imitation of Upstairs Downstairs. Of course I watched Downton and enjoyed it but Upstairs had much deeper meaning and social-moral commentary. Some episodes were frivolous and not good but overall the series was much better.

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[–] mme3924-1 8 years ago

Agree with all you say. I, too, have JITC, but on video; never replaced it with DVD because I'd read it was a bad copy. It's nice to occasionally revisit the lovely young Guy Perrin (Charles Dance). ;-)

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[–] InfoBabe 8 years ago

Yum.

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[–] giadapazazz 8 years ago

Sooni needs to be on her own/proceed as an independent.

All three men carry, "rules and baggage."

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[–] kkboyd-603-991354 8 years ago

(Spoilers if you haven't seen it)

In Episode 7, he completely falls apart morally. First he puts a young boy in danger from an attacking tiger. Then he allows his wife to be propositioned and molested by that appalling prince. Not to mention his own attack on the floozy. He claims he "can't help" his ambitions.

This is not the Ralph we saw before. This Ralph is not fit to govern a boy scout troop.

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[–] mme3924-1 8 years ago

I think we have seen this Ralph before, just not to this extent. As you say, he relinquishes any claim to morality in this episode, driven by....what, ambition? His father's wishes?

What doesn't reconcile, to me, in Ralph's character, is his obvious care and attention and protection of Adam with the man he clearly is in other circumstances. Is it because he has no other children? Is it because he loved Adam's mother? His attitude about India and Indians seems similar to that of all members of the Raj, and yet he makes exceptions. It's why I can't decide if he might really be this contradictory or if it's a flaw in the writing.

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[–] kkboyd-603-991354 8 years ago

I just assumed his doting on Adam was the old "a man wants a son" thing. But he's not really fully accepting him as a son, more as a protege, it seems.

The whole sex farce with Ralph, wifey and mistress just doesn't ring true to me. I can only imagine the mistress behaving like that. My husband thought it was just to spike ratings. How dismal either way.

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[–] mme3924-1 8 years ago

The whole sex farce with Ralph, wifey and mistress just doesn't ring true to me. I can only imagine the mistress behaving like that. My husband thought it was just to spike ratings. How dismal either way.

I thought they went too far, too. It bordered on ridiculously sleazy. It was written, I assume, to push Ralph's character as far as possible, to ask the question: what wouldn't he do to get the maharajah's support? Apparently nothing. One wonders if, had the maharajah wanted Ralph himself instead of his wife, would he also have acquiesced?

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[–] InfoBabe 8 years ago

You have a point. They jumped the shark.

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[–] giadapazazz 8 years ago

Ralph is one of nearly all of the characters in the series who has inconsistent behavior with a poorly developed s/l.

The reason behind audience abdication belongs solely with the creator/exec writer.

(Series ends with the second season rather than the full five planned.)

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[–] mme3924-1 8 years ago

I think it's too bad, too. Because the series has some interesting characters, some really great actors and performances, and a fascinating theme: the Raj in India and India's independence.

But the writing does seem to have sunk to the lowest level. Characters behave in ways that are pathological, criminal, apparently as a way to ratchet up fan reaction and interest. I think they underestimate the viewers...but that seems to be tv, today. Indeed, perhaps all entertainment.

I tried watching Black Mirror recently, and got through one episode and part of another before deciding I didn't need this nonsense that passes for a portrait of the future of society. Who wants to watch this kind of tv? Not I, cried the pig.

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[–] giadapazazz 8 years ago

The characters appear mentally unstable/ill, not fully developed.

I would agree the time period, India's independence would make a compelling story. I've watched it unfortunately fascinated by the train wreck it is.

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[–] maxim4676-2 8 years ago

The Maharaja reminds me of Bill Clinton.

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[–] BlackiesDad 7 years ago

Trump? More like Bill Clinton, IMO.

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[–] TriggerPullerUSMC 7 years ago

Funny I was going to say he reminds me of Hillary or Obama. Corrupt in every way and pretends to care about the people when in reality the people are stepping stones in the quest for their power so they too can live like kings/queens.

Like the Maharaja, Obama and Hillary owe nearly all of their plush life to working in the government or having power. They don't create, build or develop anything and they claim to want to make the world a better place but the reality is they just use people.

Anyhow, not a huge fan of Trump but as we see with companies either keeping jobs in US or moving jobs to the US even before he takes office which gives him a solid lead in that area over Obama who didn't do much for the working man and woman. I am willing to give him a chance.

I just worry that with all of the violence Hillary supporters/democrats are showing towards others that they'll try to do something horrible to the country or hurt more people like that poor girl beaten up at school the day after the election, right down the road from me, here in Woodside CA or the man pulled from his car and beaten while they yelled anti Trump rhetoric and of course kidnapping that disable boy and torturing him.

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