Michelle
Rehberger
Professor
Wexler
English
495ESM
13
May 2013
Globalization and Slumdog Millionaire
Danny Boyle’s 2008 Academy Award
winning film Slumdog Millionaire
became an instant hit among critics for its unique structure and refreshingly
original story. However, this film is more than just an enjoyable film to watch
in one’s spare time. This film starts to engage and bring to light the issues
of imperialism and globalization in third world countries. It shows the
negative effects of the Western world in a way that most would overlook. The
main character, Jamal, is accused of lying on a game show based off of the
American show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”—another symbol of the Western culture and the Western world. Through
Jamal’s flashbacks from his childhood to the present, the audience gets a
glimpse of how the Western culture has influenced their world in a not so
positive way. The audience learns through these flashbacks how Jamal gained his
knowledge in an unorthodox and non-educational way. By incorporating and
meshing symbols of the Western world, director Danny Boyle starts to engage in
a meaningful conversation about the effects of imperialism and globalization,
however, Boyle does come up short by coping out to a happy Americanized ending
instead of truly forcing the conversation to continue.
The movie starts out with Jamal and his
brother Salim running through their slum. Right from the start the audience
knows that this movie is going to critique the third world country these kids
are living in. The images of the slum from within are overwhelming, but it
doesn’t just stop there. When the shot pans out and the audience gets to see
just how far the slum expands, the audience can already see the remaining
effects of globalism and imperialism. Randy Martin’s article, “Where Did the
Future Go?” echoes the feeling of loss and surprise that the audience of a
first world country feels. Martin describes the struggle for people to keep up
with the present as the world continues to move and grow at such fast pace.
Martin writes, “For the last twenty-five years those who might have been lulled
by capital’s utopian chords have been subject to a rude awakening.” (Martin)
While he is talking about the lasting effects of imperialism combined with the
increasing importance on capital and how together they have crippled nations,
the rude awakening he describes is something seen in the movie. All of the
images of the slum throughout the film remind the audience and continuously
give them rude awakenings. These kids won’t have the lives that the kids in
America and other Western countries will have. They will make do with nothing
and grow up with so much less, all because of imperialist nations using and
abusing the countries they took over. Both Jamal and Salim will reflect on this
after they grow up and see how different their lives are.
There are so many scenes in which
the movie offers a critique of imperialism but one of the most obvious ones is
after Jamal and Salim have grown up and they look over their old slum. Jamal
and Salim view their world in two distinct and different ways. Salim sees an
opportunity for himself to exploit the city while Jamal is disgusted by his
brother’s view. Jamal wants this place to become better than it is. Frederic
Jameson’s article, “The Politics of Utopia” also offers insight into the way
the characters view their world. Jameson writes that Utopia’s function, “lies not in helping us to imagine a
better future, but rather in demonstrating our utter incapacity to imagine such
a future—our imprisonment in a non-utopian present without historicity or
futurity—so as to reveal the ideological closure of the system in which we are
somehow trapped and confined”(Jameson 46). This relates to the movie and the
viewer’s perspective because when you see these types of slums going to miles,
it’s very hard to imagine a better future. It’s hard to imagine it getting
better and going up from here. Jameson argues that people see Utopia to imagine
a world that they want—to identify and fix the problems their world has.
One of the larger problems Jamal has
faced and overcome in his life is the way he has learned. The movie truly
focuses on the way Jamal has gained knowledge. He did not go to school and
learn from teachers. Every question he answers is an experience from his life. This
is related to imperialism because the countries that abandoned their colonies
left them with very little to go off of. The colonized civilizations were used
for the advancement of capital, usually through slavery or some kind of
collection of a raw material. The colonizers left the countries without much,
especially in the line of education. Most people were slaves, so the lack of an
education system is definitely a remaining influence of capitalism. While other
countries were advancing technologically and educationally, these places were
set behind. Jamal’s ability to overcome this gives the viewer of the movie
hope. But where the movie misses the mark is where it doesn’t address the other
children. Yes, Jamal made it. But how many of his friends did? How many of them
died in slavery and sex trafficking? That isn’t to say that some people don’t
survive—of course they do. But the problems still exist.
Slumdog
Millionaire really has a chance to send a message out to first world about
third world problems. It has a great cast, a great director, and a great story
but it just doesn’t go far enough. It could have done without the happy ending
and the love story; however, maybe if it didn’t incorporate those into it
people in the first world wouldn’t have been interested it in it and maybe it
wouldn’t have garnered so much popular attention. While the movie did a good
job in at least bringing up the issues of globalization and imperialism, it
definitely could have gone further and made a stronger impact.
Works Cited
Jameson, Fredric. “The Politics of
Utopia.” http://moodle.csun.edu/file.php/41749/http_www.newleftreview.pdf
Martin, Randy. “Where Did The Future
Go?” Logosonline. Winter 2006. Web. 10 May 2013.
Slumdog
Millionaire. Dir. Danny Boyle. Fox
Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, 2009. DVD.
