'Slumdog Millionaire' Wrap-Up

Neela Banerjee
February 24, 2009

• Writer Minal Hajratwala -- who will be featured recommending good
books about 'family' in our upcoming Books Section Feature "Top Three"
in Issue 17  -- has a great blog post
looking at issues in the film and how they hold up to real issues in
South Asia, and organizations that relate to them. [This reminds me,
BTW, to point you to OG Mr. Hyphen Robin Sukhadia's blog about his own trip to India where he is spreading music education -- thanks to Project Ahimsa -- to 'slum' kids and orphans in Ahmedabad and Kolkata.]

• Feministing blogger Samhita weighs in on the non-agency of Latika's character and the complexity of our immigrant parents' reacting negatively to the film's subject matter.

• The day before the Oscars there was this post arguing the pros and cons of the movie, in terms of 'poverty porn' -- featuring (my auntie) novelist Chitra Divakaruni, a media studies professor and a documentary filmmaker -- on the NY Times Debate Blog.

Categories: 
Film
Culture
Contributor: 

Suggested Reads

Lust Action Hero: Movie Heroines and Why I Wish 'Hanna' Had Been Asian American
DVD Review: Wo Ai Ni Mommy
LAAPFF '12: Keye Luke, the Original Asian American Hollywood Star

Comments

Comments

lala wrote on Tue, 03/03/2009 - 11:48am
I have similar feelings about Slumdog. While I was excited to see a movie with South Asians do so well, I didn't think it was THAT great of a movie. This whole "it is written" fate thing, as if the characters have little say in what they do was not much of a message. And the lack of personality or story surrounding Latika really bothered me. She came across like an object to desire and not a real person.