@Aaron Altman: You know how everybody is collecting tweets for some book or something? I am keeping recordings of my conversations with overseas credit card call centers regarding...um...my over-payment of certain cards. Note to self: must use, "Why are you tripping, boo?" at least twice today.
The sale of young kids for the purpose of marrying them (to Arab sheiks looking for kicks or for an heir) has been going on for a long time. I am rather conflicted about the current story - on one hand, it draws attention to a serious issue, and on the other hand, it reeks of entrapment and is way too tabloidy to be taken seriously beyond a couple of days.
Check this story of a kid who was rescued by an airline stewardess: [www.karmayog.org]
I'm trying to imagine how the producers could have avoided controversy, and I'm coming up empty.
If they had cast actors who were not living the slumdog life (brought them in from Great Britain or elsewhere) there would have been outrage of another type. Something along the lines of how the producers didn't want to muddy their hands of the potential sociopolitical problems of finding child actors whose lives would be forever changed by their participation.
No one...absolutely NO ONE knows how things are going to turn out for a film as it is being made. It's a gamble for all involved. The fact that this film is now successful and the opportunistic are now calling foul is pretty disgusting, but pretty effing predictable, too. These squabbles over "fair shares" are par for the course, but this story about the father selling his daughter seems pretty contrived and twisted for the benefit of a tabloid rag.
@Dr. Nick: @souldecirce: Why should the filmmakers be hung out to dry by opportunistic media outlets seeking a fabricated story rooted in the lowest common denominator? The only reason this is happening because this film was successful. I think this story is worthy of its praise, and historically will stand as the one that bridged the gap between Ho'wood and Bollywood. It would be a shame if future films of the same caliber lost their greenlight, because of potential tabloid BS contrived by third parties looking to stir up some shite.
@PaisleyPajamas: If the filmmakers believed as you do, why did they say that they mishandled the compensation for the individuals? Either they know they fucked up (and need to take their lumps), or they're cowards, not auteurs, of the highest order (and need to take their lumps).
@souldecirce: Given what has transpired, I really think it was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, which is why I brought up the idea that if they had brought actors in, rather than casting locally they'd still be getting a lashing in the press.
"...Christian Colson, the film's British producer, has admitted being wrong-footed by the intense media interest in the child actors. He insists, however, that Rubina and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, another slum child who played a lead part, were paid fairly, and that as soon as they were cast moves were made to safeguard their futures.
The children were found places at an independent school - the first they had ever attended - which specialises in educating disadvantaged youngsters. If they remain in school until they are 18, they will receive a "significant lump sum". They have also been promised a new home by the film-makers.
"We thought that the parents would be incentivised by long-term benefits to their children. We were wrong," Mr Colson told The Times this year.
Looking ahead
- Rubina, 9, and Azhar, 10, now attend a UN school to which they are driven in their own rickshaw
- Their trust fund is guaranteed only if they attend school until the age of 18, though they are not obliged to pass any exams
- Each family was promised that funds would be available in emergencies. When Azhar's home was bulldozed, the producers wired money They also gave £500,000 to the charity Plan, which improves children's housing in the slum
- Attempts to buy apartments for the children have proved difficult under Indian law..."
The producers of Slumdog Millionaire have in essence purchased bare minimum media pacification policies and spun it as custodial oversight of the childrens' future. Notice the trust fund payouts at age 18 have been attached to a 'still in school' contingency that seems highly problematic. I'm advocating a G.W. Bush Administration style water-boarding of the producers of Slumdog Millionaire until they admit that they're parseltongued weasels.
@Dagrolord: With you in the spirit of punishment for the reprehensible actions, but disagree with method. Why waterboard them to admit information we know already?
I don't know what the solution is here. I'd like to be angry at Hollywood's arrogant interference into these matters having no clue about the gravity of which they dabble. Hollywood filmmakers are not the United Nations or some other ambassadorship entity. They're about making money. That's it. I'm not saying this scumbag father wouldn't have ultimately engaged in the horrible deeds reported here, but I do think Hollywood needs to think more closely about what they do, and the affects it will have on the lives of the people involved long after the awards have been handed out and they're off to make their next feature film. You can't just thrust a whole cultural society in the limelight, highlighting the good and the bad, slap five when the money is made, and leave the rest in ruin. Where's the responsibility here? It's not about trust funds and pats on the head saying "Good job."
