Chapter 10 - Why the Sun Shines on Slumdog

Summary

I originally wrote this soon after the Oscar awards in 2009, hounded by two questions: Why Slumdog Millionaire? Why now? This essay examines the recent success of Slumdog Millionaire (hereafter Slumdog) by undertaking a contextual reading of the film based on its expected appeal for American audiences (where the author resides). It recommends that we read Slumdog as the arrival of a specific kind of cultural hybridity, a process begun in earlier texts. It then outlines how such a reading of hybridity must be placed within three interrelated contexts of American political, economic and social life that helped the film achieve its place in the sun.

Slumdog garnered numerous accolades. Journalistic accounts of its success typically focused on its feel-good storyline, its effervescent music score (by A. R. Rahman, one of India's most prolific and creative composers) and the freshness of its unknown cast of actors as primary factors in its success. Built into such accounts was a narrative of implausibility, the rags to riches story that has taken the film from straight-to-DVD distribution to the Oscars. These were all important elements but, I suggest, proximate causes, not ultimate ones. In what follows, I suggest some entry points for a more complete discussion of the film.