Slumdog Millionaire – Is there a cultural agenda?
I have kept quiet on the slumdog debate for a long time because of a lot of conflicting thoughts that I needed to sort out. What started off as a response to Avdesh’s well-articulated comment (#67, 79) on Medha’s post has turned into this current post.
When a film goes on the floors, no studio or executive can predict how it will turn out. It is all a gamble. Studios are in business to make money, and not promote an agenda. They deliver what they think people want to see. A cultural agenda (which i’m pretty certain exists) then comes in at a later stage, when someone wants to front cash to buy and distribute the film. And at that point, it comes directly to giving the audience what it wants or rather what people think they will pay for. At that level, I am going to absolve Danny and Simon of a racially bigoted agenda (because this is the blogger’s court – janta ki adalat and all that, and I’m Judge Dredd).
To understand the narrative of each country/culture, we must see what their liberals and the cons say. My understanding of British liberal guilt which is the only version u will see in rags like the guardian and BBC, is along the lines of, “we did some pretty terrible things, and we must somehow atone for it, while we continue to enjoy the fruits of all that plunder. if it means throwing someone a bone, and hiding behind a self-deprecating or “dry” sense of humor, so be it. But don’t push it. We’re not giving back anything.”
The con version (i avoid left-right terminology) is what we saw on big Brother with Shilpa Shetty. a sense of entitlement and cultural hierarchy, where their place is undisputedly at the top. Danny and Simon are most likely guilty of towing this cultural rhetoric, at whatever subconscious level. It may be argued that the popularity of MIA is also because of Hampstead tea parties. To add just one last point…around the world and in New York I have seen chic lounges/bars that are an ode to the Raj. Kinda like, we did some terrible things, but those sure were some wonderful times.
You will be hard-pressed to find one establishment in America that glorifies slavery, or in Japan that waxes poetic about their colonizing days. The Brits have somehow been given a free pass.
More cultural commentary – germany, france, america, all have some version of this narrative although they don’t have direct colonial roots in India (french colonization of india was miniscule to the point that it may be ignored). There’s a reason why Born in Brothels or other such docs get made.
All u have to do is take a handycam and shoot random images of poor people in India, preferably smiling, in colorful clothes, surrounded by filth, and u can sell it to German and French television. They will air it on their cultural reportage sections, of which they do an awful lot. They want to see the same of China also, but the Chinese state controls every bit of info that is released to the world. Not so much in the case of India.
One only needs to see what passes for scholarship at the Indian studies departments of liberal arts Unis in the US and UK usually championed by a native informant. The over-riding narrative is that anything good that has come from Indian civilization was an external influence. Ever wonder why the most widely used numerals are called Arabic numerals, and not Indian? Slowly but surely, a lot of Indian achievements in the fields of math and science before middle ages, before European mathematicians propounded their theories, are being recognized.
I will not begrudge the Arundhatis, and JNU professors seeking western grants and perks in return for a jaundiced view of the way we is. I don’t believe in telling people how to behave because that would kill dissent.
In a very calculated bid, I did the rounds of human rights organizations to make my first film, which is a big issue, and something central to India, although it happens in other countries too. I tried indian sources but there was no money to be found. The NGOs were very excited that here’s another native informant that wants to talk about the ills of India. When they finally saw my treatment, and script, they were disappointed. It did not have the Water treatment. Or maybe my script is just bad, and I’m bitter.
Sorry for the digression. here’s the last part.
How does the cultural agenda/propaganda affect actual events that matter, should we care and how do we counter it?
As bad as the ground realities are in India, from a macro standpoint of GDP, it is a threat to the US and EU. We should look at history, to see what happened. The best example I can think of is Japan from the 80s. Japan’s economy was growing faster than anyone else, and they posed a serious threat to the US, UK, and Germany. Japan is a very special case but there are still lessons to be learned. The west never had to worry about a military threat from Japan, plus there was that little thing about dropping the bomb which essentially wiped the slate clean of all Japanese atrocities, from a western narrative standpoint.
Where is Japan today? They have created some soft cultural exports, with some power, but are no longer a threat. How did the US/UK react in the 80s to Japan? Did Japan slow down as a result of western cultural agenda, or did they implode under the strain of their financial world? I don’t know and would appreciate some scholarship on the same in the comments.
What does India want on a global stage, that is good for the country, but depends on the vagaries of non-indian individuals voting with what they “feel” no matter how much they justify it as a rational and objective decision?
UN Security Council Seat.
WTO influence
Nuclear disarmament and CTBT
Kyoto
I think climate change treaties are the most important, yet the softest form of aggression and this is where maximum impact on world politics will be seen in the near future. India must further its agenda on this front, and have its way. We must retain the ability to pollute our water and air, without outside interference. We should clean up our acts, and champion green, but on our own terms, and with a historical perspective in mind.
Which means that we must create the impression that we have our shit together (literally).
Which is a greater scientific threat and which has greater visceral and emotional impact on ur notion of pollution, greenhouse gases etc. – Millions of gallons of CO emissions that u can’t see or a billion people and their shit?
For this reason alone, India must not sign any global treaties, and to do this it needs leverage and that leverage will come from perception. India must protect its image and not let all depictions be of an overcrowded land of poor shit-swimmers. We must redress the balance.
When Danny approached Indian studios, they should have funded it, and influenced the story and depiction. Instead of chasing Shyamalan when he is on his way out. As for comparisons to City of God, ask a Brazilian not of privilege (read non-white), how they felt about a privileged white brazilian making a movie about their favellas and the mostly black residents.
