Octo vs. Slumdog
By dcmediagirl on February 20, 2009 at 8:45 AM in Current Affairs
It never ends with Octomom:
The octuplet family will have a place to reside if they lose their home. A California-based nonprofit called “Angels in Waiting” offered Suleman round-the-clock care and a place to stay with her 14 children. It would cost about $135,000 a month to provide the 12 caretakers necessary for the children, money that would have to come from public donations, founder Linda West Conforti said in Los Angeles.
Oh yes, you read that right. $135,000 a month, which the organization hopes will come out of our pockets.
This after the revelation that the family is in arrears on their mortgage to the tune of $23,224. Yet there seems to be money available for acrylic nails, repeated IVF treatments and multiple plastic surgeries.
And now we have Octograndpa, who until now has maintained a Gabor-like silence, telling Oprah that he questions his daughter’s sanity but that the grandchildren are “a gift from God”. Sorry, no. Octomom was infertile. The children are a gift from the IVF clinic.
Are there any actual adults in that house in Whittier?
At this point it’s not worth going over the details of this repellent story. It’s hard to tell which family member is telling the truth about anything. Their Rashomon-like , contradictory accounts boggle the mind.
So why inject the much beloved Slumdog Millionaire into this morass of lies, greed and cynicism?
There’s a simple reason this movie is likely to sweep the Oscars this weekend: Word of mouth. Simply put, people LOVE this film (myself included). If this film were a person it would have been hugged to death some time ago.
But what’s really striking, beyond the wonderful story, the brilliant editing, the gorgeous cinematography and the fantastic score is the appealing, childlike innocence of the lead character, Jamal, a Muslim orphan who overcomes his bleak, Dickensian childhood and despite the unimaginable hardships he suffers pulls himself up by his bootstraps, gets job at a call center, puts up with the indignity of being called a “chai walla” on television (”walla” being a term equivalent of calling a black man “boy”) and, in the end, triumphs. He could have stayed on the street. He could have pursued a life of crime like his brother. But by virtue of, well, virtue and hard work, Jamal succeeds. Hell, that an illiterate boy from the street could get a job serving tea at a call center is reason enough to celebrate, the “Millionaire” plotline notwithstanding.
So on the one hand, you have a poor teenager who overcomes adversity the honest way while hanging on to his self-respect. That’s the movie version of life. On the other, you have a profligate, selfish woman, born into the middle class but now dependent on handouts to support a family she deliberately chose to keep adding to despite her lack of resources.
There’s something very, very wrong with this picture.
But there’s nothing wrong with “Slumdog Millionaire”. Best of luck to this wonderful film at the Academy Awards…and if you haven’t seen it yet, please see go. Now. Stop reading my Octomom rantings, log off your computer and GO NOW. You’ll be glad you did.
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By Sarah Palin (Release date: November 17. 2009)
RE: Octomom
Seems the “Clown Car” joke is due about now; but, the Site Monitors have found it politically incorrect in the past.
Ocotomom has such an aggravated case of Dingbat that I expect to see her pulling a handle on a slot machine at Primm, NV, any day now, after parking all 14 offspring at casino daycare.
In the beginning the media ran with this story as if it were some “miraculous” happening before knowing all the facts. A single woman, already the mother of 6 kids under the age of 7, living in a 3 bedroom home with her divorced parents, deciding to add to the burgeoning brood by having 8 more. Senseless and irresponsible. No job, no insurance, no prospects.
Sorry, but the state needs to step in here and make some decisions to the fate of these 8 babies who will need round the clock care for years to come. This “mother” is in no position to raise 14 kids. What she did was deliberate and I am sure she had more in mind then her “love of babies” when she arrived at this stupid decision.
Plastic surgery and lip enhancement in advance of this “miracle” was the first step on her road to celebrity. That money spent on her foolishness would have been better put to use for those children already here. Eight more lives are at risk by remaining with this woman. She is not a “mother” but an opportunist who expects us to carry her burden.
Here is a story about the Duggers, the people with 18 children. Guess what?? They are debt-free. And live frugally. If they buy a big ticket item, they do it at auction or buy very used. Here is the link to the story.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/20/duggar.parents.qanda/index.html
DC girl - You missed the story where Octomom wants to buy a million dollar house, $1.24M to be exact. Apparently her media interviews have paid off….
http://www.tmz.com/2009/02/19/octomom-house-million-dollar/
She’s not actually buying the house. The house is being rented for a sit-down interview with Dr. Phil.
About this statement..
That is incorrect. A “walla” or wallah, is a seller or bearer of whatever. So a chai walla would be a tea seller. It is not a derogative term, it is a job description. In a household with a large staff, the chai walla would be the person in charge of seeing that tea was available and served when it was asked for. Only in a society such as ours where service jobs are looked down on as demeaning would being called a walla be derogatory. In India and the Asian countries where the term is in use, it is simply a job description.
Sorry, but what you write is not entirely correct according to my South Asian husband and my Egyptian friend. The word, which loosely translates to “servant” in Hindi and Urdu, originally comes from Arabic. It is indeed considered a derogatory and demeaning word in societies that have strict class stratifications, which is why the host of WWTBAM keeps referring to Jamal by that title.