There is one good thing to come out of this movie for me at least. I have the misfortune to know many reality-challenged, smug ex-hippies. They would gush on and on that India being the land of Gandhi, maharajahs, Kamasutra and yoga is exclusively a spiritual utopia of great peace and social justice. And where all the people without exception are spiritually advanced, highly evolved souls who have fantastic tantric sex and are adept at balancing their chakras.
Slumdog took all that away from them. As a bonus, they feel terrible liberal white guilt about feeling outraged against all the various atrocities in the film. It has been very beneficial for my inner peace to watch their worldview and their identity as good, non-judgmental liberals get fucked with. Oooommmm.
@Wrapitup: I call shenanigans. You have to be pretty fucking dense if, after versing yourself in some of India's (pretty goddamned mighty) cultural achievements, it takes a movie to make you aware of the dire conditions much of its population lives under--I doubt even the wooliest-minded yogamaniacs are ignorant of THAT. Did your friends all fall asleep when they explained the whole the caste system deal in high school social studies?
@Wrapitup: Wait, explain to me again how a feel-good movie with a storybook ending about an Indian slum child winning a million dollars on a game show and the love of his life validate your "realistic"view of India?
Plus: your vision about how liberals view India hasn't been valid since 1968. If anything Thomas Friedman's Flat World vision of India is the new "wrong way of viewing India."
That's not really the whole story. The director set up trust funds for the kids and their education is paid for, along with an apartment for each kid. The kids were taken care of, but greedy family members were not.
Between this guy and the Somali pirates it's pretty easy to see that if you leave people in desperate circumstances they try to form their own economies. And the goods they trade are unconscionable - their own lives, the lives of children.
I wish I understood money to the point where it was possible to divine some way to prevent it from being used as a tool of predation. Somewhere Western currency is flowing into filthy hands for all of this to happen. Perhaps as a condition of our surrender to public funds our banks, who are on the forefront of database and monitoring technology, should be given more of a role in preventing this particular form of horror.
@ADismalScience: Sadly, you could theoretically control the money, but ultimately money's just a proxy for a power differential -- and that's what allows this predation to occur (and as you said, it usually ends up being lives that are the currency used).
Well, I think state and national lotteries have provided the world with examples of people's lives being ruined by unexpected windfalls. (See: [www.rotten.com]) I suppose something like that might've been what the filmmakers had in mind: in that case you could say that's paternalistic, maybe, but not necessarily exploitative or stingy.
@Dickdogfood: I guess I don't see how Boyle gets to decide what is or is not "good" for this child and her family.
He hired them, thinking sprinkling a few dollars would help them, and they would go back to anonymity and obscurity, while he wins an Oscar and takes his back-end. I no longer have any respect for him. Doing the right thing means getting an apartment and setting up a monthly allowance for these 2 families and keeping tabs on them.
Hollywood guys do this for their mistresses - apartments and allowances - I daresay the "Slumdog" teams have the wherewithal to do it for the poverty-stricken children they used in their film.
@FormerEnglishMajor: But how would giving the kids and their families apartments and allowances not also be a decision as what's "good" for them? Does that necessarily escape the charge of paternalism?
In any case, looking at the Wikipedia article on the movie ([en.wikipedia.org]), it seems as if the filmmakers have, among other things, set up trust-funds for the children.
04/24/09
04/24/09
I will not make any jokes about call centers in India.
I will not make any jokes about call centers in India.
04/24/09
04/24/09
OPERATOR: Hello, thank you for calling Sprint. My name is Eli. How may I provide you with excellent customer service today?
CUSTOMER: Eli, hmmm? Where are you from?
OPERATOR (flipping through pages): Um... Peoria, Illinois.
CUSTOMER: Oh, okay.
OPERATOR (flipping through more pages): "Hey, they opened a McDonald's here yesterday. Right next to the (pause) Wal-Mart. Why are you tripping, boo?"
CUSTOMER: What?
OPERATOR: "U-S-A! U-S-A!"
CUSTOMER: Okay, I get it!
OPERATOR: Jai ho!
CUSTOMER: What?
OPERATOR: Never mind.
04/24/09
04/24/09
04/24/09
04/20/09
Check this story of a kid who was rescued by an airline stewardess: [www.karmayog.org]
04/21/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
If they had cast actors who were not living the slumdog life (brought them in from Great Britain or elsewhere) there would have been outrage of another type. Something along the lines of how the producers didn't want to muddy their hands of the potential sociopolitical problems of finding child actors whose lives would be forever changed by their participation.
