From Shocked by Slumdog’s poverty porn,

As a review on the same website by Vrinda Nabar, an Indian professor at a US university, put it: “Slumdog’s eventual victory comes at a price. When the selective manipulation of Third World squalor can make for a feel-good movie in a dismal year, the global village has a long way to go.”

. . .

Quite. The Mumbai Mirror dubbed it “Slum Chic”, and notes that the term “slumdog” is not widely recognised in India: “It appears to be a British invention to describe a poor Dharavi kid in a derogatory way.”

. . .

That said, most Indians have not seen the film, because it will not open there until next week, a delay that has raised an eyebrow or two: did Mumbai not deserve to see Slumdog first? Instead, pirated copies are doing the rounds while America watches a film that Hollywood refused to fund, because “who wants to see misery and street kids?”.

. . .

And it may be that the brilliance of the film rescues Boyle from criticism: he is a film-maker, not a social commentator, and nobody doubts its cinematic brilliance. As The New York Times put it: “It’s hard to hold on to any reservations in the face of Mr Boyle’s resolutely upbeat pitch and seductive visual style.”

That very seductiveness is the problem. But if Boyle may be absolved from criticism, I am not sure the same can be said of the audience. “Slumderful!” declared the New York Post. When we are suckered into enjoying scenes of absolute horror among children in slums on the other side of the world, even dubbing them comedy, we ought to question where our moral compass is pointing. Boyle’s most subversive achievement may lie not in revealing the dark underbelly of India – but in revealing ours.

I’m always wary when a Western director takes up a film project to depict non-white film subjects. On one hand, it’s not conducive to societal progress to limit talk on sensitive subject matters only to “the” subjects themselves; on the other hand, privileges afforded to these directors (dare I say that “white privilege” is really the most important one?) often taint Western perspective of cultures deemed different from theirs.

Like the writer of the Times article states, Danny Boyle is not a social commentator and his purpose in making “Slumdog” may or may not be to bring about sociological change. Nonetheless, amidst the hooplah surrounding the film (and what with Oscar season just around the corner), the way his subjects are depicted in his movie and the way that audiences receive those images is often not talked about in the way that it ought to be talked about. If this film had been directed by an Indian director, would it receive the same acclaim? If this film has been awarded with so many Oscar nods, why are there none for any of the (Indian) actors? Surely this movie can’t be as praise-worthy as it is if there was no good acting. These are all things that I think are important to consider.

Related Posts

• Hollywood’s It Girls
• Transformers 2, racist-ish characters, blah blah — what else is new?
• “Man bites ‘Slumdog’”
• Colombiana
• Mr. James Stewart
• Dramas of 2010
• Song of the day
• Best of Music 2010
• Songs of the day
• Music style
• ASDFASKDFASDKLFJ
• This is how you should dress
• Girl
• Songs of the day
• Song of the day