RSS Feed for This PostCurrent Article

Slumdog Redux

By dcmediagirl on February 23, 2009 at 11:24 AM in Current Affairs

Last week I wrote a blog post comparing and contrasting the egregious Octomom with the charming protagonist of the much-beloved “Slumdog Millionaire”. Somehow the comments led the conversation into a deep and high patch of weeds.

Now that the hullabaloo has died down, why not stir it up again?

I want to clarify a couple of points:

I wrote that the term “walla” is a derogatory one, much like calling a black man “boy”. Someone posted a denial, saying that “walla” is not like calling someone a “n****r” . Well, I agree. I never suggested it was. What I wrote was that it’s a derogatory and demeaning term IN THE CONTEXT OF THE REGION. To call someone a “server” here is not considered insulting – when have you ever heard anyone speaking unkindly about a “barrista”? But in South Asia, where caste and social standing are all-important and your lot in life pretty much determined at birth, being referred to as a “walla” is most certainly an insult. And by the way, whoever it was who commented that discrimination against the servant/working class is a Western construct (implying that servants and working class people are somehow treated with respect in South Asia) is smoking crack.

Another commenter insisted on steering readers to a photo essay about the slum depicted in “Slumdog”, trying to advance the tired and dangerous cliche that there is some inherent nobility in poverty, that the slums have a vibrant entrepreneurial class and that slumdwellers don’t need no stinkin’ help from the West. Interesting. Considering the feeding frenzy that’s broken out over who is entitled to the money paid to the children in “Slumdog Millionaire” and whether or not those children were paid a living wage, and how the parents of the children burned through the money given to them by the filmmakers, it seems that slumdwellers aren’t self-contained to the point where they’ll turn down filthy Western lucre. How shocking that the Indian poor want money! This person was also quite adamant that I read the captions. Well, I did read the captions. The one that sticks with me was that there is one toilet for every 1,400 or so people. Now, maybe the poster thinks that there is something exciting and vibrant about that many people living in unsanitary conditions. Never mind that waterbourne diseases are exceptionally dangerous and rampant in developing nations.

As to the point about the “entrepreneurial” spirit of the slumdwellers, perhaps it’s worthwhile pointing out what that means. I happen to think that people deserve better than to make a living sorting through garbage to find a few discarded items to sell for pennies. But I guess that POV is symptomatic of my arrogant, elitist Western frame of mind.

So instead of steering you to a photo essay, I refer you to the following quote:

Slum life is a cage. It robs you of confidence in the face of the rich and the advantaged. It steals your pride, deadens your ambition, limits your imagination and psychologically cripples you whenever you step outside the comfort zone of your own neighborhood. Most people in the slums never achieve a fairy-tale ending.

  • CMartin

    Ah, the joys of poverty. So great an experience…for everyone else!

    Nevermind that nearly 30,000 *children* die each day from malnutrition and generally preventable illnesses associated with poverty.

  • Peggy Sue

    Nothing like restirring a hornet’s nest, DC girl!

    I missed the first round on this. Can’t say I’m sorry if there were posters extolling the nobility of poverty [said only by those not squatting in it]. And, of course, you’re right. “Slumdogs” is a fairytale, and I think that’s why people enjoyed it. We love fairytales. The danger is when we take a romantic fantasy and call it truth. This sort of “magical thinking” has wider implications, a lot of which we’re seeing in freefall right now.

    I’m sure Octomom was working through a fantasy of sorts: how all those babies were going to love her forever, make her special and unique, so special she’d be celebrated, wined and dined by Oprah and the like.

    Sad and deluded.

    BTW, I read the essay attached to your last quote. Very effective. No fairytale either.

    • Ellen D

      Yes, it occurred to me that “Slumdog” was a fairytale when I considered what would in reality happen to this guy if he suddenly came into a lot of money. After all, the movie started with him winning a lot of it and being tortured by the cops. Notice I said “tortured” not just interrogated. So what would happen to him if he actually asked for the money he won? I would hope he would do so from outside India. And with bodyguards. But who would protect him from the bodyguards?
      The comment about what happened to the kids’ money has reinforced this. It’s dog eat dog (literally) in those slums. Definitely not a fantasy.
      I would have been happier if it had been a straight love story without the money. There’s usually no happy ending to these kinds of stories in real life.

      • http://www.dcmediagirl.com DCMediagirl

        The game show is the MacGuffin. He goes on the show so Latika can see him, not to win the money. As a matter of fact Jamal makes it abundantly clear in the movie he doesn’t care about the money. And of course it’s a fantasy. It was never meant to be a documentary.

  • Docelder

    I reading that final quote, it occurs to me that we all have our cages. For those in slums, it is often poverty. For some in middle America it maybe complacency, for the rich in America, it may be the deification of material wealth, for the poor it may be the beliefs that all the worlds wealth is already taken. These are all false beliefs… from the deification of material things to the slums and the beliefs that slums are cages. Most of us do have our cages, though they are self imposed cages. There is no more nobility in poverty than there is wretchedness in riches. The belief in either of these, is just another kind of a cage.

    • ces

      I can’t remember the title of the book just now, but there was a photo essay type book that highlighted the very poor and the very rich. Neither, at least in this book, were very happy.

      The poor, of course, living as one might expect, in a tiny one room flat with a couple kids. Thinking that if they only had money, things would be so much better and they’d be happy.

      The rich, the example I remember was an elder widower in a very nice spacious house/flat, was so lonely and desperate for contact. She also thought, if only she had something else to make her happy.

      At least that’s what I remember from it. It makes you think, just a bit.

