Kathmandu
As Oscar night pends, the Slumdog discussion continues in India as elsewhere. This week on Desi Pundit, Lekhni asks "Why do Indians hate Slumdog Millionaire?" and gives some thoughtful answers.
I find this an endlessly fascinating discussion. A lot of the arguments are familiar; brings back memories of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing in the golden days of hip-hop (for you young peeps, that was the 1980s).
At that time, I lived in New York City where the move was set."Why didn't he show this, and not that?"
"Why does he depict Jews that way?"
"Why did he have to end it in violence - shouldn't he have been more 'positive'?"
"how come most of his characters have no jobs, isn't that a stereotype?"
"Such portrayals will only further mainstream America's bad image of Black urban America,"
and so on.
Being Black American did not spare Lee from harsh critiques from his own people.
Such criticism ignored the achievement: Lee had made the most powerful film about American race relations in decades, and dared to ask (and pose answers for) many taboo questions. So it wasn't perfect; what is?
As I've spent way too much writing time the past 2 weeks answering Comments, I will reproduce some of mine here:
Posts
"Why didn't Slumdog Millionaire also show middle-class, prosperous India? The west just wants to perpetuate the image of Indian poverty." --
The movie did depict modern, middle-class, glass-front India- I remember finding the scenes in the flat-screen TV bungalow with security guard such a contrast with the slum scenes. The film does show that India has changed, and is changing. A character also says, “see the slums where we grew up? now it’s all high-rise housing.”
The call centre scenes were also filled with educated, well-dressed middle class youth. Middle-class “new India” was not the sole focus, but it was represented.
Director Danny Boyle is experiencing “the burden of representation” — what every artist, in film or other media, encounters when portraying or addressing an historically underrepresented people, nation or topic. The (usually well-meaning) artist is unfairly expected to redress every mis-representation of the topic that has occurred throughout the centuries, all in one two-hour film, 30 minute sitcom or 500 page book.
So let’s all look forward to AR Rahman’s Oscar win and more!
Mere desh mahan.
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