None of the above influenced my initial viewing of the movie because my senses were assaulted by the film, and I mean that in a good way. I could not look beyond the terrible problems in the screenplay (another post), although it had some wonderfully shot sequences.
Awards such as the Oscars, Globes, and Cannes are an endorsement of cultural agenda, and not necessarily cinematic excellence. Occasionally a piece of art will slip through. The Slumdog Jagannath will take it all at the Oscars, for the rich cultural agenda it offers. Like that other mind-number Crash.
To paraphrase a frequent commentor on these here boards, Nina – Just because my mother is a prostitute, don’t go around calling her a whore. It is not polite but still acceptable in civil society. But if your name-calling gets in the way of my ma making a better life, I’m gonna take you down motherfucker.
References –
http://www.metamute.org/en/Slumsploitation-Favela-on-Film-and-TV
THE SUDDEN STARDOM OF THE THIRD-WORLD CITY
by RANA DASGUPTA
http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0603/msg00031.html
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Dabba, I may have missed the pt. Went back to read medha’s post and the comments. What exactly are you saying? Forgive my ignorance, I am a bit lost.
am with ravptor on this one.. i read the post, but all i came away with was the question in the title of the post.. to which the answer is, nope. think you might be reading too much into the film.. it’s not a film that requires too much analysis.
the film doesn’t require analysis. its immense success certainly does.
friend..quite highbrow..but in all I truly think we are getting continuously steamed over an average entertainer
huh…one more conspiracy theory…..one film n people find trends, dissect it n puts in a research paper….m sure anyone associated with d film never calculated so much ? n what abt vikas swaroop ? so he made all d perfect guesses n all d rite calculations!!
n also i feel u r mixing up two things..the film and its acceptance. both r quite different!
pnu – not one film. every film, from mother india, satyajit ray’s films, to temple of doom, to city of joy, to salaam bombay, to the river, to gunga din, to that one james bond film with kabir bedi, to water, to earth.
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the only exception is monsoon wedding.
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if u don’t see the pattern, you’ve got some massive blinkers on, and serious denial.
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the movie got made because it was written by an indian who can claim to be an insider. No studio would open itself to that kinda criticim of racial bias. The same was the case with City of God. Like i said, one may not be able to calculate the odds of success, but once the work has been created, you can push the agenda that people will pay for.
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there’s more suketu mehta’s maximum city in slumdog than Q&A. Max City was on seeveral bestseller lists.
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around the same time that slumdog came out, there was another english language call center movie made by amritraj called The Other end of the line, starring sarin, and some american actor. i watched about 30mins of that film. not impressive in any way, but not bad for a romcom as far as i saw.
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slumdog is definitely a better made film than the one i’m talking about. how many of you even know about this film?
@ pnu #6 –
agreed. that’s why i absolved danny, and simon at the creative stage, and am focusing my analysis on the promotional dollars, wide acceptance of the movie, and what that means, and asking, should we care, what are the repercussions of this?
1. let’s not generalize views for the west into lumps of liberal and conservative thinking. there are many people who share opinions and view that overlap all kinds of thinking. where would you put someone like Christopher Hitchens?
2. i agree with you about the NY raj-themed lounges. that’s disturbing and points to a nostalgia of the colonial past. but that’s a nostalgia of the old world in general. because america does not share a colonial past with india, they get away with it. but it’s still not right.
3. we should have made born into brothels. water should have been shot in india and we should not be pissed that india expats are addressing issues that bollywood is so afraid of tackling. instead, we should take off our blindfold.
4. as an indian-american and an alumni of a recognized american college, i disagree completely with you on your comment about indian studies departments in american college (can’t say anything about UK). my college has a great South Asian studies major and i’ve had friends who have taken courses about indian politics, history and culture. and in no way have they felt that the professors or department didn’t give India/Pakistan their due credit. the indian/arabic numeral topic is small and there is still debate (objective debate) going on about it.
5. your post kind of digressed into india’s future as a global player as opposed to concentrating on the movie’s wide acceptance. but even then, just because you can’t see the carbon emissions doesn’t mean they are any less dangerous than the shit of a billion people. if the whole world doesn’t act together to address the climate change crisis soon, things are going to go real bad. real earth’s history and the effects even minuscule climate temperature changes (+/- 3 degrees) have had on species and landscape.
6. i’ll agree with you that there is a cultural agenda (a liberal one) present in western award ceremonies. but they deserve more credit that you bestow upon them. a lot of art does get rewarded.
you are right to some extent. there is an element of exoticism that swayed people into perceiving SDM as a masterpiece. but for the large part, people loved it because it’s very different. it’s a very bollywoodish movie and a lot of the west hasn’t seen that. on top of that, the feel-good factor is undeniably addictive. you cannot point to a larger cultural agenda with colonial roots as a reason for the success of this movie. or for water or salaam bombay for that matter. they are good movies plain and simple.
huh????????!!!!!!!!!!
i think people who don’t live in western countries/ or adapt their cultures mostly consider “firangies” as eveil people
Lets face it.Other people, so called higher better,do treat these,also human beings badly.They are just as good as anyone else,if given the chance,instead of being repressed and made to feel untouchable.Given the education they can achieve! just like the rest.gentically they are no different,just made to feel that way,so they believe themselfs to be less.So the film gave attention to these folk.Lots of people in the world will want to help them.Once upon a time most countries in the west,had similar attitudes,but changed,still chsanging.
