Why Does Hollywood Keep Making 'Slumdog' Films?
As an Indian, I am tired of the poverty porn always present in Hollywood depictions of my homeland.
It is the 22nd of February 2009, the night of the 81st annual Academy Awards ceremony, and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail is wearing a black tuxedo and the kind of toothy grin only a ten year old can pull off. He stands with the rest of the Slumdog Millionaire cast, the handful of brown faces in a sea of white that floods the red carpet tonight.
Both Ismail and his young co-actor Rubina Ali were residents of Garib Nagar slum in Mumbai, where director Danny Boyle was scouting out child actors for his film Slumdog Millionaire. The two children were hand-picked out of the estimated 104 million people that reside in Mumbai’s slums, and seemingly transplanted to the world of the red carpets. The press reported that Ismail’s trip to the Academy Awards is his first time travelling outside of India, outside of Mumbai, outside of the slum where Boyle ‘discovered’ this young talent. But here he is now, teeth as white as any starlets’, and isn’t he adorable? Isn’t he charming? Isn’t this just the kind of inspiring story that we love to read? Young Indian slum boy, persevering against all odds to make it big, the kind of odds that seems like one in a million. One in 104 million, to be precise. It sounds almost like the story of Slumdog Millionaire itself.
In Slumdog Millionaire, Dev Patel plays an Indian boy who grew up in a slum and ends up winning a game show. Some critics called the film the ‘feel-good film of the decade’, and I suppose that is a fitting description. Although ig depicts extreme poverty, forced prostitution, and torture, it is exactly the kind of film that makes American viewers feel good about our own lives. It gives us the perfect opportunity to watch terrible things happen to people of colour in countries like India– people who are compelling enough that we pity them, but also far enough from us that we know this story could never become our own reality.
Films like this are often called ‘poverty porn’, and Boyle’s project is a perfect example. It is a depiction of the extreme plight of brown people, produced almost exclusively by rich white Westerners. It doesn’t matter, and has never mattered, if movies like Slumdog Millionaire are realistic depictions of India or not. The point has always been to show American viewers the kind of story that will leave them feeling just uncomfortable enough to make a one-off small donation to some big-name charity, so that they can walk away feeling even better about themselves.
The film has grossed over $377 million in profits. Meanwhile, Ismail’s parents accused Boyle of underpaying the child actor. Boyle claimed that trust funds had been set up for the children who resided in slums, but it is unclear what amount of money these funds held. Although Ismail and his co-actor Ali do not currently live in the slum, it is also unclear from my research what the current status of their financial stability is. Their names haven’t shown up in the headlines for a while now.
Slumdog Millionaire went on to win eight Academy Awards that night in 2009, the highest number given to any one film that year. Out of the seven award recipients, only one was an Indian. Six white men made a movie about Indian slum children, and six white men went home with gold that night. Neither Ismail, nor any of the ensemble cast were even nominated for an award. And this highlights the truly exploitative nature of this whole production. Although the film was an undeniable success both in the awards season and in its profits, did any Indians actually benefit from this depiction of India? Or was Boyle’s goal only to highlight the plight of Indians living in poverty, without offering any help or assistance from his lofty golden throne?
Movies like this one are a part of a dangerous pattern in Hollywood. Filmmakers and producers keep making exploitative and stereotypical films about poverty in India; inspirational, and yet dishonest films about a single hero who manages to pull himself out of the slum despite all the odds that are against him. Award shows keep piling accolades onto these films, thus cementing the high position of this genre in the film industry. Every single one of these films is a perfect example of cliched poverty porn, and yet the Academy chooses to honour these films above other, more nuanced depictions of India.
This tells average American viewers that the slumdog genre is one of ‘good art’, which even outside of the exploitative nature of these films, is completely untrue. The slumdog film is defined by its cliches: panning shots of ‘gritty’ slums, young children with ‘hearts of gold’ covered in artificial dirt, a completely synthetic climax that pulls a single hero out of this grime to the relieved sighs of the audience, all set to an uplifting and cheery soundtrack. There is nothing innovative or creatively challenging about the slumdog genre. And yet every Oscar season we watch white filmmakers get awarded for reproducing the same tired and exploitative cliches, while the ‘slumdog’ himself– the subject of this genre– is quickly forgotten, fading from the Western world’s fickle and easily-distracted collective consciousness.
So here we are again: the 26th of February 2017, the night of the 89th annual Academy Awards ceremony. Lion, a film in which Dev Patel plays an Indian boy who grew up in a slum and is adopted by an Australian (read: white) family, was nominated for six awards. Out of the nine potential award recipients, only one was an Indian.
Little Sunny Pawar (the eight year old who plays a younger version of Dev Patel’s character) was flown out of the Mumbai slum where he resides and on to the red carpet. The headlines read ‘From Slumdog to Hollywood’. He looked adorable in his tiny black tuxedo, and every white starlet on the red carpet gushed over how charming the little boy is, how unbelievably lucky he is, and what are the odds? One in 104 million. It makes for a rags-to-riches story that any Hollywood executive would want the rights to. I can only hope Sunny’s teeth will keep shining bright, brighter than the whitest light on that red carpet.
Become a Community Contributor.
