Slumdogginess

The backdrop: Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars a few hours ago. Danny Boyle and Rahman were among the winners. The media has gone crazy over this win. And I found enough time to write a blog on this.
I felt very nice that Rahman has won an Oscar for his work. I loved a couple of the songs in the movie. I think they played a big role in taking the movie to the top tier. Rahman’s scores have always been good, and this may or may not have been his masterpiece. Personally, I am hoping that his masterpiece is yet to come. Warner Brothers producing the movie increased the visibility for the movie in the country, and pushed it into being taken into consideration for the Oscars. The movie is a story of a young boy from the slums who goes on to become a millionaire. It’s the very bare bones, in-your-face version of hundreds of other rags to riches stories.
Rewind to a few weeks back, and the media made a huge frenzy about how the movie didn’t paint a proper picture. Apparently, the use of “slum dog” was wrong, and many people were “upset” with the term being used to describe them. Never mind the countless number of abuses hurled at them in Indian movies, I have an objection with this particular film being taken so seriously. It almost became a barometer for what India is, and how we live in India. I did not know what made the people in this pool slum dog; the movie, or their opinion that a movie adapted from a novel is an “Incredible India” type of message to the world. I refuse to consider a movie to be anything but a story-telling venture, rooted in appreciation for the story with an eye on the box office. Therefore, any movie however offensive, unless it makes blatant personal references to an individual or community, should be allowed to play. It is after all a story being told, and if you can allow movies like Black Friday portray the events of the past, you should let a movie talk about the slums in Mumbai. Interestingly, no one has objected to the way in which the people in the slums are portrayed. The objections stop at the term “slum dog”. My question is - wouldn’t you call the people in the slums using a similar term after watching movie, even if it weren’t titled so? Clearly, there isn’t much logic in the criticism directed at the movie. I am not a great fan of the movie because I didn’t think the story was very original, and the ending was too predictable.
The same set of people who erupted against the slum dog terminology also praises the movie for being the first Indian movie to win the Oscars. Hold on a minute here. When did the movie ever become an Indian movie? More than half of the top crew is British or American. It was shot in India, but the movie was made by an American company and directed by a Brit. And frankly, if it is an Indian movie, why were we blaming a couple of guys outside of India for all the wrong things? Shouldn’t the ‘culprits’ be within India if the movie is truly Indian? It is fascinating that no one actually asks these questions to the media who ratchet it up to sound as if the movie tells the world about India. This is the second time in the past few months that I have actually felt disgusted with the Indian media. This, of course, pales in comparison to the media’s handling of the Mumbai blasts, which I talked about in an earlier post.
How can the media portray a movie as ‘abusive’ and ‘disrespectful’ to Indians, and then go nuts about it when it wins the Oscars? The thing is that neither was it abusive to Indians, nor was it ever an Indian movie. I would love to see an Indian movie at the Oscars, plainly because I want to see the whole nation go even more emotional when they see Shah Rukh or Aamir holding the lady. Until then, I will be happy to see our movies and enjoy them. After all, an Oscar doesn’t make the movie any more entertaining. If anything, it certifies the movie as less entertaining, almost all the time.
Simply put, a foreign movie about a truly unrealistic story based in the slums is lapped up by the Indian media first as an abuse to the country, and then portrayed as an Indian winner at the Oscars. After this incident, I am tempted to think that the real movie begins once the Indian media takes over any issue.