Slumdog Millionaire – Trailer: Educating the Minority Is Never As Simple as it seems

Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

My other post with the video trailer says that the video is no longer available.  I am not sure if that’s because I related it to an article about the mother of one of the child actors threatened to hit him with a brick when he threw a fit that he couldn’t spend all his money. It’s set up to be a wicked scenario with regards to the politics of what will happen to these children picked out of the Mumbai slums.

The politics of the do-gooder moves are rarely contemplated beyond the initial throw-away to say that the children will be cared for.  Apparently the directors didn’t realize that they were dealing with real people, and as any Harry Potter fan will realize, children don’t stay small.  These children will grow up to be adults, grow up to have a say in their money, in the terms of their agreements with the film companies.

Essentially the directors couldn’t figure out why the child actors didn’t want to go to the schools they picked out for them.  The children don’t understand why they can’t spend their money, and the parents think that they should be getting more money.  When a movie grosses $360 million, everyone has an opinion.  Money like that comes along once in a lifetime, especially for children picked out of the Mumbai slums.

Part of what bothers me about this whole equation is the idea that these kids from Mumbai should be grateful for whatever the Old White Man’s Club (C) wants to hand out, and if the parents complain (which they will), or if the children complain, the prevailing notion still pushes the idea of the kids are lucky to be where they are.  Apparently though, not much has changed when one of the child actor’s home/cardboard shack has been demolished.

The cultural divide between the Indian culture of feeling as though these children should be cared for (after all, the film industry did make them famous), versus the American culture of handing a check and walking away(after all, this country was built on free will supp0sedly)  make for strained  negotiations.

Not that I offer advice anytime,  but this Unasked Advice would be to give the children some money up front and then set up a trust agreement.  And, now that the Old White Man’s Club has stepped in, they are stuck making sure that the children don’t die in the squalor of the streets.  It’s called corporate responsibility at $360 million, but that may be in short supply.

more about “Slumdog Millionaire – Trailer: Educa…“, posted with vodpod

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