Week 4 Reading Diary: Ramayana Sita Sings the Blues Pt 1

·      Author: Nina Paley

Title: Sita Sings the Blues
Year: 2008

Full cartoon can be watched here

   The cartoon movie highlights what might not seem logical according to today’s standards

·         Skips the  introduction of how Rama and Sita meet and fall in love

·         Sita is portrayed as a wife who is just completely obsessed with Rama and has almost no other thoughts whatsoever. A few too many songs of Sita just singing about how in love the is with Rama.

·         Does a great jobs as focusing on the main characteristics of the character. This helps their skills and differences stick out and makes the characters more memorable.

·         Makes Sita rescue seem pointless because she could have simply gone with the monkey. There is speculation that she stayed to Rama could find her and prove his strength to other for rescuing her from Ravana.

·         The way that Rama treats Sita raises the question, “Why did Rama love Sita?” Did he love just just because of her looks or the challenge he had to go through to get her father’s approval? Or maybe, did he have reason to believe that Sita was unfaithful that we didn’t know about?

·         Sita shouldn’t be so forgiving and submissive to Rama. He accused her of being unfaithful, but doesn’t seem to care that Rama didn’t believe her unless he had proof.

·         It isn’t portrayed in the movie, but was Rama upset that Sita gave up on him when he was lying on the ground with arrows in him? She thought he was dead and began to weep thinking that he had failed to rescue her.

Sita's Test of Fire (image info)