Humanity & Society

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Film Review: Rags-to-Riches in the 21st Century: The Reality behind

Representations in Slumdog Millionaire
Bhoomi K. Thakore
Humanity & Society 2012 36: 93
DOI: 10.1177/0160597611433274

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Humanity & Society
36(1) 93-95

Film Review ª The Author(s) 2012

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Rags-to-Riches in the 21st Century: The Reality behind Representations in Slumdog Millionaire, Based
on the novel Q&A (2005) by Vikas Swarup; Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy; Directed by Danny
Boyle; Produced in Britain by Celador Films, Film4, and Pathé Pictures International;
Distributed in the United States by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures

Reviewed by: Bhoomi K. Thakore, Department of Sociology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago,
IL, USA
DOI: 10.1177/0160597611433274

The opening title card in the film, Slumdog Millionaire (2008), asked the following
question: ‘‘Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees.
How did he do it?’’ Up to this point, Jamal has answered questions that surpass the
knowledge of most people. Even when the host feeds him the wrong answer, Jamal
calls his bluff and answers the question correctly. This leads the producers of the
show to accuse him of cheating. After all, how could an orphan from the slums of
India, employed as a chai-walla1 in a call center, know all of these answers? The
film follows the story of how key situations in Jamal’s life have provided him with
the answers he needed to win. As the title card tells us, Jamal can do it because, ‘‘It
is written.’’
In the end, Jamal wins the money and is reunited with his childhood love, Latika.
Their love is sealed with a kiss and a Bollywood dance. Like any other formulaic
mainstream film, this version offers the same feel-good ending that audiences hoped
for and even anticipated. However, representations in this film also continue to offer
the same limited understandings by the West regarding developing countries, and
reinforce racial hierarchies that exist in both India and the West. Although these
representations bring some attention to issues of poverty and exploitation in Indian
society, they fail to realistically address these social problems.

Social Problems in India

Throughout their young lives, Jamal, his brother Salim, and Latika dealt with power-
lessness against their slumlords. In gut-wrenching scenes, we see what life is truly
like for orphans who are forced to beg for money in the streets, just to have to turn
the money over to their bosses. While the film does a good job of accurately

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94 Humanity & Society 36(1)

illustrating what life is like in India for many people, little is accomplished for the
suffering of children like the protagonists.
As teenagers, Jamal and Salim are forced to fend for themselves, which they do
by humorously ripping off unsuspecting Western tourists at the Taj Mahal. These
portrayals of India as a foreign place in which crime and deception are rampant are
familiar representations of what most know about the mysterious East. Additionally,
Latika’s young life reflects the realities of exploitation and rape for many Indian
girls and women. As a teenager, Latika’s virginity was used as a selling point to the
highest bidder. Even after Latika is rescued by Jamal, Salim used his power to push
Jamal out and keep her for himself. When Latika later tried to meet Jamal at the train
station, her slumlord-boyfriend’s bodyguards caught up with her and sliced her face
for trying to run away. In mainstream films, it is rare to see the female lead disfig-
ured in such a way. To some extent, this representation fits the story and the char-
acter, both of which are scarred byproducts of the Mumbai slums.

Indian Representations
As the characters grow from children to adults, it is hard not to notice Latika and
Jamal’s lightening skin tones. Latika develops into a beautiful woman with long,
straight hair, light skin, and noticeable Aryan features. The practice of using actors
and actresses that embody characteristics associated with these beauty ideals is com-
mon in mainstream media. Light skin tone has long been the primary marker of
beauty in Indian society, particularly for Indian women. The casting decisions made
for this movie perpetuate a particular representation of beauty that caters to both
Western and Indian audiences and does little to challenge this problematic issue.
At the end of the film, Jamal and Latika dance to A.R. Rahman’s Academy
Award winning song, ‘‘Jai Ho.’’ The song, which includes Indian, Arabic, and
hip-hop musical influences, and Hindi, Urdu, and Spanish lyrics, was remade into
an American pop version by the Pussycat Dolls in 2009 as India is once again exo-
ticised for commercial benefit. Much like the type-face used for the film’s closing
credits, India continues to be seen in ways that perpetuate perceptions of the east
as foreign and ‘‘other.’’

Can All Slumdogs Be Millionaires?

As the film leads to the dramatic end, we see groups of people in front of their tele-
visions and on the edges of their seats, much like the theater audience, rooting for
Jamal in all of the places that the characters touched. The film played out in locations
that are familiar places in India—the slums, the orphanage and seedy underworld, long
and winding trains, the Taj Mahal, and even an Indian call center. In the end, Jamal
gets the money, the girl, and triumphs over evil. Much of the success of the film is
based on this happy ending. Indeed, substantial revenues have been the result of the
commitment of mainstream audiences to this particular storyline. In the United States,

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Thakore 95

this film opened the eyes of most Americans to the realities of many children in India.
While reality played out in the background, it is overshadowed by Jamal’s rags-to-
riches success. This story showed us that Jamal won because he was able to use his
slum experience in order to rise above it. Unfortunately, that story is virtually impos-
sible for the real slumdogs of India.

Note
1. A ‘‘chai-walla’’ is the Hindi term for a tea delivery-person, considered to be a very
low-level job.

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