Monkey Man: A Hanumanic Power Fantasy

Monkey Man was badass. The kind of sincere, aesthetic, fun revenge story that anyone should be able to turn their brain off and enjoy. Unless, of course, you agree with certain Hindus who don’t approve of violence, in which case, I get it. On top of that, it was a rare story with South Asian faces that showed us being taken seriously; we weren’t one dimensional gurus or comedic relief in this film. Rare also for the palpable passion that Dev Patel imbued it with; this was no factory made blockbuster. And finally, it was a story that pulled from Hindu traditions to establish a referential, socio-theological layer of significance. 

If you think this sounds like a lot for a movie to take on then I’d agree. You don’t need to be South Asian to recognize that this film is thematically oversaturated with the stuff of a first-time filmmaker that finally had the chance to realize a long-held vision. Monkey Man remained a wonderful watching experience nevertheless and its Hindu references bear examining.

A moment on my personal background, for the sake of dialogue. I’m an American atheist and Hindu by identity. My parents are practicing Hindus from North India, and I was educated more by the side of my family that’s all about the Bhagvad Gita. So if any Hindus across our ideologically and ethnically diverse diaspora read this film’s symbols and images differently, please join me in performing the only truly universal Hindu practice—making our opinions known.

Purpose

The first thing to understand about this film is its reference material, The Ramayan. In Hindu theology, Vishnu occasionally incarnates as a human. When life on Earth reaches moral lows and needs redirecting, he becomes that redirection. The first four of his ten incarnations are animals while his final six are human. The Ramayan is the epic centering around his seventh incarnation, Ram. 

The Ramayan’s premise is three royal characters living in the forest: Ram is heir to the throne of Ayodhya living in temporary exile due to family politics, along with Lakshman, his younger brother, and Sita, his wife. The antagonist of the story is Ravan, who is king of the demons.

Ravan shape-shifts to trick and abduct Sita, at which point Ram and Lakshman begin their quest to rescue her. They enlist the help of Jatayu, an eagle king, Sugriv, a monkey king, and Hanuman, a monkey king with certain divine powers. Jatayu dies trying to stop Sita’s abduction, before Ram, Lakshman, Hanuman, Sugriv and the powerful monkey armies go to Lanka to wage war. The story illustrates the importance of cooperation and selflessness in order for justice to exist in the world. The story of Ram is the story of his friends. The royal trio’s return from exile is celebrated as Diwali, the Hindu New Year.

Hanuman was mysterious to me for much of my life; he wasn’t the main hero of The Ramayan, yet important parts of the story were driven by him. It would be like reading The Odyssey but where the key driver of the story was Odysseus’s third-in-command. Hanuman’s devotees, those who prioritize the worship of Hanuman over other Hindu deities, praise him with his favorite phrase Jai Shri Ram, “Victory to Ram.” Why not just worship Ram directly? My aunt, a devotee of Hanuman, explained this to me. Hanuman is a symbol of humanity. He is not the god Vishnu, something humanity cannot aspire to, but rather he is the perfect devotee – something within our grasp. He only differs from us in being given certain special abilities by the gods. Otherwise Hanuman is a perfect, selfless devotee. So you’d start being more like Hanuman by praising Ram.

This aspect of Hanuman was illustrated through the story of young Hanuman in Monkey Man, the central character metaphor at the heart of Kid’s arc. Young Hanuman accidentally eats the Sun, so the gods punish him for his self-centered folly by taking his powers from him. The movie posits that he regains his power only by realizing his purpose, by realizing that his divine power must be wielded selflessly. Likewise, in the movie, Kid must “realize who he is,” per his wise new friend Alpha, in order to stop fighting for his personal fear and begin fighting for a purpose bigger than him.

Alpha helps him discover purpose by way of a psychedelic reckoning, something generally more taboo with everyday Hindus than with ascetic Hindus. This is also when I mostly forgave the movie’s overreliance on flashbacks, which felt like an artifact from the film’s original home with Netflix. I began to see it as an amnesia story, where we’re remembering who Kid is along with him. When he awoke from that gnarly trip he was no longer a man whose chest was occupied by a loathing, fearful void. In an homage to the iconic image of Hanuman ripping his own chest open to reveal the objects of his selfless devotion (Ram’s family), Kid rips his chest open to reveal it was occupied by the formerly suppressed memory of his mother and the life they once had. Purpose.

Bridging Divisions

Since The Ramayan is about selfless cooperation, it centers on people with big differences coming together; the friends that Ram makes in exile represent a very diverse group.  So another element of this movie that stood out to me as important were Alpha and their community of hijras.

