Sherece Usher
ENG 495 SEM
Professor Wexler
May 13 2013
The Constructs of Happily Ever After
The movie "Slumdog
Millionaire", an award winning film reached the masses throughout the
globe. The film used an American director and Indian director to portray the
story of the impoverished "slumdogs" of Mumbai, India. While this
film exposes the harsh conditions of many of the Indian people, it also
romanticizes the tale by ending the story with a "happily ever
after". The film focuses on two brothers and their attempt to survive in
the slums of India as young orphans, and their tale growth. Through the lives
and choices of these two brothers Jamal and Salim, you are shown the appeal of
the two different types of utopia. While Salim, the older brother serves as a
representation of a right winged utopia with a free market, where capitalism
flourishes, Jamal, the younger brother represents a more leftist utopia, where
all people are given a chance to survive and flourish by elimination of
"the root of all evil".
The film “Slumdog Millionaire”
is a tale of two brothers growing up in the slums of India during India’s city
transition from Bombay to Mumbai. The movie opens with Jamal the younger
brother in an interrogation room. Jamal was a contestant on India’s version of
Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and despite his meager up bringing’s, the “chai
wala” (tea server) has passed all the levels that professors and professionals
have not, causing the directors of the show to believe he was cheating. Jamal
begins to walk the officers through his life story to show the men how a poor
slum dog was able to learn these answers that Indian elites could not answer.
By doing so Jamal walks the men through his life.
In the film, Jamal represents
the ideals of a leftist Utopia through his life choices and his character’s
journey. Fredric Jameson’s article “The
Politics of Utopia,” the author describes this as a world where people are no
longer driven by monetary greed. The text states,
“The Utopian world” as
such or better and more precisely, with the way in which this or that “root of
all evil” has been eliminated from the world…the root of all evil is to be
found in gold or money, and that is greed (as psychological evil which needs to
be somehow repressed.”
Jamal’s concern for the greater good was seen at a very
early age. In an early scene of the
movie, Jamal and his brother Salim make shift shelter to keep them out of the
rain during a storm. The two brothers
see a girl in the rain alone with no shelter.
Jamal then suggests that the brothers should share their shelter with
the girl, but his brother tells him that would give the boy less shelter and
one more mouth to feed. Jamal believe it
is better for the three to share the wealth than to see someone struggle. Jamal
then invites the girl into their shelter and welcomes her to join them on their
journey of survival.
Jamal’s leftist Utopian ideals were also seen in his
generous ways. As a young teen, Jamal
did not have a problem sharing his wealth with others. This is seen in the
scene where Jamal runs into a fellow orphan that he knew from Moman’s crew, a
young boy who was made blind to receive more revenue when begging. At the time Jamal was doing well for himself
and could afford to give. Jamal gives the boy on hundred dollars because
he was in need, just as stated in the article “The Politics of Utopia” in this
scene Jamal is making “arrangements in order to arrive at some better and more
humane form of life.”
Ultimately, the leftist utopic ideals are shown through
the central story line of the film.
Jamal’s story shows that no matter where you come from, whether it be
humble beginnings or not, you can still make it. In the movie, Jamal is a slum dog turned
millionaire who wins the show and the heart of his love interest and childhood
companion Latika. The idea of a “happily ever after” and starting from the
bottom and pulling yourself up from up from the bootstraps, are the same utopic
ideals promoted with the leftist approach to the utopia. In the leftist utopia, people are to help one
another and eliminate the “root of all evil” and foster a love the well being
of all people.
While Jamal represents the leftist ideals of the utopia,
his brother Salim is a representation of the right-winged ideals of the
utopia. According to Fredric Jameson,
article “The Politics of Utopia” describes the right-winged ideals of utopias
“free market fundamentalism.”In the film, from a young age Salim has went after
every opportunity to get ahead in life.
One of the very scenes shows Salim managing an outhouse to gain money to
gain money. Shortly after this scene, we
see the young Salem selling his brother’s autographed picture of the Indian
movie star and when his brother asks why, he simply explains that he saw the
profit and took it.
Salem runs his life like a business plan. He is always looking for something to profit
from. This is seen in the scene when Jamal and Salim first meet Latika. Despite that the two boys are young orphans,
and should be sympathetic to others in their predicament, Salim does not see it
this way. When Jamal ask Salim to invite
her in, Salim immediately dismisses this idea under the pretense that she will
become a financial burden with no gain.
Throughout the film, Salim is shown working both legal
jobs, as well as looting jobs in order to gain profit. Salim is focused on
making money anyway possible. Salim ambition to rise to the top even drives him
as far as to work with the gangster from his old slum. While his brother feels that this is immoral,
Salim sees that he is in the midst of building of Mumbai, creating opportunity
for himself. Salim dies in a bathtub
full of money validating that he makes a way from himself out of the slum he
came from.
Overall, the two brothers, Jamal and Salim, represent two
different sides of the coin of utopia.
With Jamal showing the left and Salim showing the right, the two men
show a utopia ideals influences individuals through Jamal and Salim, the ideals
of utopia to the world. Without both boys, as well as both types of utopia, the world would not gain the true meaning of utopia, in global context.
