One of my homework is to watch slumdog and tell the prof what I think of it.


Overall I enjoy the movie, it was in line with Disney movies (although it is not a Disney movie). I found a similarity in the aftereffect between Slumdog and Little Manhattan, albeit their completely opposite storyline. I must agree with you that this is a 'feel-good' movie.

What bothers me the most was the stereotyping, or should I clarify, the western stereotyping of Indian culture.

It was clearly a western movie depiction of India. It was not of the Indian Movies that were made by Indian. You can feel that strongly at first from the dialogues. Didn't it bother you that the actors were speaking in British English? Several good friends of mine are scholars from India, yet their English are not perfect. There will always be excuses, but I humbly assume that it is highly implausible for uneducated boys to suddenly grow up speaking perfect English.

The second part is a little bit subtle, which I suppose might escaped my classmates' observations.

I found the situation in slums in India and Indonesia to be quite similar. I have in fact had done several researches on my own about children living in slums in Jakarta. It surprised me that Mumbai and Jakarta are alike. My very first encounter to child abuse and labour was in my secondary school. I shan't bore you with my personal stories. It had since become my passion.

I have interviewed a few child labours in Jakarta and funnily enough, the condition was very similar to the portrayal in Slumdog. But the difference is that in Slumdog, the characters are very one dimensional. The bad and the good. I believe you remember the character 'Maman', the slum boss. Such character does exist in the reality. One independent Indonesian director once documented such event where these slum bosses amputated men and children merely for profit making. My professor in Singapore had done a documentary of such evidence in Vietnam as well. But I can't shake the impression that Danny Boyle created 'Maman' for the sake of creating a villain. I feel his character was inferior. In reality, such character's existence affects the children lives much more than an inferior terror, some project traumas. As an audience, I believe it would be more plausible if 'Maman' has more live into it.

And the last but not least, is the stereotyping. It is perhaps linkable to what we study in class regarding globalization and alienation. Slumdog has the quality of a western movie that 'pity' the existence of poverty and set the bar of education. I believe education is the priority of the more privileged people. Before education, our ancestors believe in destiny and our Gods and Goddesses. It is still the practice in most of the underprivileged people in my country. However, Globalization brought us Western culture and education which slowly shake our definition of the ultimate truth. For some, it eradicated the concept of destiny and give human the power to take control of their own lives. It was what caught my attention in Slumdog. Jamal said, "If Rama and Allah don't exist, we would still have our mother." Obviously, he is neither a very religious man nor still carrying the tradition to segragate between the concept of monotheism and polytheism. He was saying it in such an ease, as if he was saying, "I don't care what God we have, I'd rather have my mother than to have Them."

Another stereotype that I found in the movie was the stereotype of Moeslems. It has been a long tradition to alienate the Moeslems that it seems like an unwritten conspiracy. There wasn't a shed of good light to the Moeslems in the movie - to use euphemism. Honestly, if I was an ignorant passive audience, I would start to build my block of alienation myself.

I researched on Jonas Bendiksen and I found a good article about his work. This paragraph caught my attention:

But although his images show a different perspective on life in the slums to the one many expect, the photographer is keen not to sugar-coat the experience. "If you only focus on the misery, you're not going to cope," he says. "People live in incredibly tough circumstances. There's no sanitation. To get water, you need to buy it from the water sellers.

I believe his work is more real than Slumdog Millionaire.

But again, as you said, Slumdog is a Hollywood movie. ...