@ papaji-
“5. your post kind of digressed into india’s future as a global player as opposed to concentrating on the movie’s wide acceptance. but even then, just because you can’t see the carbon emissions doesn’t mean they are any less dangerous than the shit of a billion people. if the whole world doesn’t act together to address the climate change crisis soon, things are going to go real bad. real earth’s history and the effects even minuscule climate temperature changes (+/- 3 degrees) have had on species and landscape.”
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this is exactly the point behind my rhetorical question. which is more dangerous> CO emissions in millions of gallons pumped out by the west, or the pollution caused by a billion people?
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people are trying to pass the buck, when the west with its conspicuous consumption needs to see what they should do, as opposed to pointing out to india and china.
@ dabba
we need to stop looking at this in the us vs them mentality. we are not (nobody is) in a position to tell the west to clean up their mess and not do anything just because we feel it is our time to ‘modernize’. soon china will be the biggest green house emitter and india will join it in no time. now that the problem has surfaced we cannot ignore it because the west can’t do squat without cooperation from india and china. it’s a burden and responsibility we have to take on our shoulders as well.
also, not all of the west is pointing fingers at us and asking us to stop the pollution. the opinions are very divided. you can’t blame the scientists who found out that china and india are going to harm the environment a great deal in the future. because it’s true. i’m stressing that these problems are global in nature and so we HAVE to get into and sign treaties that will help curb climate change…given that the rest of the world is just as willing to put in the effort.
man i thought this post was about slumdog millionaire…haha oh well.
agreed papaji, but with one crucial difference. You talked about cooperation from india and china. It is very important to retain that aspect and not succumb to coercion disguised as cooperation. we all know how the powers that be like their accords such as CTBT, GATT etc. Free trade great for commodities, but not people. They stack to their strengths, India must play to hers.
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i have no faith in any indian govt to negotiate well. i’m afraid india will get sold down the river, and would prefer we don’t sign anything than sign something that screws us. I would rather India invest in modernizing public transport, and make them green, and use world bank and foreign investment to fund these and reduce investment in highways. the more highways that are built, the more cars will get sold.
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we all have to clean up our act. but i reiterate, on our terms. The west is asking for cooperation, because they can’t coerce at this point.
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i foresee a future where sanctions will be imposed on developing countries for emissions in a disproportionate way. What does that have to do with slumdog? The runaway success of Slumdog is a reflection of this global inequity.
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we can’t all wear blinkers and say, just chill. relax. take it easy.
@dabba…i know abt that film, may b cz of my job. even been to its boring press confrnc where amritraj ppp includes his pics with big hollywood guys some million times.
anyway..if its about gratification cz of western acceptance, whats the scene with other countries ? their cinema n art? say the director n artists who made it to the international circuit (west) via cannes, berlin or any other…do u see the same pattern ? pick up any other filmmaker who is telling stories of his country, that has universal appeal…isnt it about a distinct voice n something original that the “others” hav not been exposed it ? for them also, does it boils down to “agenda” ? even for a romanian film ? or is it something else ? n if thats d case than why doesnt a breakthrough happen with other indian films as well ? m sure there r many that fits into that club.
n am for it, cz it means more visibility n more money. so whats the harm ? let them accept it, in anyway.
and what do u think about the reverse agende ? that also happening. spiderman speaking tamil,telugu n other languages. when our liability is the biggest asset, even some decimal percentage of this big market is big enough. it also boils down to commerce ? just that its cheap here. but do we take pride in it ? does that make us feel better that spiderman doesnt speak so many languages in any other country ?
or am i just blind n too optimistic ?
n as far as ray’s films r concerned, if we r not talking about his cinema, think he knew the right guys at the right time, the networking, much before he started rolling his first film. hav felt that strongly while reading his books on making of those films.
@ pnu –
there is absolutely an agenda. the romanian film is the most blatant example. Cannes films are about agenda just as much as the Oscars. romanian film is about repression during commie regime. as was lives of others. it’s the west’s way of gloating over the victory of capitalism over communism. i am yet to see a film that remembers the commie days of eastern europe fondly, and criticises the current havoc in a united europe where there are tensions about all these former east bloc countries accepted in to the EU.
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that is the price of economic prosperity as seen through acceptance into the EU.
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Like i said, some films which are cinematic achievements will slip in, because they can’t be denied.
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the very fact that the reader made it to the nominations is enough proof of the cultural agenda at work.
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what is considered universal appeal? a film that takes on consumerism in america will not see any awards. a film that takes about a dysfunctional family, working together will be given all kindsa crazy recognition.
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“n if thats d case than why doesnt a breakthrough happen with other indian films as well ? m sure there r many that fits into that club.
n am for it, cz it means more visibility n more money. so whats the harm ?”
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i can’t think of an indian film that has the production value and furthering this agenda. please give me a counter example of a film that negates my thesis about the success of slumdog.
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i have explained at great length what the harm is – Kyoto.
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“what do u think about the reverse agende ? that also happening. spiderman speaking tamil,telugu n other languages. when our liability is the biggest asset, even some decimal percentage of this big market is big enough. it also boils down to commerce ? just that its cheap here. but do we take pride in it ? does that make us feel better that spiderman doesnt speak so many languages in any other country ?”
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i don’t understand what u mean by reverse agenda. Spiderman gets dubbed into indian languages. When they make spiderman Indian or Chinese, or conduct focus groups in India for a Hollywood movie, then we’ll see. But that won’t happen, so I don’t see what the reverse agenda is.
