‘Slumdog Millionaire’ delights and angers South Asians

The theaters in New Delhi are packed. While “Slumdog Millionaire” has long since been released in the US, it opened in India last weekend.

The movie depicts the fate of three children who live in terribly difficult conditions in the slums of Mumbai. It follows them as love, violence and a television show changes their fate.

It is a very painful look at the lives of India’s poor through the eyes of the poorest of the poor: children.
Indian film critics are mostly raving about the movie, but everyday South Asians have reacted to the film with a range of emotions from happily entertained to fiercely angry.

There have been a couple of protests over the film since it opened. Some of the people who live in slums — and some who don’t — felt the film was profiting off the suffering of others. Some were spitting mad that a foreign director took the liberty to show everything that is wrong in the country and not much of what's right with it.

Even the name of the film itself has come under fire.

Protesters tore down movie posters in one of India’s poorest states saying the use of the word “Slumdog” to describe people living in slums had again injured the poor. They say it is yet another hurtful name for those already struggling at the bottom.

Back in Delhi when 20-something middle class South Asian movie-goers were asked about their thoughts on the movie, they were frank: “That’s India man, these are some of the realities of life here,” one guy remarked.

Which is why some people said they just didn’t want to see a film about the same sad stories they are faced with everyday.

As the week progressed a visit to the same theater where “Slumdog Millionaire” or “Slumdog Crorepati” (crorepati being the Hindi word for millionaire) was playing. During the week it was virtually empty.

The vast majority of people talked to were disturbed by the movie, saying it was both painful and uplifting. They pointed out faults but in the end recommended it, saying it was an interesting and entertaining film. Some, though, were pretty annoyed the world had seen a movie about India long before it was released where it was made.

The reaction about the movie all over India bring up a question that has long been debated: Do artists, this time filmmakers, have a responsibility to show balance, or should they be able to create their art freely even if it disturbs others?

Thoughts? What do you think?