Slumdog Reality?

I loved Slumdog Millionaire, but I thought this was a pretty interesting critique. This article was written by Charles R. Larson and originally posted at CounterPunch.org

After all the international controversy about Slumdog Millionaire, if Hollywood crowns the film with an Oscar for the best movie of the year, Indians, I suspect, are going to have much to crow about. How ironic that a half a year ago the movie's investors feared that they had made a real dog—a film that would interest no one—and were considering dumping it directly on DVD with no release in movie theatres around the world. Can the movie moguls (mughals?) have been so myopic that they had no idea of the film's importance?

Then the slow release, mostly in art-houses in the United States and England, rather than the big cineplexes, and the increasingly positive word-of-mouth (still in the West), followed by the surprise Golden Globe Award as best film of the year along with several other significant awards for music and acting. And at the time Slumdog Millionaire hadn't even been released in India.

I was traveling in India when all the brouhaha about the film exploded. Many Indians were ecstatic about all the attention and the subsequent awards the film rapidly acquired: everything about Danny Boyle's film was happening so quickly. Reviews of the movie (which officially opened in India on Friday, January 23rd) were positive, even glowing. Pirated copies of the film were selling everywhere for as little as 40 rupees, less than a dollar. The Indian press was overflowing with articles about the film, photos of the actors, the director and the composer, and interviews with Vikas Swarup, author of Q&A, the novel that became the basis for the film.

A typical review—for example, Khalid Mohamed's in The Hindustan Times (Jan. 24)—began by proclaiming, "There's reason to dance on the streets." Mohamed gave the film five stars, the highest possible ranking, and ended his glowing evaluation by stating, "Literally every performance rocks. Still, your heart goes out most of all to Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Rubiana Ali, the kids who portray the knee-high Jamal, Salim, and Latika. They're extraordinary just like the rest of Slumdog Millionaire. As one of the songs goes, Jai jo!"

Then the attacks on the film began, generally arguing that the unflattering representation of Mumbai—especially the poverty—lock India into stereotypes that Westerners are already too quick to assume. Arindam Chaudhuri, in The Times of India (Feb 2nd), excoriated that the film "sucks," describing the movie as "A phony poseur that has been made only to mock India for the viewing pleasure of the First World!!" The film "illogically shows every negative thing about India happening in the protagonist's life…slums, open-air lavatories, riots, underworld, prostitution, brothels, child labour, begging, blinding and maiming of kids to make them into 'better beggars,' petty peddlers, traffic jams, irresponsible call centre executives…."

The corrective to this barrage of negative attacks had already begun to appear, also in The Times (Jan. 26th). Santosh Desai titled his op-ed essay, "The slum is not the other India." It's the real India. Slumdog Millionaire depicts India as it is—with all its ills and foibles--arguing that Indians are not being honest with themselves if "We genuinely believe that Mumbai can be summed up by the Taj."

Yet, the controversy mushroomed, especially in the Western press. The people who made the film were accused of making a fortune out of India's misery, prompting the same people to announce that a portion of the film's profits will be given to India's poor. Others objected that the child actors in Slumdog Millionaire were given only a pittance for their labor—in effect, exploited. That criticism prompted further good deeds by the film's backers, who promise that the children will be supported in on-going ways.

The entire controversy of the film's phenomenal success pivots on someone making money off someone else's misery, distorting and exploiting another culture. Fortunately, Desai offers clarity here by stating, "If cinematic representations about India are stereotyped, so are those for all cultures." Right on. Desai has summed up the flaw of Hollywood (and Bollywood) itself.

I think of the times when my wife and I have sat through four or five previews of "coming attractions." All the movies blend together, blood and mayhem, everyone gets killed. Bodies are everywhere, which makes me recall the remark from an African student about the day he arrived in the United States, in New York City. Riding in a taxi, he said he was afraid to get out for fear that the streets were filled with gangsters who would kill him. Hollywood films shown around the world, certainly give that impression. Female American students I've talked to overseas have told me that men in the Third World assume that they are interested in the same non-stop sexual activities depicted in American pornographic films.

Well, those images about America are about as accurate as the poverty, violence, and greed depicted in Slumdog Millionaire, which is only to state that they depict certain excesses and extremes of life everywhere: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. If Hollywood crowns the film with an Oscar for the best movie of the year, I suspect that Indians everywhere will rejoice. And maybe we'll all think a little more seriously about the stereotypes we use and confront every day of our lives.

Charles R. Larson is Professor of Literature at American University in Washington, D.C. His books include Under African Skies, Worlds of Fiction, The Ordeal of the African Writer and Academia Nuts. He can be reached at: clarson@american.edu

Once upon a time in India

The scope of Slumdog Millionaire could be described as epic, with the characters' personal lives wrapped up in the ever changing historical and political landscape of modern India. The only problem with this description is that the decisions the characters make in their daily lives have no impact on the world around them. No, Jamaal and Salim, the two "slumdog" children who lose their mother to an anti-Muslim pogrom, are the people left behind by globalization. Their lives are the result of the economic changes of first Bombay, then Mumbai. At one point they are standing in a high-rise building in Mumbai looking over a sea of skyscrapers that was once the slums that they grew up in.

The crux of the story is that Jamaal grows up to be a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", a show whose mere existence is certainly the result of unfettered global capitalism. As a Muslim slumdog who makes it further than any previous contestant, he is, of course, questioned and tortured under the assumption that he cheated. We discover that, in spite of his lack of education, every question just happens to correspond with some horrific moment in his life. Many easier questions, he insists, would have probably been much harder for him. It's just dumb luck--or, quite possibly, fate.

This may sound like the plot to an incredibly contrived story, except that it is handled so well that we believe every moment of it. Key to all of this is the performances of the actors, particularly those of the children, who play characters that live through extraordinary events with both sensitivity and endurance. They don't lament their bad luck any more than a Western teenager who is sick of going to school and growing up in a boring town--probably less so, because their survival skills require them to focus on getting food and shelter today, not begrudge their misfortune. To Jamaal and Salim, it is probably not so much "luck" as it is life--there is no other alternative, no better town or better job. They feel pretty lucky just to have a job.

In many ways, this movie reminded me of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America. In both films, we see young men growing up in adverse conditions and facing the challenges of survival the only way they know how. Their fates are bound up with the forces around them and their options are very limited. But while Leone's vision is much more pessimistic and regretful, director Danny Boyle is able to find hope amidst poverty.

You also can't help but describe Slumdog Millionaire as "Dickensian". Involving children orphaned in poverty, scheming money out of unsuspecting tourists, looking for their next meal out of the trash, and a beautiful young woman who will haunt the main character into manhood--that is a roundup of some of the best of Charles Dickens.

What Jamaal learns most of all is never to give up hope--no matter how bad his luck, or the luck of those around him, even though everything he learns about the world should teach him to be an arch-cynic. He may not have many prospects, but at least he might be able to save the girl he loved from a life of misery.

This isn't simply a fantastic fairy tale but rather the story of survival. And sometimes, if you survive long enough, good things can happen.