Arthur Miller And The Great Indian Media

Arthur Miller passed away on Feb 11, 2005.The Indian media virtually ignored this. Or there were references such as one of Marilyn Monroe’s ex-husbands having passed away. It was shocking. Even more shocking is the fact that when I mentioned Miller’s passing most of my friends did not even know who Arthur Miller was! And I hold our media directly responsible for this. Miller is one of the most influential Post World War-2 dramatists’ whose plays such as Death of a Salesman and All My Sons were pathbreaking. He defied the U.S establishment in the 1950s by refusing to name suspected leftist and Communist party members he was closely associated with. Miller’s works reflected a profound social consciousness, were anti-establishment without being propagandist. As a student of literature I was bored with the Puritanistic,Elizabethan and Victorian literature(with the exceptions of Jane Austin and Thomas Hardy).Miller’s All My Sons was like an oasis amidst mostly lifeless literature. It helped me shape my social consciousness. It portrays the struggle within its protagonist who puts personal profiteering ahead of public duty claiming that he was doing it for his family. The play’s appeal is eternal through the questions it raises and the ethics or the lack of, that it challenges. Arthur Miller along with persons like Tennessee Williams and J.D.Salinger was the most representative American literary figure of the 1950 s and certainly one of the all time greats. The media here has even stopped pretending that it is decent or responsible. So while news about clowns like Mallika Shekhawat(supposedly sexy…lol)titillate and sell who cares if Arthur Miller is dead or even existed?It is paradoxical that it is exactly this utter lack of decency of money-at-all-cost business establishments (which is what the media has become) that Miller so vehemently questioned through his works.