And if you’re suggesting that only in our society are service jobs looked down on, I suggest you ask a Dalit or a maid or a servant or a streetsweeper in that part of the world whether or not they’re treated with respect.
Having lived in that part of the world for some years, I am well aware of the caste system and the way in which the lower castes are treated. However, the fact remains that the word walla is a description of a job, whether or not it is used in a derogatory fashion. It is not a word like “nigger” which is definitely a derogatory form of the word negro. And when I was living in that part of the world, it was made clear to me by my parents that good manners were for everyone, all the time, no matter who they were or what they did for a living. If more parents taught their children that instead of indulging their sense of alleged superiority.
Yep. One of my husband’s colleagues’ last name was Mashruwala and Wallah is equivalent to “Smith” here. Chaiwallah just means the bearer/seller of Chai. The derogatory sense is not in the name but comes from the level of activity within the social strata.
Oh really, the last TMZ posted, she was an interested buyer. She is probably hoping to buy it with the money Dr. Phil is giving her for the interview. haha
Staying with the subject of slavery, which is the word of the day for me, or so it seems, it also seems, that there are so many people, recipients and charity organization CEOs, that pretend, just like many government employees and heads of lending institutions, that those outside should voluntarily knee and bow before them, pay them homage and engage in servitude towards them and their ‘pet’ projects.
I don’t give to anything but the local SPCA animal shelter. Animals have no control over their lives and so deserve all the help they can get. They are alot nicer than most people and the shelters don’t have high admin costs like alot of so called charities who spend a great deal of their contributions on unneeded admin costs. I don’t give them a dime. I donate any clothes I don’t want to Goodwill but nothing else.
I am SICK AND TIRED of people who take advantage of good hearted people by basically playing scams and getting all they can for doing nothing. My goodwill for people like that ran out awhile back.
The extent of my charity will be good advice even though it will go in one ear and out the other. Sometimes the best thing to do for someone is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I know. We here in this household donate quite heavily to missionary organizations that cater to orphan children in other countries, such as Brazil, Haiti, Indonesia and in Africa. And to rbc ministries. I am not a fan of Goodwill, but I visit once in a while as a customer and to Vietnam Veterans thrift shops. Yes, I am known to buy pressure washers and space heaters that later I have to throw away because they were worthless to begin with. Oh well, that too are donations.
And I LOVED Slumdog Millionaire! I hope it wins best film. It was so good.
American Girl in Italy
Yes. Slumdog is great. But I am very saddened by the fact that the FEMALE CO-DIRECTOR of SLUMDOG just isn’t getting any real credit for her immense casting and knowledge of Hindi culture that enriched the movie and, in fact, created its very essence. Without Ms. LOVELEEN TANDAN, the movie would not have been made by talented director (of that godawful trash “Trainspotting”) Danny Boyle!
How come the female co-director is getting a kick in the posterior and Danny boy willl get all the credit? Go over to Women’s Media Centre site…it’s awful what the jerk has done to Lovely Loveleen Tanden!! And the woman is either too decent (as they say) or just too timid to speak up and claim her rightful co-directorship dues….And the damn Academy will IGNORE WOMEN DIRECTORS…I don’t want Slumdog’s Director to win a single prize!!!!!!
SHAME ON SLUMDOG
lol, Rashomon is a perfect analogy for these clowns. The kids ought to be taken away, and Octomom can get what Slumdog did for all I care.
Thank you very much for the details of Slumdog Millionaire. I had never even heard of this movie until last night. O’Reilly predicts it to win an Oscar and says it’s really good. I would have never went to see it based on the title, it just didn’t sound too interesting to me. Kind of like Steel Magnolias from 20 years ago. A friend told me to watch it and I loved it.
I rarely go to movies but this one sounds worth it.
On crazy baby machine, someone needs to put her in a straight jacket and give her kids to some homes where they will have a chance. Her parents sounds as nuts as she is.
Wodjei
Yes! Give the Crazy Octomom a straight jacket and put the poor kids in a foster home now before she ruins them–=and her poor (stupid) mother….Stuff like this makes me devoutly wish for state intervention and sterilization of crazies…I suspect she was sexually abused as a young girl by her stepfather.
I’ve looked at the Vanity picks of last August of Miley (Hanna)Cyrus and Billy Ray (”father”!) and I almost threw up at the obvious mainstreaming of incest. I’m willing to bet this crazie octomomie is like Miley…Miley’s eyes in the arms of her ‘father’ Billy Ray are glass-like…sickening…
Since we are talking about Slumdog Millionaire, I will link this photo essay from FP site.. The slum dwellers in Mumbai are not looking for handouts from either govt or rich people. They have made something of themselves by working hard with the resources they can get their hands on..
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4660
(Read the caption for each picture)
I have a philosophical opposition to all the westerners going into India and making it into a poverty tourism kind of thing (which is why I am resisting seeing the movie). It is even worse when they have plotlines where the westerners save the day for these poor people (which this movie appears not to be).
In general when you come from that part of the world, you realize you don’t need all the material wealth you enjoy here to be happy. So they have no use for our pity. Life goes on.
