On Slumdog Millionaire
I saw Slumdog Millionaire only yesterday. The hype generated by the media had already become too much to bear. Add the west-knows-we-exist hype post-Oscars, and watching the movie had become crucial, even if only for not looking like a fool in front of India’s polished minority of “mimic men” (those who mimic the Euro-American west in all seriousness).
Once I saw the movie, I was amazed at the level of intellectual (pardon my using the word for fools) colonization of the Indian elite celebrating India’s ‘arrival’ on the world stage – even if this has happened only after – and perhaps partly because – the movie made the Indian poor successfully wade through human excreta to instant money!
Slumdog is not about poverty. The India-shining English media says it is a real depiction of Indian poverty – but in their celebration for this “realistic” description, they forget that no Indian poverty finds any place in their TV channels and newspaper columns. Surprisingly, rather than feeling ashamed of themselves, they are singing praises of Danny Boyle.
Slumdog is more about neo-colonial cultural power than about poverty. Priyadarshan’s Billu is about poverty. It looks at ways in which we can see the poor without attacking their dignity. It shows how material poverty is not the same as moral degradation.
Slumdog, however, is a voyeuristic engagement with poverty. The poor are not just to be seen, observed and monitored, but also to be imagined in unbelievably brutal conditions: they wade through shit, they have their eyes gouged out, they rape their brother’s girlfriend, they are openly and needlessly laughed at not only by the anchor of a TV show but also by the Indian audience in the show.
They have short-term American rescuers, however. The scene where a “true” American – and therefore upright – couple rescue the Indian boy being beaten by an Indian brute – the “real” Indians, as the boy tells the American couple – would give Lord Clive some moral pangs.
As any art is in fact political, this scene can also be used to explain to the western mind why American imperialist presence is required in many parts of the third world to restore order. And it tells us why the “civilized” British colonialists were required in India for 200 years to keep the brutal natives from killing each other. It is another matter that they financed much of their industrial revolution through this civilizing mission. Boyle also has returneed much richer, it seems.
It does not matter here that the “true” American rescuers of the Indian slumdog in distress belong to the country that has killed – and not just slapped – millions of innocent children from the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to its bombings of Baghdad. The Indian upper-middle class, it seems, is too stupid to put the movie’s message in perspective or deconstruct it critically.
But the Indian media tell us that we have “arrived”; that the words slumdog and ‘Jay ho’ are the latest entrants in popular English. The arrival – they are too ignorant to know – is not on the global stage but on the American stage. The very notion that Oscars – an ethnocentric attempt to rate art across the world from one location, with no idea of relativism – are universal betrays intellectual colonization as well as foolishness.
The movie is entirely a western product, but constructs a “real” India – with paternalistic western sympathies thrown here and there – so as to exercise a cultural power over India: the miserable, corrupt Other.
One would advise that the columnists defending the movie – and bowing to its “global” power – read Edward Said’s Orientalism to see the movie as a project of cultural hegemony, even if not very consciously so. Power after all, is so internalized that it operates without being easily identified.
Said’s critics said that he saw colonial power as a one-way project without looking at counter-hegemonic processes, but the Indian media today – one can say in defence of Said – has shown a near-complete absence of any counter-hegemony, and even the ability to construct it.
The movie’s hype in India – not Bharat, if I may add – reminds me of a poem by Faiz Ahmad Faiz where he likens those who submit to imperialism as dogs and rues that there is none to awaken their self-respect. Will post it, and see how it makes sense here.
Once I saw the movie, I was amazed at the level of intellectual (pardon my using the word for fools) colonization of the Indian elite celebrating India’s ‘arrival’ on the world stage – even if this has happened only after – and perhaps partly because – the movie made the Indian poor successfully wade through human excreta to instant money!
Slumdog is not about poverty. The India-shining English media says it is a real depiction of Indian poverty – but in their celebration for this “realistic” description, they forget that no Indian poverty finds any place in their TV channels and newspaper columns. Surprisingly, rather than feeling ashamed of themselves, they are singing praises of Danny Boyle.