Hijras are part of a “third gender” and many Hindus learn that people of “the first two genders” should feed and care for them. As the film shows, there are also a significant number of Hindus who perpetrate hate crimes against this sacred, beautiful community. Hence Dev Patel has openly stated that the point of including this group in this project was to foster unity.

Articulating a third gender also pulls from Hindu logic, in which true-and-false statements have four possible responses. A thing can be true, false, both true and false, or neither true nor false. Which is an acknowledgement of the gray areas that make up the real world. Hijras are both male and female. They are neither male nor female. They represent a family of identities that transcends conventional dualities.

And significantly, the hijra community in Monkey Man are Shaivites, devotees of Shiv, while the story of Hanuman was a Vaishnav story, a story for devotees of Vishnu, an important distinction given the history of these two sects of Hindus. The Hindu Trinity is one of the most theologically upstream considerations in Hinduism: Brahma is the Creator of the universe, Vishnu is its Operator and Shiv is its Destroyer. Shaivites had notable violent clashes with Vaishnavs throughout South Asian history. The two coexist peacefully today though, which is why many Hindus might not even know about these old divisions.

Monkey Man makes a point to talk about religious divisions within India, like how that South African fight promoter fuels the divisions between Hindus, Muslims, and Christians to drive his own profits or how politicians stoke the flames of divisive identity politics to win elections. Reading significance into the Vaishnav-Shaivite dynamics puts such divisions into perspective. 

I find it appropriate that Monkey Man references the mighty, fabled Vaishnav army of Hanuman and gives the role of these righteous, powerful warriors to its Shaivite hijra characters. Hinduism is not a straightforward -ism, instead encapsulating many theologies, including atheistic ones. Modern Hindus take pride in the pluralism inherent to our heritage. So it’s nice to appreciate that these two Hindu theologies that used to war with one another are now just different flavors of Hinduism.

Selfless Cooperation

In comparing the film’s to its reference material it’s important to note that the parallels with The Ramayan aren’t necessarily mirrored beat-for-beat. Kid’s initial reconnaissance before his first attempt at killing Officer Rana may be an homage to Hanuman’s scouting of Sita’s location. However where Hanuman was merely gathering information before leaping from rooftops with his tail on fire setting buildings ablaze, Kid actually attempts to kill Officer Rana before fleeing across rooftops utterly overwhelmed by his forces. 

Ravan’s role appears to be split between two characters. Baba Shakti embodies the cautionary tale of Ravan as possessing great scriptural knowledge without living out that knowledge to become more pious. Memorizing all the books doesn’t make you a good person. While Officer Rana appears to embody the power of Ravan. And their mutual involvement seems to comment on the role of selfish cooperation in perpetuating injustices, which feels appropriate since Patel wanted to comment on power structures. Although Kid’s letting the politician live during his second raid of Queenie’s club seems to illustrate a more personal element to his story. He’s interested in structural justice insofar as his personal quest for it overlaps.

There’s also the eponymous character of Sita, who warns Kid against feeding the street dog since “it gives [the dog] hope.” I saw this as a reference to Hanuman delivering Ram’s ring to Sita while scouting her location, giving her hope. Indeed, the most notable liberty the story took from The Ramayan was that rescuing Sita wasn’t Kid’s primary objective, setting up the theme of Kid’s journey giving hope to other disenfranchised people. An excellent artistic liberty to take.

It’s also unclear what role Alphonso serves. He might’ve mirrored the street dog, a not-quite disenfranchised disabled person who Kid befriends in order to accomplish his goal – as if the movie wasn’t already taking on sufficiently many big ideas. And then, the obvious question: who did Alphonso represent from The Ramayan? Was he Lakshman, a hero in his own right? Not really. Was he Sugriv, a reinstated king who valiantly served Ram? Not really.

Which brings me to this film’s biggest weakness. It needed more focus. Sita’s character was underdeveloped, while significant screen time was diverted to Alphonso. We could have seen her in a proper B-story that crescendoed into her personal revenge climax with Queenie. Sita’s character in The Ramayan kind of just sits and waits, while it’s clear that Patel wanted to give Sita in the movie a sense of agency. Such an artistic intention aligns with a rewrite where she helps Kid get into the VIP area. Doing this would build on that beautiful moment she has with Kid in the alleyway feeding the street dog. This approach would have sharpened the representation of disenfranchised women in the film while still capturing The Ramayan’s emphasis on cooperation as a path to justice. Developing Alphonso over Sita feels like a missed opportunity here. 

It’s clear to me that Dev Patel has the potential to create truly great works of art as his filmmaking matures. Ultimately the raw artistic passion that fueled this movie’s gripping style and its personal significance to me made it a joyful, meaningful and memorable watching experience. I’m excited at the possibility of Patel creating more stories that pull from our rich heritage to inspire filmgoers and filmmakers alike with the same stories that inspired us.