'Sita Sings the Blues': The reinvention of an Indian myth stirs controversy

Sita, the mythological Hindu Goddess, has a cartoon avatar in the short film “Sita Sings the Blues.” And after a testy fight with some major international corporations, the brainchild of filmmaker Nina Paley is finally accessible via online distribution and DVD.

Or watch it here on YouTube.

The cheeky reinvention of one of India’s oldest epics, the Ramayana, "Sita Sings the Blues" uses a riot of techniques -- traditional Rajput style, ultramodern Squigglevision and irreverent narration -- to put an inventive modern spin on India’s national epic. For instance, Paley portrays India’s revered goddess dancing to Annette Hanshaw jazz recordings from the 1920s. The scenes upset religious conservatives, but won the admiration of film-festival audiences around the world. "Sita Sings the Blues" has been recognized at festivals such as the Gotham Independent Film Festival, where it won the 'Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You' prize.

But it was the film's use of songs by Annette Hanshaw -- a popular American 'flapper jazz' vocalist of the 1920s and '30s -- that led to a copyright standoff between Paley and Hollywood heavies Sony-ATV, UPMG and Warner-Chappell, who demanded $220,000 for the rights to the music before "Sita Sings the Blues" could be made commercially available. Instead, an exasperated Paley decided to make "Sita Sings the Blues" available for free on the Internet through the Creative Commons program. You can screen the film here.

“[They] want you to think in terms of asking permission,” Paley writes on her blog, “I want you to think in terms of freedom.”

As for simply replacing the Hanshaw songs with other music, Paley writes: "I cannot just swap out the Annette Hanshaw songs. The songs themselves inspired the film. There would be no film without those songs. ... The synchronicity of the Hanshaw songs and Sita's story is uncanny."

For some, the “Sita Sings the Blues” DVD release represents not a modern interpretation of Sita's epic struggle, but the idea that creation in the 21st century is a shared endeavor in which concepts such as copyrights and intellectual property ownership are meaningless, barriers that would prevent radical experiments like the bike wheel LED projection, and the picturebook that it inspired.

Doubtless, Sony-ATV and others will see that their own interpretation of "Sita Sings the Blues" copyright ownership is heard, as well.