Slam Dunk Slum Dog ???

[pedro skychaser]

Article The Slumdog debate: is it poverty porn or honest, cathartic art?


A penniless, eighteen-year old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, is one question away from winning 20 million rupees on India's 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?'.



Chitra Divakaruni
February 6, 2009


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Success spawns uproar. Great success spawns great uproar. This certainly has been the case with Slumdog Millionaire. It may or may not win the Oscar for best picture but it's already carried away the prize as the most hotly debated film of the season.
I'm going to set aside the question of its cinematic merits (which are numerous) and focus on the charge popping up on a number of blogs: that the movie is "poverty porn". This accusation boils down to three issues, all of which have misconstrued the nature of art.
These critics are angered that hordes of Pepsi-sipping, popcorn-munching, affluent Western audiences are entertained by a spectacle of India's poor struggling for survival in the slums of Mumbai. They're also upset that director Danny Boyle, a white guy, is being lauded for a film about India that just doesn't get it right, that's filled with cliches and exaggeration and people who are downright bad. And they say it reinforces centuries-old stereotypes about India - dirt, poverty, chicanery and worse (think Macaulay, think Kipling) - and doesn't show the modern India with its economic successes and reverse brain-drain, India shining.
To answer the first criticism, the film is entertaining almost as many affluent people in India as in the West - if by affluent we mean people whose economic status is significantly better than that of the slum dwellers. And for many of them, the Dharavi slum in Mumbai is a foreign, unseen country. Literally for some, because they live in neighbourhoods that, only miles away from an urban slum, are worlds apart; metaphorically for others, because painful, persistent realities tend to become invisible to us. As for being fascinated by the misadventures of characters who are beleaguered and feeling better about our lives by contrast, isn't that part of the timeless pull of art? Isn't that why Aristotle praises tragedy for its cathartic value?
As to the objection that only Indians (preferably, only Indians living in India) can truly understand the complexities of their country and show an authentic India, that, too, arises from a misunderstanding of the nature of art. Orientalist writers who have objectified and denigrated India to promote an agenda of Western superiority have fostered this mindset.
But the world is different now. It has moved past colonialism (even post-colonialism, I dare say) into globalism. It is a world in which we can know more about each other and hear each other's uncensored voices. Thus, it is now far more possible for artists, regardless of their race, to create a valid representation of a culture, if they have done their homework and are passionate about portraying the truth as they see it. It will not be the whole truth, particularly in a roiling, complicated and contradictory culture such as India's.

But art aims to portray a slice of life honestly and memorably. And if, through what we read or view, we have understood one life better - even our own - the artist deserves our admiration and thanks.
Those who claim Slumdog is filled with exaggerations and cliches need to remember it is fiction. Accusing Slumdog of exaggerations and caricatures is similar to accusing Van Gogh of distorting his sunflowers. In Slumdog, Boyle is following the convention of the picaresque, a genre that depicts with energetic abandon the many misadventures of a hero, usually of low social class, who ultimately triumphs over a corrupt society by using his wits.
But are the details exaggerated in the film? Ask the volunteers of Pratham, who have worked in the Dharavi slum since 1994, spreading literacy through their modest, single-room balwadis (slum schools), and they will tell you of children forced to work 12-hour factory shifts for a payment of two daily meals; children beaten by parents, employers and the police; and, yes, children orphaned, kidnapped or mutilated. And then they will tell you of the amazing rescues they've performed, of children now educated, placed in safe homes, vocationally trained or entering college.
One of the aims of art is to hold up a mirror to society in the hope that uproar will lead to change. Charles Dickens did this successfully; David Copperfield led to child-labour reform in Victorian England. Sarat Chandra Chatterjee's early 20th-century novels, such as Palli Samaj, inspired a movement in Bengal that improved the condition of widows.
Perhaps Slumdog will be the catalyst for a similar transformation, one that will make India shine for more of its people. It is certainly possible. Perhaps, even, it is written. But that depends on what we, the viewers and the world, choose to do next.
Chitra Divakaruni is the author, most recently, of The Palace Of Illusions. She serves on the board of Pratham. This is an edited version of a column that first appeared in the Los Angeles Times.


POVERTY PORN OR CINEMA MAGIC????

WHAT DO YOU THINK ???

[gitsy]

Movie magic.

First and foremost it's a film not a documentary. Although I visited India just a few weeks ago and recognised a lot of what was in the film in terms of poverty.
I would thoroughly recommend the film to anyone which when stripped back to it's bear bones is a love story.

[pedro skychaser]

which part of india did you go ???

(btw---slumdog is much more grounded in reality than all the bollywood films i've had to endure________________)

[Yescelt]

I haven't seen the movie, but I have been to India many times - mainly to Chennai and Bangalore, and although those cities have affluent areas, the descriptions of "dirt" and "poverty" are far from just being stereotypes - this is the reality in those cities.

Movie magic.

First and foremost it's a film not a documentary. Although I visited India just a few weeks ago and recognised a lot of what was in the film in terms of poverty.
I would thoroughly recommend the film to anyone which when stripped back to it's bear bones is a love story.

