Response to Slumdog Millionare

How does it represent India/Indians? How does this compare to our notion of The Other or the Oriental stereotype? Try to link your answer to the theorists/ideas we were looking at last week





http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HJRzk2WfOAo- Danny Boyle on slumdog millionaire



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/24/oscars-india-slumdog-millionaire-ian-jack- Ian jack on slumdog millionaire being "poverty porn"



http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jan/18/slumdog-millionaire-british-asian-reaction- British Asians response to movie


Response


The film slumdog millionaire is a representation of life in India for poverty stricken children and the rise of one boy in particular from rags to riches. The foreign director Danny Boyle attempts to show India as economically incapable and the people being poor, lazy and evil in the early parts of the film. This was seen as a huge risk but due to the overwhelming response and support as well as publicity the movie has gained it seems that the risk of doing something different to other directors as defiantly payed off.

The article written by Ian jack on slumdog being poverty porn explains the difference in generations between India now and 40 years ago. The binary oppositions about India through time are made clear through the government rejecting the documentary made by a British director and having the BBC and any other foreign organisation banned from filming 4o years ago in comparison to the widespread joy in response from the majority of India in 2009.

Danny Boyle is a white man from a white background and with him coming over to India to film a movie highlighting the negative aspects of Indian society it is understandable that some parts of the Indian community will despise it both in both India and British Indian citizens.

In some ways it relates back to colonialism in the suggestion that foreigners are coming to Indian territory and filming a movie that puts spotlight on Indian lives and in someways represents Indian people, this was done in the colonialism era when the British army and government attempted to trick the British people into believing that India was "the other" and different to them in every shape and form. In what the British public were being told by the government at the time in the 1940s they were being shown in 2009 through the movie and this is why they are similar in that respect, although in exposing what life is like for poor Indians to the British Danny Boyle and the 1940 government had different purposes.

The movie attempts to give a "realistic portrayal" of India to show that there is more to Asian culture than all singing all dancing happy Bollywood which after movie after movie of the same narrative plot becomes drastically unrealistic. This feel good movie ideology is to show that anyone can make a good life for themselves in even when faced against early upbringings obstacles, it is to get the audience to believe that India is apace where dreams can come true if you work hard and attempt to escape the worse of parts of the country. So while giving a bad representation of India's lifestyle if also shows some aspects of India's wealth as a new economic superpower.