Chapter 6 - A Million Dollar Exit from the Slum-World: Slumdog Millionaire's Troubling Formula for Social Justice

Summary

Soon upon its release in December 2008, Slumdog Millionaire (hereafter Slumdog), a rags-to-riches story about a fictional Mumbai slum dweller, Jamal Malik, took its place among the most celebrated films of our times. Riding on a wave of rave reviews, the film won Hollywood's highest tribute in February 2009, the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with seven more Oscars, including one for British filmmaker Danny Boyle as Best Director. The film earned effusive praise not only for being an enjoyable work of fiction, which it arguably is, but for its potential to give voice to poor and marginalized children such as Jamal, the slumdogs born and raised in India's slums. This essay takes issue with the latter expectation, arguing that, given Slumdog's reductive and demeaning depictions of slums and slum dwellers, there is a much stronger likelihood that the film will work against the interests of those who live and work in India's slums, lending justification to policies that only deepen their distress.

Slumdog depicts the slum as a feral wasteland, a place of evil and decay that is devoid of order, productivity and compassion. Glossing over many indicators of community solidarity and organized political resistance among slum dwellers, it privileges only haphazard and individualistic forms of agency. The film's explanation of poverty and violence is also purely localized and individualized.