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I don’t know what’s there to take pride in cheap labor. When labor is cheap, it means the value of said human is lower.
n cannes endorsed michael moore too, who ofcourse has the loudest left-wing voice against capitalism n the current scenario.
@papaji …surely you’re kidding ! Good american departments in Indology !!! American instituations, especially the pew foundation but not exclusively, has relied on slur and misinformation in their indology departments and actually actively pushed for such depictions, a simple google search will find you an ample number of the growing amount of scholoars who are protesting how their grants are cut and their thesis discarded if they portray India in a positive light. Read people like michael witzel and wendy doniger, both of a christian fundamentalist background and both proponents of outright racism in their output – and they’re hardly the only ones they are just the most prominent and celebrated “indologists”.
And what the hell incidently is “south asia” ? if you’re going to look at the region, historically, anthropologically, sociologically etc. it is all India – current political borders notwithstanding…the term “south asia” is an artifact of the attempt in pakistan to arabicise their historical roots in a fictional purging of their non islamic past. As such the term is covertly perjorative and strengthens the idea of differences between people where what is common is more profound and obvious.
There is no objective debate about the arabic/indian numeral thing as there isn’t for a thousand other such historical instances (besides if the arabs themselves call their numeric system “rukm-ul-hind” what “objective debate”is actually required ??). The fact of the matter is Indologists in america have too vociferously, for example fought against the shattering of the aryan invasion theory. The proof against it is actual forensic archeology (hard natural science as propounded by stephen oppenheimer and others) and the proof for it is linguisitics which frankly is an inexact “science” and would never be considered (and is not considered) as proof in any other instance and yet this persistent attempt to do so in this instance.
It is simply not culturally expedient to consider that the same population more or less has lived in India for over 4 millenia as their current descendants. The Aryan invasion theory was first propounded by eugenecists who were trying to propound white genetic supremacy but were faced by the fact that western europe until the renaissance was peopled by either barbarian tribes or pastorial communities at a time when major urban development had already occured in other cultures. Their response was to seek common genetic roots with the Indian civilisation through the creation of the fictitious aryan invasion theory. It served the dual purpose of giving themselves roots that were favourable to their theories and also to create the idea that India had always been conquered by outsiders and therefore their particular interference was justified (akin to declaring australia “terra nullis”). Never mind that the word “arya” is not a ethnic term but one that means noble as in the buddha’s four noble truths or “chatvari-arya- satyani”, never mind that numerous vedic texts refer to the dravids as arya (everyone in the current indian land mass including the north east and even burma for that matter is refered to as arya with the exception of the “munda” tribals in current day madhya pradesh).
Anyone openly condoning eugenics in this day and age would be considered crazy and racist no questions asked and yet there is not a single indology department in the united states that does not toe this line so please don’t just say things that have no basis in fact.
Chomsky has in his analysis of the raj pointed to an interesting incident. In 1844 a law was passed through the house of commons banning the import of indian naval technologies and building techniques because “it would kill the british ship building industry”. Does anybody at all, layperson or expert think of India as a source of superior naval technology to the west in the 19th century ? that fact has already been erased under the yoke of perception. the invention of the steam engine is often used as turning point for the start of the industrial age and yet this is quite arbitrary…for the first 80 years of it’s existance the steam engine was slower than horse drawn carriages (it was only the invention of superior valves that allowed it to be effective), why not the mechanised loom ? which was invented in orrisa, refined in southern china and then refined further in bengal. it started mass production and the first basic “assembly line” techniques, but it was not conveniently located in england. the point I’m trying to make is that grand narratives have existed for centuries and that a western grand narrative (based originally overtly and now subversively covertly in racism) has been propounded by the megaphones of a flawed paradigm.
There should be no shame in a culture seeking it’s own narrative, but the vast majority of educated indians have accepted the paradigm full of it’s errors and prejudices simple because they were institutionally indoctrinated into it. in fact they have not only accepted it, they defend it indignantly with whatever it takes, only pausing to take notice when a progressive white social scientist points out these flaws, the number of native social scientists who’ve been ridiculed and who’s careers have been destroyed doesn’t even bear commenting on because of the mixed negative emotions I get from simply thinking about it.
So narratives exist, they are not a chip on the native’s shoulder. Away from the high brow world of academicians, take a look at junior and middle school “world” history narratives in the western curriculum. in direct opposition once again to forensic archeology the narrative goes babylon/mesopotamia-egypt-greece-rome-dark ages-western europe. With the exception of Eypt all these civillizations are dwarfed by concurrent India-China-Persia (and that’s not even considering the thriving south american civillizations because I’m considering eurasia for a second). why then in the face of incontrovertible evidence suggested by hard science is that other narrative preferred ? because it is simply a secularised version of the the narrative of and the theaters of the old and new testaments leading into the history of western europe…in other words it is an empty biased narrative nothing else.
Yes there is soft power being imposed on the minds and perceptions of the world it should be discarded as axiomatic truth by atleast indians already as it will no doubt get discarded by humanity in general in a less divisive and more enlightened future
these agendas are not mutually exclusive. think of them as overlapping circles of a venn diagram. michael moore’s polemic is heard because that is also a part of the agenda.
To suggest that America (and other Western countries) have not produced movies examining all aspects of their societies, including subjects to do with poverty, oppression and social injustice is simply preposterous and tendentious. And it is on this preposterous tendentiousness that the entire paranoid conspiracy mongering, accusations of bigotry, ad hominem attacks and so on have rested.
