On The Slumdog Millionaire

The Slumdog Millionaire is one of the movies that portray the reality of the 21^st century, which is I believe what most of us neead to see and understand and not just some teenybopper film with a modern Cinderella and a hot football jock, which often doesn’t make sense at all.

Evidently, the Slumdog Millionare illustrates the culture and crisis in India. Although the film may not be completely accurate in historical portrayals, what I liked most about the film was that it educates viewers on what it is like to live in India, raising cultural and social issues highlighted all throughout such as poverty, hunger, human trafficking, illegal investments, child and sex slavery, oppression of women, education, religious and gender discrimination and India’s modern economic development.

One thing that I noticed was that societies have this thinking of economic status as a measurement of character. As what was shown in the film, Jamal was accused of cheating just because he was a slumdog. In my opinion, societies do have this tendency to discredit and belittle those on the lowest end of the economic scale. A capitalist society like ours and India’s, which is profit-driven, emphasizing wealth and the attainment of it unintentionally imposes the idea that wealth means better. In materialistic capitalist societies, wealth is not simply a product of one’s work but is actually mistaken as an impression of their character and work. Although we try to avoid this, I think this notion is still imposed upon us.

Discrimination against women is also prevalent in the film. Indian women are obliged to cover their bodies and faces, despite of the heat, because Indians believe that women are too tempting in the eyes of men and must therefore wrap themselves. Other than that, young girls, were forced to have sex, selling their bodies to make a living. Women were abused, beaten by men, and downgraded, which I believe is very much rampant in India until now. Children were also obligated to work at an early age, they were also abused, tortured, forced to beg for illegal gangs. Young men and women resorting to violence for food and shelter, finding a way to survive in the midst of suffering – a common struggle in many impoverished countries.

However, seeing how Indians manage to change their country’s economic standing, with their call center industry on the demand, I believe that the Indians are one of the few races that do not give up easily and will work to survive, despite of anarchy. That, I believe, is the real nature of man – when he is down, he will lift himself up. The Slumdog Millionaire clearly shows that.