Samhita on Slumdog

I've been poo-pooing criticisms of Slumdog Millionaire, but Samhita makes some great points over at Feministing. She also links to a great piece by Mitu Sengupta at Alternet critiquing the film as a "hollow message of Social Justice." I have mixed feelings about this criticism. On the one hand, the film is so clearly a fantasy story, that I don't know that it's trying to convey a "message," about social justice or anything else. It's unrealistic. It does not attempt authenticity. It employs flashbacks and shifts in time to create a wonderland-effect which is at odds with the gritty realism of some of the images (not, mind you, the cinematography, which is very polished and cinematic). I think people make the mistake of assuming it's trying to present something "real" because movies don't usually feature or address poverty, especially third-world poverty, unless they're trying to convey something "real" and convey a "message." At the same time, I find this, from Mitu, convincing:

It is ironic that "Slumdog", for all its righteousness of tone, shares with many Indian political and social elites a profoundly dehumanizing view of those who live and work within the country's slums. The troubling policy implications of this perspective are unmistakeably mirrored by the film. Since there are no internal resources, and none capable of constructive voice or action, all "solutions" must arrive externally.

After a harrowing life in an anarchic wilderness, salvation finally comes to Jamal, a Christ-like figure, in the form of an imported quiz-show, which he succeeds in thanks to sheer, dumb luck, or rather, because “it is written.” Is it also "written," then, that the other children depicted in the film must continue to suffer? Or must they, like the stone-faced Jamal, stoically await their own “destiny” of rescue by a foreign hand?

It seems like Jamal is dragging himself by his super-high-intelligence bootstraps out of poverty, because it's a story about a quiz show and that seems like where the story would be going. But it's not. Jamal knows all the answers by chance, he gets on the show by chance, he's spared by the police by chance. It's not his doing. In fact, the only real virtue he seems to have, beyond basic kindness, is the dogged pursuit of Latika, with whom he is basically obsessed with his entire life.

And that's where we get to Samhita's critique of the Latika character:

I understand that in Boyle's imagination, Latika was like any third world woman. A helpless victim that can't speak up for herself and stays in an abusive relationship, until she is saved by another man. Outside of oversimplifying the complex ways that women of color experience AND resist violence within their own communities, it reinforces stereotypes of helpless third world women. I must say, I tried to ignore this plotline in the beginning. Perhaps if I thought about it too much, I would come out against a film that is supposed to "help" my people or because I just wanted to enjoy something for once without the nagging reality that this story doesn't make sense without the depiction of a violent patriarchy. But the unfortunate reality is that in order for South Asians to make it into the mainstream, they have to cater to the lowest common denominator of universal experience. And that is of course one where women have no agency, especially in the context of the third world. I mean that is why we are fighting all these wars right? To save women!

I had this exact same reaction, but I liked the movie so much in other ways that I basically blocked it out of my mind. But during the movie, it nagged at me. Latika was a main character in the film, but she basically didn't talk except to say how scared and unhappy she was. She didn't really have a personality, and we as the viewers had absolutely no idea why Jamal was so in love with her.

As with many movies, we're just supposed to assume that he loves her beyond all other cares in the world because she's mega hott, duh. And he really kind of stalks her all over India. It's not really clear whether she reciprocates the feelings for him, and if so, why.

So I guess I'm left with sort of an empty movie. It's clearly not supposed to be a movie with a message about social justice, but it kind of sucks as a love story, too, since one side of the love line is basically an acted-upon object.

And after all this, I still really, really want to like it. I still really did like it. Ugh. Movies can be really annoying when you're a feminist.