Today, the Sundance film festival in America gave the Best Picture Award to a movie called ‘Push’, which is set in the ghettoes of New York, in which an African American school girl is raped and made pregnant by her father. It’s about poverty, sexual abuse and social injustice in modern America, but I don’t see any Americans complaining about the ‘izzat’ of their nation being offended by this movie. Yeah right, sure Americans don’t explore the dark side of their society. Mature societies deal with cultural explorations of their reality in all its facets with rationality and honesty. Slumdog Millionaire is a great movie, ultimately celebratory of the spirit that can privilige life in the most oppressive circumstances. Ultimately celebratory of India and the Indian soul in the 21st Century. It deserves every accolade and every success it is receiving.
Dabba,
I might be wrong in pointing out some screenplay bloopers that irritated me to no end watching this ‘one scene so good and the other scene so Balaji Telefilms movie’. However like you I feel that the overall repercussion and the ‘reasons of Slumdong’s success’ must be and I am sure will be analyzed by folks with better insight than me.
That given I would go one step ahead and point out one more thing about this ‘feel good’ movie that sets it apart from the glorious Bollywood ‘feel good ‘ movies of the 70s and 80s.
The muslim riot victim who narrowly escaped the clutches of a Hindu Street beggar gang becomes a successful call center chaaiwallah and he could have been shown to win the quiz by his hardwork and a little ‘chance’ – However he wins thanks only to his misfortune and pure chance in the last question and offcourse a lot of help from Director whose hands were very obviously visible. For a movie which revolves around an intelligent QnA for it to have bloopers like this is inadmissible. People praising this movie have been all too forthcoming in criticizing a fantasy film maker Director like Shankar who does his share of mixing social commentary with entertainment. He must feel vindicated after watching this movie and the praise it is eliciting. It might be one step forward for Indian artistes involved in the movie – however it is two steps backwards for movies and cinema in general. Would we like to win olympics by a technical fault? If at all we compare oscars to olympics.
dabba,
to add to Phoenixnu’s points…
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the west has ppl of all mentalities. you talked about their agenda in giving arundhati roy awards. well, arundhati roy is also very vocal against american-style consumerism. she’s a big time critic of the current corporate capitalism, nuclear proliferation and cultural imperialism. so are noam chomsky, naomi klein, howard zinn and countless other western scholars who are respected in their own fields. but at the same time, there are many people in the same western countries who are totally against these guys. so there is a lot of diversity in thought. you cant pinpoint a large omnipresent agenda in all of this.
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all the anti-war movies like dr strangelove, full metal jack, and the baap of all of them: apocalypse now got recognition at awards, amongst critics and audiences. they are all against american and western imperialism.
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the lives of others was incredible. it deserved all awards simply because of its cinematic greatness. and i dont think you can make a movie that exalts soviet-style communism because it was pretty bad and the effort will come off as dishonest.
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dabba, you said “a film that takes on consumerism in america will not see any awards.” as phoenixnu said, michael moore. also, fight club might not have won any cannes-type awards, but its very celebrated amongst all critics and audiences. i can’t think of a more successful criticism of capitalistic consumerism. the matrix was a commentary against western-style illusion of democracy where the few still wield all the power.
there are tons of documentaries which are predominantly left-winged, and by definition critical of consumerism/modern imperialism, that are celebrated at such film festivals. so if there is an agenda, it’s definitely not to gloat over the success of capitalism over communism or the superiority of west over the orientals.
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also, a story about a dysfunctional family will score more easily than any movie about the perils of consumerism because the former is always a more humanistic tale as opposed to a vague idea. besides, a lot of stories about dysfunctional families are based in suburban environments. any criticism of suburbia (american beauty, ghost world) is a direct attack on the american idea of progress, capitalism and utopia. therefore, the fact that these movies got recognition at awards also shows that the west is not impervious to it’s own criticism.
@ Jay Singh
thank you for comment #22. you said it better that i could.
@ jay singh –
u have conveniently conflated black american with american thereby avoiding the racial basis of any such agenda. was this a true story Push? Do you see an Indian director funded by American studios making Grisham’s A Time to Kill (not saying it’s a good movie or book. both are terrible) about racial bigotry?
@ papaji, and jay-
i picked a poor example with consumerism. i will concede this point to you guys, but not without adding that it is also a part of an agenda.
@ Avdhesh
dude, you are reading too much right-winged history. now that’s something that has gotten agenda marked all over it’s forehead. sure the west has at many points tried to write history from their pov but right now a lot of history taught in schools is more objective than ever. also, the aryan invasion theory is not the same as it was originally envisioned but major historians do maintain (and the linguistic evidence that you claim to deny is overwhelming) that there was a big migration around the time the indus valley civilization was already in decline. you have other arguments and it would be impossible to debate on those on this forum. but seriously, just for once imagine that the version of history that you claim to be true might also be distorted. there is a reason for the right-winged hindutva groups to claim that everything came from india. it gives them all the nationalistic pride that they can swallow. finally, south asia is the appropriate term to address the region right now. there are majore players in the region that are not indian and there is no bloody agenda there.
@ dabba
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@ comment 26: mira nair made mississippi masala. it showed a lot of racial bigotry in southern america. if shekhar kapur or shyam benegal would have made a movie like that, the result would have been the same. the movie was good. had it been better, it would have gotten all the awards you are talking about.