[pedro skychaser]

IT'A XMAS MIRACLE----OR MAYBE A DIWALI ONE_________THE KIDS ARE GUNNA MAKE IT ONTO THE RED CARPET....HOLLYWOOD WILL HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH BEAUTIFUL BROWN EYES____________






Flight to fancy as Slumdog stars go to the Oscars


Rubina Ali Qureshi, 9 as she leaves for the airport to travel to Los Angeles.
Photo: AP



February 21, 2009 - 3:39PM


The child stars of Slumdog Millionaire will take their first airplane trips when they attend the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Monday (Australian time).
Director Danny Boyle's rags-to-riches story set and shot in the slums of Mumbai has been nominated for 10 Oscar awards, including best picture and best director.
"The kids are on their way to the Oscars. Everyone is very excited," Boyle said in a email on Friday.
All nine actors who play the three main characters in three stages of their lives will attend the Oscars, Fox Searchlight Pictures said. They include actors comfortable on the red carpet, like 18-year-old Dev Patel, who lives in London, and the glamorous Freida Pinto, 24, who has been praised in Vogue as a new style icon.
But also attending will be Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, and Rubina Ali, nine, who were plucked from their homes in a Mumbai slum by Boyle and his team. The trip will be their first on an airplane and their first out of the country, relatives said.
It was a scramble to get visas, passports and tickets for Azharuddin and Rubina, whose parents did not decide until the last minute that they wanted the kids to attend the ceremony, producer Christian Colson said by email.
"I'm very happy that I'm going to the Oscars," Rubina said in her home on Friday, hours before she was to leave for the United States. "My friends are saying, 'your fate is so good'."
"I'm not scared," said the girl, who will be travelling with her uncle. "I'm going to go and take a lot of pictures and show them to people over here."
She plans to pick up her Oscar outfit once she's in Los Angeles.
Rubina's uncle, Mohidden Khan, 40, laughed when he was asked what he would wear on the red carpet.
"I'm thinking maybe jeans and a T-shirt," he said.
Azharuddin's father, Mohammed Ismail, said he felt "very, very good" that his son could make the trip. Azharuddin will be travelling with his mother.
AP

[Mike Watkins]

It's the best film I've seen this year.

[pedro skychaser]

LIVIN' THE DREAM_______________________

Australians who live on slumdog millionaires' row - and love it

• Matt Wade In New Delhi
• February 28, 2009

Consumer detox ... in their bedroom-sized home. Photo: Brendan Esposito

MARK and Cathy Delaney don't need to see the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire. The Brisbane couple experience slum life in India every day.
For 13 years they have lived in the shanty towns of the Indian capital, New Delhi, raising their children and sharing their lives with the locals. Their two sons, Tom, 12, and Oscar, 7, were born in India and have lived most of their lives in slums.
The family home, in a neighbourhood called Janta Mazdoor Colony, is about the size of a typical Australian bedroom. They have no running water, no TV, no fridge and no washing machine. Two mattresses, used to sleep on at night, double as a "lounge" during the day. Meals are eaten sitting on the floor and they share with neighbours a squat toilet in a small bathroom.
But the Delaneys are not complaining. For them, living in a slum has been deeply enriching.
"It baffles us that more people in Australia who say they are sick of their lives don't do something like we have," says Cathy Delaney, who holds a masters' degree in pure mathematics.
"The longer we have stayed here the more we can see the positive effect it has had on us as people. I feel much freer of money and possessions - these things don't define my life."
Mark Delaney, a 42-year old lawyer, says more than a decade in Delhi's squatter settlements has been a "radical detox" from consumer society.
"For the first couple of years I thought, 'We'll do this for a while and then we'll go back to Australia, get a deposit and build a house', and so on, but I've let go of all that now," he said.
Mark works part-time for a Delhi-based medical organisation but the family's main focus is on their slum. They are strongly motivated by their Christian faith, believing that life is more about caring for others than comfort and success.
"Our main purpose is simply to experience what life is like here, to live with and learn from the poor and contribute something positive to people's lives," says Mark.
The Delaneys moved into their current neighbourhood on the eastern outskirts of Delhi in 2003. About 60,000 people are packed into the illegal settlement which is less than half a square kilometre. It is one of an estimated 1500 squatter settlements scattered across Delhi that house at least 3 million people.
The settlement started 30 years ago as a cluster of makeshift humpies in an open field but as time went by, people gradually upgraded. Flimsy walls were replaced with bricks, slab roofs were added in place of black plastic. Even so, open drains still run along the slum's maze of narrow alley ways and empty into a putrid canal not far from the Delaneys' front door.
Properties are bought and sold in the slum and there are even informal titles exchanged to prove ownership. Although these documents would not hold up in court they give those purchasing a slum hut a sense of security. A three-level slum house in the area recently changed hands for 190,000 rupees (about $6000).
The Delaneys pay 1800 rupees ($56) a month in rent, although many small rooms in the slum are half that. Each day the family witnesses some of the vulnerability and powerlessness of the characters portrayed in the film.
Witnessing this has nurtured a strong sense of social justice in the boys.
"I have realised that the most important thing is to help other people," says Tom.
"But I have also realised that I have limits."
There is hot debate in the household about how simply they should live.
"Cathy is a bit harder line than me," says Mark
"Sometimes she says 'let's move down a bit' but I'm usually a bit resistant. Most people think we are pretty stupid already."