Slumdog Millionaire: An Inspiration or an Offense

Slumdog Millionaire with eight Oscars to its credit whisking millions with its real time rendezvous with slum children of India unfortunately bagged shocking waves of criticism from Indians. They rendered very title of Slumdog derogatory to the people of slums. The very essence of Slumdog Millionaire raises the perverse questions on the very essentiality of humanity and the direction where the world is leading. Many Indians see the title of the movie as the obnoxious and disturbing to the very core of what India stands for.

The remark dog is itself humiliating to the Indian minds as since centuries the word dog has been used as a word to degrade somebody and often used as term to show outrage against the villains of Bollywood villains. So the film showing Indian people in their lives within the precinct of extreme poverty would have naturally hurt the sentiments of Indians even though claim of director may refute the same. Even in one of the scenes where the police inspector is interrogating Jamaal alleged of cheating in the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” mocks at the boy, “What can a slumdog possibly know? (Colson & Boyle, 2008)

Police inspector first by beating the boy is violating human rights and on the other hand by terming him dog droops him into the status of a criminal only because he is a villain. The nation, which has shown signs of prosperity and development since this last century, has been shown from the darkest side of extreme forms of poverty. These facts no doubt render the movie as an offense to the nation that has always stood for human dignity and respect but if we look at the movie from the eyes of the perceiver, the movie is an eye opener and story of hope and optimism.

A young boy, whose childhood has been spent amidst dirty lanes running from the hooligans as well as police constables who are always shooing them off, becomes a millionaire in a quiz game show, which demands only the intellectuals and educated persons to win. There is no doubt of the fact that movie is an inspiration but its title is ironical and satirizes the class society where poor have never been deemed as human beings and worthy to achieve anything therefore for the Indian conscious mind, title is naturally offensive.