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@ comment 27: sure there’s an agenda. if someone makes an absolutely beautifully shot movie glorifying hitler, it won’t get famous. it won’t get any awards. and it shouldn’t. i mean, what’s the use of art if the ideas that come from it are repulsive? so yeah there’s an agenda to promote certain kinds of movies. but it’s not as pronounced or big in scope as u make it out to be.
@ papaji –
u don’t back up ur comments about indology depts. abt arabic vs indian numerals. then u take refuge in south asian which is absolutely a colonial construct. if we want to talk about the past, lets go backl to what it was called, they are indology depts. there is so much evidence to debunk aryan invasion theory, and once this has become clear, the theory thats floated is migration. there has always been migration of peoples around the world. no one is claiming that indian civilization was the pinnacle of human evolution. but this 2 race theory of aryans and dravidians is bull, and we’;re just calling that out. when u run out of an arguments to make, u immediately p[ulled out a hindutva card because it is clearly impossible to say that the achievements of indian civilzation are ours to take pride in, and we need to leverage that with where we are in the world today. i have no use for pride if it has no impact on our current existence. How conveniently you use phrases such as “your version”, “what you claim to be true” might also be true. I’m only pointing out facts and debunking jaundiced theories that have been widely discredited. Yet, most people, and shamefully most Indians are unaware of any of this.
@ 29 –
where were the white people in mississipi masala in ur racial bigotry of the south?
@ dabba
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as i’ve said the current aryan invasion theory is not what it was originally conceived as. and yes, you are right that the 2 race theory it originally supported is bs. because there were people of mixed races and ethnicity living throughout the history of india. but there is more evidence that at some point, when the indus vally civ. was in decline, a mass migration of people with roots in central asia happened and they were tribal in nature. they conquered large parts of india, and propogated vedic culture. okay maybe i shouldn’t have mentioned ‘hindutva history’ or anything like that. but a lot of effort that has been put in to debunking the current version of indian history is because certain section of our society can’t live with the fact that they could be descendants of immigrants as well. this kind of weakens their argument against muslim and western invaders. because they claim to be true indians.
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south asian is a colonial construct? okay if you say so. i dont know where the term came from, but i don’t have any objection to it. you can’t deny non-indian ppl living in the subcontinents their identity. of course, historically it was india but right now when you study sociology, anthropology, language, or politics in the region you have to include the whole south asian diaspora.
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what do i need to back up my comments abt indology dept for? i went to University of Virginia which has a pretty reputed ‘South Asian Studies’ department and they have white, and brown professors. as far as the arab vs indian numerals go, i don’t know the whole history, so i’ll look into it. but for now, my guess is that the west discovered those numerals from the arab world. but only now they have discovered that they originally came from india.
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just recently, there was a program on PBS, an american channel which showed 6 hours of ‘The Story of India’ from the african immigration to south india to 1947. it was glossed over, and avoided some controversial topics but overall was a pretty good summary of india. in fact, i thought in some cases the host was giving too much credit to india. but he was so in love with india, and was constanly marveling at the fact that india achieved so much when the west was stuck in the dark ages.
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and in mississippi masala, denzel washington’s character often implies how hard it is for a black man to live in the south. that’s definitely a take on the white-black relationship. but let’s say an indian director, like gowarikar makes a movie in hindi or english about racism in america. and let’s say its really good. why won’t the west embrace it? ang lee made brokeback and showed homphobia in american society. that was well received.
So obviously all these theories mean that I did not actually enjoy the movie because it was an enjoyable movie but because I have been institutionalized and brainwashed by the Americans, the Brits, the Europeans, the Indians, the Arabs the Liberals, the Conservatives, the economists, the archaeologists, the historians, and the mathematicians.
I knew my bubble would burst some day…but how!
@Bhune Murgh Pasande with Cheekoo Kulfi
LOL!!!
@the rest,
agendas??! too many generalisations on whose got what agenda. have heard this b4 from both sides actually. can we stick to accusing A or B to having an agenda rather than presuming the whole fucking alphabet collective to have one
Dabba,Avdesh..this is the most stimulating discussion I have come across on pfc so far….Papaji, please read ‘Diary of an Economic Hitman’…all your doubts about a socio-economic and cultural ‘agenda’ will be dispelled. The IMf and World Bank have basically been created to make sure the third world remains that way…disguised as altruism…fascinating reading indeed!
However, yes there are Americans like Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky etc (as well as a number of filmmakers)…who have always railed against imperialism and cultural conditioning..but they are in a very tiny minority..
Also the book ‘Occidentalism’ by Palestinian author Edward Said spells out this age-old cultural agenda, esp in education and the Arts, very well.
Uno bhai, i never said anything good about IMF and World Bank. Trust me, I know enough about those greedy bastards. I’ve studied about the “Washington Consensus” and the economic policies forced upon 3rd world countries to benefit the West. But that’s totally different from what I was talking about. And the fact that so many films (Battle for Seattle w/ Charlize Theron comes to mind immediately) criticize that shows that the voice of dissent is everywhere in the West. My point was that all this has got very little to do with Slumdog Millionaire. They are not trying to condition our brains with the movie, and neither is the West lapping it up because it shows India as the poor puppy the want to throw a biscuit at. They love it because it’s exotic to them. It different and rich in the Bollywood sense. And it’s technically awesome.
Boyle has really done a good job with this movie. While the movie deals with the gory details of the underbelly of Mumbai, it doesnt really leave you with a sick feeling. The story feels like a commentary and at the end you just feel good about the whole movie. Very well done I must say.
