I originally wrote an article called as Why I dont wanna watch Slumdog Millionaire? which used a famous movie name as a base to attract readers to a more grave issue in India. The issue of pseudo-secularism, nationalism and fundamentalism in India. And what most people did not understand was that, that article was more than a movie. It was about a grave issue that dictates Indian future and hence possibly the future of the world.
But considering... people were so sentimentally attached to this movie I would like to bring up some points about the movie which suck!
1. An American friend who saw the movie got the impression that - "Ohh Muslims in India are oppressed". Reinstating the point in the first article - The idea of oppression of Muslims in India is a myth. For a person, who has never visited India, never seen its social fabric, if he sees this movie - his/her idea about India will be defined by this perception. This is always the case. Western media defined Stalin as a mass killer, Soviet Union as a dark society, showed the mujhadeen in Rambo as a liberating force (the same mujhadeen then brought 9/11 to American shores), etc. Perceptions kill reality!! I have many Russian friends living in US and Israel and when I talk to them - they repent the idea of leaving Russia in 1991 when the Soviet broke up. They loved the Soviet Union.
2. The story was written by an Indian author "over exaggerating" the poverty in India. Had this movie been made by an Indian director / producer - it would not have come up so much!. Without the any major superstar in the movie, had it been made by an Indian director / producer, it would have passed off as a small budget not so glorious, small time movie.
3. Amitabh Bacchan very nicely pointed out - slums are present in most big cities the world over. What they showed in Mumbai was too critical of Mumbai. I hear news reports like - the part of India we never knew. This is over critical of India.
- http://bigb.bigadda.com/2009/01/13/day-265/
- http://bigb.bigadda.com/2009/01/21/day-271-2/
Why is foreign = good, for most Indians?
The perception that foreign / western = good was inculcated by the British during their imperial years in India. They not only subdued the Indian psyche by degrading the local religion (Max Muller's pathetic translations of Sanskrit texts) but also at an emotional and spiritual level. Modern ideas that the Vedas came from north a.k.a. outside India, equating gau-daan(cow donation) to cow killing(something that's banned by Hinduism), equating Chanakya's strategym as a derivate of Machiavelli, degrading the Hindu worship of the shiv-linga to phallas worship, etc. were created by Muller and company. Moreover the ugly partition, creation of Pakistan, the idea of an oppressed Muslim... all are handy work of the British. And Slumdog Millionaire is just another knot on the same thread.
I do not say its a nice movie - all I am saying is that:
1. It's over hyped
2. People are stupidly endorsing it way too much
3. The same thing if made by an Indian, would not have been endorsed by Indians
4. Music is okayyyy... Rahman frankly doesnt deserve an Oscar for SM music!
5. Reinstating Salman Rushdie's point that the story line is flawed as it over simplifies the possibilities and probabilites of real life.
6. ...
Much more to say... though out of time to blog!
2 comments:
Ritvij,
I agree with you in some areas - I would not rate the music, for instance,to be Rahman's best work.
However, the Academy - as far as I know - recognises brilliance in English language movies. So leave the Oscar bit aside.
I also agree that the movie might have not got the same kind of reception if it were made by an Indian filmmaker.
But in any case, I just have one issue with your posts on this topic:
We all are free to have our opinions. Just that we should not believe that our opinions are the absolute, ultimate truth.
It is good to have strong opinions. But it is equally necessary to be open to validating them when necessary.
And to be open to the possibility that our opinions - which we strongly believe in - may be incorrect, biased or influenced.
Think about it.
You have thoughts but no thinking!! Every idea / thought / notion about anything is influenced by perception. And perception defined by collective thought which is more absolute that your brain calculates. And every collective thought is "CONDITIONED" through propaganda. By studying history and finding the source of the thought, one can actually identify WHERE THE THOUGHT COMES FROM!! I know this sounds philosophically rubbish! But my friend, we can apply it to everyday life... with fantastic results.
About opinions, its very nice to have opinions, ideas, perceptions, etc... but it does not break 2 absolute realties:
1. The reality that our minds are conditioned to think this way -- this reality breaks your perception of secularism, foreign=good, etc, etc.
2. The reality that our minds are conditioned to think this way -- this reality negates my investigation that secularism, foreign=good, etc, etc are just conditioned.
So you are right!!! But then... at the same time you are missing the underlying point of paragraph 2.
I completely understand what you / and everyone else was trying to say @ both the slumdog posts... but then if educated people like you and me do not accept our collective "conditioned" thoughts... we leave the collective us, exposed to the sharp reality of the other side - a reality which will sooner or later break your and my perception of secularism, foreign=good, etc through the reality of RISING FUNDAMENTALISM.
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