Slumdog Millionaire attacked and sued for causing offence
As always, success has its price. The film Slumdog Millionaire has received rave reviews, 4 Golden Globe awards, and 10 Oscar nominations so, inevitably, it’s being attacked and sued.
Hindu fanatics want the film banned in India because it offends Hinduism.
The Goa unit of a Hindu organisation has demanded a ban on the release of `Slumdog Millionaire’, saying the award-winning film hurts the religious sentiments of the majority hindu community.
[…]
They alleged that there are a few scenes in the movie that denigrated Lord Ram.
The film has now opened in India, so the attempt to have it banned failed. Nevertheless, attacks continue. Some accuse the film-makers of exploiting poverty for the sake of profit.
Some representatives of the city slums are attacking [director Danny] Boyle’s work, viewing the word “Slumdog” in the title as an insult. A few dozen of them have organized small demonstrations with banners like “Poverty For Sale” and “I am not a dog.” The court in Patna has even registered a complaint by the secretary general of the slum inhabitants, accusing musical director AR Rahman and the actor Anil Kapoor of defaming slum inhabitants by calling them “dogs.”
But Ruth Manorama, an activist for Dalit women, sees the matter differently. Speaking with AsiaNews, she says that the film is an “an exposition of how slumdwellers live in our part of the world, it has brought awareness to the international audience through this movie. This film has brought to light on the international stage the problem of these urban poor.”
Ms Manorama better be careful or she may get hauled into court. As just mentioned, the film’s music composer and a lead actor are being sued for “depicting slum-dwellers in a bad light and violating their human rights”.
Mr [Tapeshwar] Vishwakarma objected to the use of words such as “slumdogs” to describe the millions of inhabitants of India’s cramped shantytowns, and filed a defamation case against the duo in the east Indian city of Patna, according to media reports Thursday.
His lawsuit alleges that the very name of the movie is derogatory and an affront to the dignity of India’s many slum-dweller.
Vishwakarma did not sue director Danny Boyle because “he hardly expected anything positive from a British filmmaker as their ancestors described us as ’dogs’.” That’s very insulting. Maybe Boyle should sue him.
After watching the film’s fascinating trailer, I’d go see it.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0DKHKVWwkg[/youtube]
h/t for link to The West: Overlawyered
Bunch of bozos. They themselves would be abusing the poor with the choicest of invectives in Hindi .
(@ Mumbai(?))You are a fool who is leaving such an idiotic comment as if u r the voice of mumbai.
The movie not only pictures India as a poor,backward,dirty,3rd world slum country but also denigrate lord Ram.
When the movies ‘Da vinci code’ and ‘tickle my funny bone’ were released the christens protested the same way as Hindus did,but no-one called them bozos (even a Goan Minister Churchill Alemao threatened to attack the Multiplex), but when Hindus are fighting for their rights all the so called secularists , atheists, rationalist,communists and art admirers are terming this as foolishness.
If u mr/ms mumbai (why don’t u call urself dharavi slum, or call yourself Lahore or Islamabad at least) are proud of ur country then protest against the movie instead of giving such stupid remarks.
India, world’s favourite playground.
The argument presented by Kanchan Gupta in his write-up Slumdog is about defaming Hindus, seems very plausible but to me the move is nothing more than the poverty tourism that has lately become very lucrative enterprise worldwide. In India, there are tour operators who arrange guided tours of Dharvi, the largest slum in the Asian continent. There is, however, an ongoing debate whether or not poverty tourism helps those caught in the perpetual whirlpool of poverty. It is for NGOs or the government to produce documentaries on such issues to create awareness but for the producer of the Slumdog Millionaire it is conducting poverty tourism via celluloid for instant big profits. You need a story that takes you through the familiar slums and I would rather let the government and the politicians answer the question as to why such stories become so easy to find in the country.