Slumdog is more about neo-colonial cultural power than about poverty. Priyadarshan’s Billu is about poverty. It looks at ways in which we can see the poor without attacking their dignity. It shows how material poverty is not the same as moral degradation.
Slumdog, however, is a voyeuristic engagement with poverty. The poor are not just to be seen, observed and monitored, but also to be imagined in unbelievably brutal conditions: they wade through shit, they have their eyes gouged out, they rape their brother’s girlfriend, they are openly and needlessly laughed at not only by the anchor of a TV show but also by the Indian audience in the show.
They have short-term American rescuers, however. The scene where a “true” American – and therefore upright – couple rescue the Indian boy being beaten by an Indian brute – the “real” Indians, as the boy tells the American couple – would give Lord Clive some moral pangs.
As any art is in fact political, this scene can also be used to explain to the western mind why American imperialist presence is required in many parts of the third world to restore order. And it tells us why the “civilized” British colonialists were required in India for 200 years to keep the brutal natives from killing each other. It is another matter that they financed much of their industrial revolution through this civilizing mission. Boyle also has returneed much richer, it seems.
It does not matter here that the “true” American rescuers of the Indian slumdog in distress belong to the country that has killed – and not just slapped – millions of innocent children from the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to its bombings of Baghdad. The Indian upper-middle class, it seems, is too stupid to put the movie’s message in perspective or deconstruct it critically.
But the Indian media tell us that we have “arrived”; that the words slumdog and ‘Jay ho’ are the latest entrants in popular English. The arrival – they are too ignorant to know – is not on the global stage but on the American stage. The very notion that Oscars – an ethnocentric attempt to rate art across the world from one location, with no idea of relativism – are universal betrays intellectual colonization as well as foolishness.
The movie is entirely a western product, but constructs a “real” India – with paternalistic western sympathies thrown here and there – so as to exercise a cultural power over India: the miserable, corrupt Other.
One would advise that the columnists defending the movie – and bowing to its “global” power – read Edward Said’s Orientalism to see the movie as a project of cultural hegemony, even if not very consciously so. Power after all, is so internalized that it operates without being easily identified.
Said’s critics said that he saw colonial power as a one-way project without looking at counter-hegemonic processes, but the Indian media today – one can say in defence of Said – has shown a near-complete absence of any counter-hegemony, and even the ability to construct it.
The movie’s hype in India – not Bharat, if I may add – reminds me of a poem by Faiz Ahmad Faiz where he likens those who submit to imperialism as dogs and rues that there is none to awaken their self-respect. Will post it, and see how it makes sense here.
posted by vikaspathak at 6:00 AM
3 Comments:
my God, thank you. THANK YOU! I couldn't find the exact words to express truly what this movie means ie a symbol of western hegemony. The poverty doesn't take away from India's glorious cultural heritage and depth. Infact, it is the Western imperialists who drove India into poverty. It is the West's sanitized opulence that is truly vile and disgusting, They got rich by pillaging and looting the world. The West's most powerful ambassador America, use their institutions such as World Bank and the military to massacre, exploit and keep other countries in poverty, while their corporations hoard the wealth. Within American daily life and society; America as a society is just essentially malls and multinational corporations. There is no emotional, spiritual or cultural richness or depth. Family, as an instituion is completely broken down (60% of their marriages end in divorce). Keep up the good work Vikas. I for one hope India will rise out of this hegemony and poverty and show its true glory. also, check out my blog (arvik.blogspot.com). I also have a review of slumdog. not as good as yours, but give it a try.
Excellent article.
West has once again proved, Edward Said was right about the naked aggression of their culture hegemony. I am starting to hate oscars.
My obligation is against A.R. Rahman. Being a national icon of India he participated in the cultural hegemony of west. He has to answer to the East on day.
I agree with each and every sentence of your article.
hi vikas,
is it possible to get your email address. mine is arvind.kaushik13@gmail.com.
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