Of course slum dwellers are looking for handouts, not only in India but around the world. Please refer to this article:
http://www.mail.com/Article.aspx?articlepath=APNews%5cGeneral-Entertainment%5c20090217%5cAS-MOV-India-Slumdog-Kids.xml&cat=entertainment&subcat=&pageid=1
Did you read the photo essay? It talks about the slums (Dharavi) in Mumbai that movie is based on. The essay captures the spirit of entrepreneurship (with the resources they have) and independence in these people which to me is more significant than a generalization that slum dwellers are looking for handouts (of course they are or would be (even the CEO want handouts these days), but absent that they have made something of themselves — that is the point).
The resilience of the slumdwellers is admirable (Danny Boyle has said this many times in interviews), but only goes so far in a society where the caste system and skin shade are determining factors in how far you ascend the ladder. I’m willing to bet that if given the chance to stay in their current situation or just be given a chance to leave the slums behind and get a better life, they’d choose the latter. That being said I’m glad that the inhabitants of those wretched neighborhoods are getting some much-needed attention (which isn’t coming from Bollywood BTW). I just don’t believe in fetishizing or sugarcoating poverty and illiteracy.
We need truckloads of sugar to sugarcoat that level of poverty and that was not my point. Wretched neighborhoods is a relative term and is in the eyes of the beholder. The underlying human spirit and how the life is pursued do not have to depend on material wealth.
So the westerners (as usual saving the day) have brought attention to them with this movie, what will it do? As I said they have no use for pity.
In fact, there was a movement to move these people in Dharavi to apartments built by a developer who wanted their land (which perhaps in your view would probably be better quality of life) but they have resisted that because for their entrepreneurial activities, they need horizontal space and being crammed in vertical apartments won’t help to earn their livelihood. They are well organized and they have a means of work and employment now which they have built on their own and they don’t want to give that up.
If you are equating generalized notions of poverty and slums to what I am talking about, then we are not talking to each other.
It’s not the West’s job to fix this problem. That’s the Indian government’s responsibility, which is a point that was brought up by some of the Indian actors during the Slumdog junkets. And if you’re equating human trafficking, parents selling their children off to be able to eat, hoodlums who kidnap and maim kids to pimp them out as beggars, grinding poverty and a lifetime of discrimination based on caste with “vitality”, well, I have nothing left to say. Again, I don’t believe in fetishizing suffering and poverty by using soaring terms about the human spirit. My husband was born and grew up in that part of the world and can tell you stories about the 8 and 9 year old girls sold to work in brothels and other horror stories that point to one conclusion: people will do whatever they have to do to survive. But let’s not characterize that as some sort of testimonial to the magical nobility of poverty.
This misdirection is uncalled for (and lacks debate value) and in some sense quite cruel.
I am not talking about the generalities. Read the photo essay, read about what is going on with Dharavi and perhaps you will then understand my point.
(Repeating)The westerners out to save the day for those poor people, again! (the comment is sarcastic).
Excellent story and analysis. That woman is truly a piece of work.
I haven’t seen the movie, but looking forward to it!
On a certain level is this woman’s story any less pathetic than the ones about the people who try to put one of their kidneys on ebay? In some way this woman just is reflecting negative attributes from our society that she did not invent. The saddest part of this is she could not have done this without enablers. The fertility doctor, plastic surgeons, the back injury doctor, her personal injury lawyer, her parents who no doubt meant well, the media, and our morbid curiosities. There is enough blame to go around. I hope the well being of the children doesn’t get lost in the fray.
Why hasn’t Obama rushed in to save the madonna OctoMom with a myriad of government bail-outs? Or was his being the messiah just another example of media hype and lies?
I think the two delusional narcissists would get along famously!
ADOPTION
I have friends in Southern Cal, they waited to have kids until they could afford it, then tried to concieve to no avail. So they tried to adopt.
These people are solidly self-supporting middle class. The adoption world is filled with impossible hoops to jump through and scam artists at every turn. In fact, those who successfully adopt accept they have to pay off scam artists to get a kid.
These two people couldn’t adopt. So they tried to conceive again.
Our tax dollars should be diverted from welfare to support adoption. Octomom should be encouraged (not forced) to give up some of those kids to a couple who can afford to take care of them.
No way would she volunteer for the sake of the children…they are her (sacred) cash cows. Or, at least she hopes…
I believe they should be adopted with the twins kept together in the same family. Possibly…it could be an “open” adoption so that Octomom could have some contact. Well, on second thought…maybe not. She is loonytoons, after all.
OCTOMOM should be FORCED to give up her kids. It’s the humane thing to do–for the kids. Not her.
The ethically and morally bankrupt money-grubbing physician who performed her IVF should be criminally prosecuted for malpractice, endangerment, and whatever else they can conjure up. When loony toons show up and ask for treatments and procedures that are not in their best interest or even medically advisable, it is up to the physician to exercise his or her ethical judgment. And shame on the staff who did not report this unscrupulous charlatan.
Absolutely, Joe!
And the charlatans should be put in jail–next to Octomom.