Transcriber: lassi shine Reviewer: Hani Eldalees
Hello, my name is Ram Devineni and I am
the creator of India's first female superhero, Priya.
She's the role model for a younger generation,
a new vision for a superhero grounded in real life modern problems.
Superheroes are everywhere and more popular than ever.
You cannot turn on a TV or streaming channel without being bombarded by
superheroes in tights, spandex and capes.
Why have they become so huge? and what do they tell us about us
and our modern times? And why have modern superheroes become disconnected from
the people they are supposed to serve,
protect and represent into a chasm of mindless entertainment and distraction?
In the past, our stories were rooted in nature and the challenges we faced,
the mythological characters and stories enlighten us about ourselves and
the mysteries of the world.
As societies evolved, more complex stories needed to be told.
Our mythological stories evolved with us.
growing up in a small village in southern India.
I used to read the Hindu mythological comics and was fascinated by
the exploits and adventures of the Indian gods and heroes.
There were many rich stories involving regular people calling upon
the gods in dire situations.
Often the gods would intervene, but it was the villager, our hero,
who had to complete the quest and solve their own problems.
You can see this motif in many cultures and mythologies throughout the world,
beautifully captured in Joseph Campbell's classic book,
The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
Even though the hero had to go through extraordinary adventures,
there was always a clear separation from the human world and
the supernatural world or godlike world.
And the human were the instigators of change.
with the advent of modern superheroes in Western cultures. This started to change.
At first, the superheroes were still part of society.
The early versions of Superman in Action Comics had him fighting against criminals.
Same with Batman in Detective Comics.
He was an ordinary human being who lost both of his parents when he was
a child in a senseless murder.
For the creators of both characters, justice was paramount.
As World War Two raged around the world,
the villains were more grandiose and devastating, from Hitler to Mussolini.
As a result, Superman and Batman were challenged by villains who are equally
powerful in their own ways.
These super villains attacked at the core values of our heroes.
Superman's love of humanity is an example.
Superman's arch enemy, Lex Luthor,
used his super intelligence since he could not fight Superman's physical
powers to conceive destructive schemes to destroy
the fabric of society in order to gain power.
Yet all the villains were human and had to adhere to the laws of society
and to the natural laws of living on Earth.
With the nuclear age and especially the corporatization of the world,
the superheroes no longer contended with the problems of humans
and justice was redefined.
Humans became pawns in a bigger chess game involving creatures and aliens
and super villains with godlike powers.
This is where the mythologies that were created to serve us were replaced by
stories that were there to entertain us.
I want to share an alternative universe of female comic book heroes rooted in
real people, histories and incidents.
One of the crucial elements when creating
an authentic comic book story is that you need to have an origin story
for your character. All superheroes are created from tragedy,
and it is through tragedy that we learn the hero's purpose.
In my comic book, Priya is a rape survivor who is thrown out of her village
and is forced to live in the jungle.
She is stalked by a tiger, which represents fear.
One day she climbs down from the tree and looks at a tiger in the eye
and sings a powerful mantra given to her by the goddess Parvati.
Speak without shame and stand with me and bring about
the change you want to see. Soon the tiger is transformed into our ally.
Fear becomes Shakti or power.
She rides the tiger back into town and at first
the villagers are afraid of her because she's riding a tiger.
But as they hear her powerful mantra,
the townspeople are transformed and join her on a movement to fight
the cultural stigmas and patriarchy surrounding rape.
In the next edition of the comic book series, I focused on acid attacks.
I met several courageous acid attack survivors in India
and New York City who told me their stories.
They face the same cultural stigmas that rape survivors had to endure.
But the physical scars were more apparent.
Overcoming fear was critical for them to change from victim to a survivor.
And the remarkable women became advocates and heroes in my comic book
and in real life. More recently,
Priya took on the covid-19 pandemic in Preus mask.
Fighting an invisible virus is difficult,
but challenge the fears and victim blaming with something Prieur could take on.
She helps a little girl named Mina to understand her feelings,
loneliness and the sacrifices her mother, a nurse,
makes every day fighting the virus.
Prieur, We need to stand together and bring about the change we want to see.
That's how we can beat the virus.
Continue to wear a mask for your safety and mine.
Here are some lessons I learned when I created Priya and
I like to share with you. Always have an authentic story and
a character born from tragedy.
Their tragedy is what makes them a hero and often gives them their superpowers.
All superheroes, even if they're alien, have human qualities.
That is why we love them, not because of their supernatural abilities,
but because we can project ourselves into them.
Root your character in your culture,
why make your superhero like every other superhero wearing a cape,
make your superhero authentic,
do the research and talk with people and especially people you admire
and you think should be superheroes or at least heroes.
Their lives and stories will ground you and give meaning to your work.
And don't be afraid to put your own personalities and quirks into
the characters. Justice should be paramount.
Why make a superhero if they can't change their community and themselves?
Remember, people want to believe. That is why millions of people attend comic
book conventions and follow these characters long after their childhoods
have passed. People are not looking for saviors,
but heroes that have grand visions
and can influence them to do what is right. That is the power of Priya.
Her super power is the power of influence,
A radical concept and the superhero pantheon. Lastly, be innovative.
unique things we did with our series is that we embedded
the comic book with augmented reality.
We were one of the first to do it back in 2014 when
the technology was relatively unknown.
By scanning the pages with an AR app, you can see it come to life.
Here's a short video of the augmented reality murals we created in India.
thank you for listening.