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Becky is the best
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"Becky" bested 378 entries in "60 Minutes to Fame", organised by the Ability Foundation
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Computer-generated lines, most of them squiggly, relate Becky's story. Becky is a born charmer - "Becky is pretty, Becky is nice. Sweet and witty, Becky is wise." Becky is full of beans - "School, mall, cinema hall. Becky likes them all." Becky has her dislikes - "The pity and the stare. And being known by a wheelchair."
Becky is a little girl confined to a wheelchair. But why should she be treated as the odd one out? This question is asked by a 60-second animation film "Becky", made by The East India Company, an advertisement production house, in association with Vidyasagar, a school for children and young adults with multiple disabilities.
"Becky" bested 378 films, each running for the same duration, in a competition called "60 Seconds To Fame", organised by the Ability Foundation. The theme was "Inclusive Society".
Sixty seconds is a short time to convey anything — even simple ideas. And `Inclusion' is a challenging idea. So, director Kumararaja went for computer-generated lines; this enabled him to pack the minute with a lot more images and ideas than he would have managed had he used real people.
Now, another question presented itself. Should the film tug at people's heart-strings and leave them with a heavy feeling after the 60th second? Would this lead them to action? He reasoned that it might, but such a presentation would "exclude" children from the audience. "The film had to make Papa think, and the little girl laugh as well as think."
So, sing-song nursery rhyme-like sentences explain the animation movements across the screen. As most cartoon or animation films are from the West or at least the best ones, the characters have been given British or American names.
And all characters are kids, again keeping a young audience in mind. It shows Jane who "can study, but can't draw or dance" and Jude who's "good with music, but horrible with romance".
More than politically correct, it is sensitive to the power of negative words. It does not use `disability' or `disabled, it just says: "There are some things we can. Some things we can't. So why is only Becky the odd one out?"
The film has a dramatic ending. In one frame, Becky is looking dejectedly at a flight of steps, even as the narrator asks, "How do I conclude (the story)?" In the next and the last frame, the stairs turn into a ramp and the narrator concludes with these two words, "Jus Include".
PRINCE FREDERICK
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