SLUMDOG

It’s a very enjoyable film, but that’s that.
A story about a kid from the Mubai slums that goes on to win india’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” through answering incredibly convenient questions that also happen to tell the story if his life is NOT A VALID REFERENCE POINT.
It is a fantastical story, the slums are depicted in a way that makes them look exciting and vibrant, but with elements of the harsh reality that exists there. It is not necessary to point out that it doesn’t illustrate life in slums accurately, that’s not what it says on the tin. IT’S A STORY.
So yes, it is not 100% accurate, it makes slum life look like a colourful, if a bit risky existence.
But there is still the ‘fact’ that the children see their mother get murdered for her religion and are then forced to beg on the streets with the potential of their eyes being gouged out.
So its not all cheeky scamps and lucky breaks.

I have never been to a place where poverty or slums exist, it is a world I am naïve to. I think it is patronising to even assume any ‘understanding’ of the life in the slums. Whether we feel they are “getting on with it” and don’t know any better (I would imagine not often the case) or they need to be ‘saved’, over 31.6% of the worlds population live in slums or shanty towns (figures compiled by UN-HABITAT in 2001). So either something there is working, or something ‘out here’ clearly isn’t.