The music score by Rehman is amazing, the actors who played junior Jamal and Salim were the real stars. They were simply too good.
I thought Freida was overhyped. She had just 15 mins of screen presence.
IMO there ain’t any agenda here ,it’s just good ol ignorance and prejudice at work ,just as we Indians like to think that the Americans are materialistic sex maniacs ,people on the other side of the fence probably view us as Kali worshipping ,kamasutra reading poor downtrodden chaps….
Most of it has to do with the bewildering variety of cultures you find in India ….which most of the people in the west find incomprehensible and exotic.
And it is this lack of understanding that compels them to reduce us to a handful of symbols namely the Taj Mahal ,slums and lately the BPO.
@dabba…
first of all I for one dont understand why are we discussing nationalities at all…
I dint see SM coz its a film made abt India .. I dont expect any one from another country to understand India watching SM.. I personally dont care how the world perceives India. As you and Avdhesh pointed out we are actually a threat to them so that means that India as a country is developing irrespective of how the world perceives it .. and this will continue to happen even after SM .. so i dont know y is that an issue
I am living in the US for quite some time too and I dont giv a rats behind as to wat they think abt India or me.. wat I care abt is how Indians see India…
we might become the force that u guys say the numbers predict.. but the fact of the matter is .. right now we do have issues of poverty in india .. and all of them are open for anyone to make movies on .. since anurag kashyap can make a film abt the problems of the youth and show young ppl abusing drugs in paanch similarly danny boyle can show poverty in India ..
I believe that if an Indian makes a movie that shows India in a purely positive light and makes it well enough and gets the studio houses of the west to market the movie .. it will still be received well .. but unfortunately we have still not started making movies on a global scale ..
I think SM will disappoint a person only if u go wid pre conceived ideas abt the movie .. just see it like any other movie and i dont think u wil feel the bitterness .. it might not be the best movie that u will see but its also not the worst..
as far as the awards and the recognition go … i dont know y ppl expect oscar or gg movies to be great .. I dont .. over the years I have seen so many well deserving movies being turned down here that i dont care a lot abt these awards …
if someone is really goin to see SM because of the BUZZ being generated then I think the problem lies wid that persons way of perceiving cinema ..
so my point is .. dont see it because of the word it is generating .. dont see it because it is based in india .. go see it wid an open mind. I know there are issues wid the script that make the movie weak .. but danny boyle makes up for it wid the fast pace of the movie which is only possible because of commendable camera work and brilliant back ground score..
I have been thinking about CRASH a lot this weekend, driving around LA.
I wonder why?
^^ezactly
SDM is comparable to 2005’s CRASH hype wise and oscar buzz wise
and both movie deal with Cultural aspects
Uno the book by Edward Said is “Orienatalism” and is a great exploration of these ideas.Don’t bother correcting or responding to papaji, it’s quite obvious his responses are going to be cyclical, using his preconvieved notions to prove his preconcieved notions…a lot of reasonable and intelligent people spend their intellect on cleverly worded and indignant defences of their indoctrinations. No one can be taught anything or have things proved to them however articulate your presentation…it’ll be dismissed as right wing, left wing, preogressive, retrogressive or some such convenient construct…a person can only evolve their own assumptions when they are be shown to be falsified or they can continue to distort what is right in front of their noses to fall in line with the schism in their mind they have accepted as “real”…the last thing I’m interested in is useless ideological posturing….unfortunately conformity is an delusion that feels empowered more than most. At any given moment the largest mass is by definition in a state of evolution that will eventually be consigned to demise, unfortunately the longer the mass has accumulated the more mediocre capitulation to status quo feels emboldened
@Jay Singh the point made about mature societies accepting depictions of dysfunction is absolutely correct and I agree. Where I think your perspective does not apply to this debate is that there is no compensatory depiction of India in popular western culture and, by default due to soft power assymetry, global culture.
If this melodramatic brutality is the sole and only depiction of India through the megaphones of the west it becomes pertinant to ask exactly why that might be happening
m waiting for my name is khan ( n m not terrorist) now…indian director making d film with indian actors in US where d indian (muslim) character wants to meet d US president n it deals with racial discrimination n lot of other stuff. lets see who endorses this one.
I do not want to be part of highly intellectual debate going on here dealing with propaganda,racism etc.Being a common man who spends his hard earned money to watch films for entertainment,these questions always come to my mind
Why most of successful commercial films ranging from Abbas Mastan movies to Ghajini are copies of hollywood films?
Why MDs from Shankar Jaikishan,RD Burman to AR Rahman have many of their songs inspired from western musicians?
Why don’t we have writers like Agatha Christie,John Grisham,Michael Connelly whom common man can understand?Yes there are writers like Salman Rushdie,Arundhati Roy but how many read their books and understand?
Why almost all successful reality shows like Kaun Banega Karorpati copied from successful American or British series?
Why even talented filmmaker like Vishal Bharadwaj has to rely on Shakespeare for his movies?
The simple truth is that we lack original thinking.Since it is difficult for some guys to accept this bitter truth,they take refuge in so called pseudo patriotism where they hide their frustration by blaming everything on western propaganda
Dabba: Interesting points! In my opinion, the cultural agenda has always played a second fiddle to the economic agenda as a larger trend (specific instances of the former tirumphing over the latter might exist).