      And perhaps relatedly, there was an article in the Atlantic magazine (which I dropped the subscription to after this past primary season) that talked about how the poor spend more of their money, up to 25% more, than more middle class people did. It wasn’t to show off that they had money, it was to avoid people thinking they were poor. The paradox of spending money to look like you have money is lost upon many people, rich and poor alike.

      My line is “you can’t spend your way to a higher economic class”.

  • dcmediagirl

    It’s worth mentioning, as I have before, that although the PC crowd pushes for a “hands off” approach to poverty and other abuses to human dignity in developing countries, that Danny Boyle should be commended for filming in the actual slums of Mumbai and using local children in his film. I love Bollywood films, but the fact is that they avoid showing poverty and slums at all costs. So if rich and famous Indians (or self-riteous white people) take umbrage at a movie depicting the India not discussed in stories about call centers and that country’s booming economy, well, that’s just tough.

  • Peggy Sue

    I think you’re right about Danny Boyle. He should be given some credit in hiring local kids. I’ve read there have been complaints they weren’t paid enough though Boyle paid 3x the going rate and apparently setup a trust fund for the kids’ education. Sometimes you just can’t win for losing.

    But I also wondered looking at those photos last night, the children dressed to the nines at the award ceremonies, how they’re getting their heads around this sudden shift of fortune and what’s in store for them? Right now they’re in the spotlight, on the red carpet. What happens when that all goes away?

    Fame is a fickle suitor, even for grownups. I hope it goes well for them.

    • ces

      Maccully Culkin comes to mind.

  • mary

    Danny Boyle, Director of Slumdog, should be ASHAMED of himself. Last night he didn’t give a single thanks to his FEMALE CO-DIRECTOR LOVELEEN TANDEN – Without her the film could not have been made!…

    • Neil

      Obviously, this oversight means he’s a woman-hating piece of dirt.

  • LolluDog

    I am originally from India, but I am now a US citizen and I have lived in the US for 34 years. I am from Chennai which is in South India. Though ‘walla’ is not term often used in the south, I know that it is not a term that denotes respect. We used to call those puling manual rickshaw carts ‘rickshaw-walla.’ However, it is not as mean as calling someone from the so-called low caste by their caste name. This is quite common even in south India.

    Switching topics, some upper-class Indians are mad at the “Slumdog Millionaire” because of the way the slums are depicted in the movie. I myself thought that the slum depiction was a little too much. Some of the comments are so true. Availability of clean drinking water for all people is a scarcity and sanitary conditions are almost non-existent.

    But, I don’t believe that even in the slums, someone will dive into a pool of human waste even if you paid them to do it. On the other hand, an entire class of workers who clean the excrement do have to undignified work sometimes. The Indian middle class is growing bigger every day and some of them don’t know what to do with their money. A lot of the middle-class people love to copy everything bad from the West, but don’t want to follow any of the good things like respecting all types of workers, standing in a line in an orderly way, not paying or expecting bribes for their work etc. I believe that corruption is the root of all evil. Unfortunately, I have come to realize that it is playing major role even in our US politics now.

    • http://www.dcmediagirl.com DCMediagirl

      Thank you for clarifying the use of “walla”. I appreciate your writing in. And your comment about standing in line cracks me up. It’s not the first time I’ve heard or read a comment from an Indian or Pakistani expressing wonder at how cooperative people are in certain countries when forced to wait in line.

      • noname

        I had comment on this word before. This word basically groups in a particular way, used in a colloquial setting, this word is masculine. Your friends in another permanent group, a nearby colony etc be grouped through this construct also.

        To give you an example of different use, a musical on xxx-wallas taking their music procession, I listened this song in a marriage party, the song flows nicely.

  • Tess

    Oscar rant: “Slumdog” – we don’t do a lot of movies – okay, we do hardly any – BUT: I saw this photo in one of the newspapers, of the cast and blahblah accepting the Oscar. I haven’t seen this many guys in a photo-op since someone showed the “folks” (read guys) who were looking over some kind of $$ bill or the Japanese who were doing whatever about the whatever. Sorry to be verbose here, but is “Slumdog” a guyflic? Shouldn’t I have been warned?

    • http://www.dcmediagirl.com DCMediagirl

      Your post is incomprehensible. The cast and crew of the film JUST WON THE OSCAR. They were thrilled. Who can blame them for bumrushing the stage? Hell, I would if my name was called to accept that award. And guyflick? Uh, no. See the movie.

  • noname

    your lot in life pretty much determined at birth, being referred to as a “walla” is most certainly an insult.

    If you can do it right, then it mayn’t be insult. It is more usable with a functional attribute, and therefore sometimes as part of functional group….So if there is backlash against wall street, you could say “wall-street-walla” screwed this up. However that use is demeaning when compared to uses of “Mr President”. Here president is not a functional class, but a whole aspiration. You could also eulogize wallahs if one chooses to, as you do to a functioning group.

    South Asia, where caste and social standing are all-important and your lot in life pretty much determined at birth, being referred to as a “walla” is most certainly an insult. And by the way

    Sometimes people would check your university degree when applying for a job. Professional degrees also help. So if you have a degree from Harvard, then I am sure someone out there who could sell your ghost …the presence as a harvard associate:)

    We have our own stories of rags to riches, sometimes they are boring, we still cheer them:)

    trying to advance the tired and dangerous cliche that there is some inherent nobility in poverty

    In reality, I have never heard (yet) anybody justifying nobility of poverty in a slum. The nobility in poverty argument is more espoused by the critiques and in literature ( VS Naipaul? and probably others ), some to criticize the socialist era inaction.
    Most or all understand problems with slums and unauthorized constructions. The bigger and older the city, the slum and encroachment problem grows more acute. Like many, I wish somebody would have done something to it.

    [I haven't watched slumdog, no immediate plans to watch it]