No one...absolutely NO ONE knows how things are going to turn out for a film as it is being made. It's a gamble for all involved. The fact that this film is now successful and the opportunistic are now calling foul is pretty disgusting, but pretty effing predictable, too. These squabbles over "fair shares" are par for the course, but this story about the father selling his daughter seems pretty contrived and twisted for the benefit of a tabloid rag.
04/20/09
Pretty simple solution, actually: MAKE A DIFFERENT MOVIE.
04/20/09
Always a downside to success...always.
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
"...Christian Colson, the film's British producer, has admitted being wrong-footed by the intense media interest in the child actors. He insists, however, that Rubina and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, another slum child who played a lead part, were paid fairly, and that as soon as they were cast moves were made to safeguard their futures.
The children were found places at an independent school - the first they had ever attended - which specialises in educating disadvantaged youngsters. If they remain in school until they are 18, they will receive a "significant lump sum". They have also been promised a new home by the film-makers.
"We thought that the parents would be incentivised by long-term benefits to their children. We were wrong," Mr Colson told The Times this year.
Looking ahead
- Rubina, 9, and Azhar, 10, now attend a UN school to which they are driven in their own rickshaw
- Their trust fund is guaranteed only if they attend school until the age of 18, though they are not obliged to pass any exams
- Each family was promised that funds would be available in emergencies. When Azhar's home was bulldozed, the producers wired money They also gave £500,000 to the charity Plan, which improves children's housing in the slum
- Attempts to buy apartments for the children have proved difficult under Indian law..."
The producers of Slumdog Millionaire have in essence purchased bare minimum media pacification policies and spun it as custodial oversight of the childrens' future. Notice the trust fund payouts at age 18 have been attached to a 'still in school' contingency that seems highly problematic. I'm advocating a G.W. Bush Administration style water-boarding of the producers of Slumdog Millionaire until they admit that they're parseltongued weasels.
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
I don't know what the solution is here. I'd like to be angry at Hollywood's arrogant interference into these matters having no clue about the gravity of which they dabble. Hollywood filmmakers are not the United Nations or some other ambassadorship entity. They're about making money. That's it. I'm not saying this scumbag father wouldn't have ultimately engaged in the horrible deeds reported here, but I do think Hollywood needs to think more closely about what they do, and the affects it will have on the lives of the people involved long after the awards have been handed out and they're off to make their next feature film. You can't just thrust a whole cultural society in the limelight, highlighting the good and the bad, slap five when the money is made, and leave the rest in ruin. Where's the responsibility here? It's not about trust funds and pats on the head saying "Good job."
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
There is one good thing to come out of this movie for me at least. I have the misfortune to know many reality-challenged, smug ex-hippies. They would gush on and on that India being the land of Gandhi, maharajahs, Kamasutra and yoga is exclusively a spiritual utopia of great peace and social justice. And where all the people without exception are spiritually advanced, highly evolved souls who have fantastic tantric sex and are adept at balancing their chakras.
Slumdog took all that away from them. As a bonus, they feel terrible liberal white guilt about feeling outraged against all the various atrocities in the film. It has been very beneficial for my inner peace to watch their worldview and their identity as good, non-judgmental liberals get fucked with. Oooommmm.
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
Plus: your vision about how liberals view India hasn't been valid since 1968. If anything Thomas Friedman's Flat World vision of India is the new "wrong way of viewing India."
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
I wish I understood money to the point where it was possible to divine some way to prevent it from being used as a tool of predation. Somewhere Western currency is flowing into filthy hands for all of this to happen. Perhaps as a condition of our surrender to public funds our banks, who are on the forefront of database and monitoring technology, should be given more of a role in preventing this particular form of horror.
04/20/09
Depressing...
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
He hired them, thinking sprinkling a few dollars would help them, and they would go back to anonymity and obscurity, while he wins an Oscar and takes his back-end. I no longer have any respect for him. Doing the right thing means getting an apartment and setting up a monthly allowance for these 2 families and keeping tabs on them.
Hollywood guys do this for their mistresses - apartments and allowances - I daresay the "Slumdog" teams have the wherewithal to do it for the poverty-stricken children they used in their film.
04/20/09
In any case, looking at the Wikipedia article on the movie ([en.wikipedia.org]), it seems as if the filmmakers have, among other things, set up trust-funds for the children.
04/20/09