So what does the economic agenda have as evidence in their favor over the cultural agenda? Economic agenda dictates that Cisco sends it global #2 (and potential CEO) to India for a 5 year posting, it dictates that most companies brave the FDI regulations and red tape to be here on our terms, it ensures that 80% of Fortune 500 companies work with Indian providers for their tech requirements. You don’t have to fight the notion of we being an overcrowded nation of poor shit swimmers (your evocative imagery, not mine). The economic agenda will take care of it, if it hasn’t already.
The cultural agenda only provides the entertainment factor to the economic agenda without which all such pursuits would have been dry. We have been calling the shots at WTO or standing upto for our views on Kyoto Protocol precisely because the economic agenda is in our favor – with or without the squalor.
dabba, this column read like it was inspired as a response to your post. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Santosh_Desai_Slum_not_the_other_India/rssarticleshow/4030683.cms
What did you think of it?
No country is a island.Countries can’t develope without world trade,India is developing,because of it’s highly educated people,and other countries investing in it.India/china needs the west to buy it’s goods.
A friend of mine, who’s not Indian, but has the most nuanced and deep understanding of India, saw Slumdog yesterday and was deeply disturbed. He said for an Indian to praise Slumdog is akin to thanking someone for spitting in your face. Go chew on that.
@Dewi, same here, a friend watches few Indian films every year that I regularly recommend, and he had the same talk with me. He is fond of this article btw.
I think you guys are more worried about what your friends might think of you and india.The film shows a part of india which is real.Just like hollywood showing,drug gangs and trailer parks.The film making will be helping a lot of slum kids.Even if the help one it’s worth it.
oh ya? sorry I forgot to add…THE FILM SUCKS!
Being offended by the words slum dog is daft.Slums are there for everyone to see.Dogs? Whats wrong with dogs!They’re gods creatures.They go through rubbish looking for food.Whats wrong with that.They have no other way of getting food.Natural wildlife is’nt there for them to hunt.Calling someone a dog is offensive!What rubbish.
You know what – I think I might have finally figured out why there are so many Indians saying that this film is an accurate reflection of urban poverty in India.
That’s because most of these middle class and upper middle class Indians have not experienced first hand what the film purports to show. Their impressions of slum life is as much several times removed as that of Danny Boyle.
So of course any overly stylized gritty portrayal would seem authentic to them.
The class narrative surrounding this movie is also becoming very painfully apparent.
i think if this film were made by an indian and it still got all the awards and accolades, people wouldn’t have made such a fuss about it. of course, part of this article’s assertion is that this was not possible because a white man making this movie was essential to its success as part of some agenda. and i highly doubt that.
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the times of india article posted on comment 47 is pretty articulate and incisive. it does give credit where it’s due (all the stereotypes that make certain indian films more successful than others) but it also suggests, and rightly so, that our nervous reaction to this film’s success reflects our insecurities and prejudices.
It’s a shame that we even pretend to rejoice the nomination and accolades for the movie. What good does this do to slum dwellers? Had it not been a British movie directed by a white man, will it ever get noticed? Why did the owners of big media world (Oscars and SAG) notice Aamir? Aamir has more global connotations due to the terrorism and in fact it would have done some good to change a few people’s opinion on various perspectives about the issue? Why not Black Friday? Black Friday was a marvel, a jewel in the crown, the best movie ever made on faith based terrorism. Western world just loves to see poor countries pain and sorrow for their pseudo pleasure. If such movies can do something to bring a slightest changes in one person’ life I would be happy to clap but alas it makes me ashamed, embarrassed, not because I am hypocrite but simply because I do not like people looking at that aspect of my society which is there as a blatant truth but there are so many other things to talk about rather than a kid jumping into the shit to get an autograph. Totally disgusting and unwarranted for the movie. God, please give some sense to airheads like Mr. Boyle and sense to assholes like Anil Kapoor and other jokers doing bhangra on making country ashamed.
KP
Coming to stereotypes if u watch any hindi movie u can see portrayal of south Indians in bad light.They are portrayed as gorging on idlis and speaking with a funny accent but most of south Indians do not take it seriously and think as either ignorance of director or take it just as a film.SM is also just a film and we have to appreciate a filmmaker who made a film with freshers and is now on verge of winning oscars as well as making millions.Do u think any Indian film maker will ever think of a film like this?They are only capable of Ghajini and CC2C.
@K
Black Friday and Aamir are great films and they got their recognition from Indian critics as well as masses.Coming to SM it is true that being helmed by Boyle definitely helped it to reach on verge of Oscars.As far as awards and box office success is concerned even most experienced directors can’t predict it.To some extend it depends on luck.There are many films which didn’t get any oscars but are considered classics.Black Friday and Aamir also belong to that category
The makers of the film,have already started to do work to help the kids.Which is more than most indians do!lets face it.A country with majority of hindu’s,vegans.All gods creatures!.Except dogs it seems.
COMPLETELY agree with your post, dabba, glad someone had the pluck to say it, in midst of all the misguided public euphoria over SDM almost guaranteed to sweep the Oscars…
more later
To moviefan
you had said “i think people who don’t live in western countries/ or adapt their cultures mostly consider “firangies” as eveil people”
I have been living in a Western country for 11 years. I am going back to India next month. Individual western ppl aren’t “evil” in the sense that they are nice to their family and friends. But the West and their culture and system of capitalism is alienating, destructive, evil and responsible for most of the problems of the world. They became rich and stay rich by exploiting and keeping other countries in poverty, while believing in their own superiority over others just because they have the wealth and power