Slumdog Millionaire Film Response

Jessica Ruiz-Jones 10-13-2013

The creators of Slumdog Millionaire did an exceptional job in presenting Indian culture in a geographical area of unrest through the story of two boys who grew up with the same upbringing. Jamal has a tendency to do what's right while his brother Samil struggles with an urge to navigate toward power and money. Through their experiences, the viewer gets to familiarize with two different points of view when it comes to the reactions to the culture in the Indian slums.

As a mother, watching the first quarter of the movie was saddening. We are fortunate to live in a country where children are able to receive a free and humane classroom setting to begin their education when they are best able to understand and incorporate new concepts. When Jamal and Salim were in class, their teacher was openly physically abusive. If a teacher in our country were caught behaving in this manner, they would make national news. Here, it seemed commonplace and expected.

This depiction was accurate. In fact, the classroom portrayal in Slumdog Millionaire was quite humane compared to actual accounts that have been made in this country. In 2009, a six-year-old student was caught sleeping in class. The teacher moved him carefully, so as not to wake him, into a closet. The door was locked, and the child awoke in a dark room. The school was closed for the day, and the young boy sat all night without food or water, surely a punishment he will never forget.

India favors corporal punishment in the school system, and there are hundreds of accounts that are difficult to fathom. From beatings with rulers and being forced to stand for extended periods of time to, in some cases, death, there is little done on the governmental level to reverse this kind of treatment toward young children in Indian schools. While they claim to be instilling obedience, they are only inducing physical and emotional trauma that negatively impacts the children for the rest of their lives (India's Schools).

From the very first scene of the movie, the viewer is quickly made to realize that young Salim was motivated by money. He was a boy living in the slums of India, and it is not difficult to understand the luster and excitement a life with money and power could offer their imagination. When he sold Jamal's signed picture of an Indian actor, it showed that his culture had caused him to put materialistic qualities above emotional ones. However, we do see him on a number of occasions displaying the values his mother taught him. First, he does not sell-out his brother when he was to be blinded. He also prayed before going out on a shooting spree, and he heroically released Latika from her life of enslavement.

In our culture, becoming an orphan is a tragic situation. If my own children were to lose their parents at such a young age as Jamal and Samil, I don't think they would be prepared to take the measures that these kids did by jumping on trains and stealing money. I was surprised at how quickly they were able to overcome the death of their mother and move on to survival tactics.

As horrible as this seems and as much as viewers want to think maybe it's an exaggeration for dramatic purposes, the fact is that there are thousands of orphaned children living in the streets of India remains. In fact, 300,000 orphaned children can be found sleeping in the streets of Mumbai alone. These children have no education and are forced to set up camps. Just as portrayed in the movie when Jamal welcomed newly orphaned Latika, they tend to navigate toward one another and rely on each other for survival (India's Orphans).

In other situations, such as that which Salim and Jamal briefly experienced, adults seduce these orphaned children to work for them in exchange for the security of a place to stay and warm meals. This is another true fact that the movie producers did a great job portraying. It is quite common for young, orphaned children living on the streets of India, or, in this case, in the landfill, to be approached by greedy adults with child slave labor in mind. In Latika's case, she was going to be used for sex. As the man said, “don't mess with my prize.” She was a beautiful virgin, and he knew he'd get a lot of money. Furthermore, the child that could sing was blinded and forced to sing for money just as Jamal's fate would had been. In real life, whether they are lost, orphaned, or sent out by their desperate parents, millions of children are forced into various forms of slavery. Sadly, they normally learn to rely on this lifestyle in exchange for security just as Latika did (Child).

I found one of the statements Jamal made of particular interest. When being asked the question regarding what the idol held in it's hand, he was taken back to the day his mother was murdered in front of him. He said, “Had it not been for Allah, I would still have a mother.” His family was targeted for being Muslim. It made me consider the religious freedom we have here in the United States. People aren't often murdered for their beliefs, but in India it's commonplace, and even women and children were picked off in the movie. Although Jamal was born into a Muslim family, he denounced his god and it's involvement with the premature death of his mother. I wonder how many Muslims only claim to be such because they feel pressured but do not actually agree with their proclaimed belief system.

I found it particularly interesting how the different classes of people in the movie reacted toward celebrity status. At the very beginning of the movie, hundreds of lower-class individuals crowd around to greet an Indian celebrity. Furthermore, nearly everyone in the call center as well as Latika, while she was enslaved, gathered around the television to watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. They saw this as a glimmer of hope, and I think they found it fascinating that a young man from the slums could possibly win that much money. It gave them a sense of hope. However, we saw how the rich man who Latika worked for came in and told them to turn the show off, opting instead for videos of sleazy dancing. I think the producers did a good job at portraying the large difference in the mindset between the rich and poor.

Watching this film has given me a new appreciation for the country I was blessed enough to be born in. The living conditions in Mumbai are present at birth, so most of these people have no idea of what they are missing out on, and I can imagine they would be very confused if they were to be suddenly placed in a culture such as ours. The producers did a fascinating job with tying this story together through the use of an array of memories that transitioned the scenes while providing the viewer graphic insight as to the common living conditions faced in that area of the world, all the while developing a plot that keeps the viewers captivated.

Works Cited

“India's Schools of Abuse” Anindita Sengupta. 8 February 2009. www.theguardian.com

India's Orphans. Fantastic777.http://www.youtube.com/watchv=uIbsQzvysTc.

Child Slave Labor Increasing in India. Mission Network News. 26 May 2009 http://mnnonline.org/article/12711