Everything That Happens Is Imaginary
So, via the Netflix riverlet that flows right to my door, I watched Slumdog Millionaire this past week.
I described Slumdog Millionaire as "gruesome" to a friend who had not seen it yet, and she said, "That's the first time I've ever heard anyone describe it that way." I find that interesting, given the story it chooses to tell.
Also, now having seen the film, I have to say I'm more and more disgusted by some of the western media's takes on this film and especially on the their focus on Danny Boyle's responsibility toward the children's continuing fate. (Not all of that focus, but some, for example Bonnie Fuller's clueless squawking.)
The film shows such things as children working as outhouse attendants, prostitutes, scavenging for salable items in landfills, or getting their eyes carved out to make them more "attractive" beggars. Danny Boyle gave them a different, one-time gig. Now these western bloggers want those precious children to be safe forever and ever and if not it's Danny's fault.... Completely ignoring the reality of the situation the movie portrays.
(Obviously they should see financial returns, including the trust funds, improved schooling, etc. I'm speaking about more unrealistic criticisms, not against financial and bureaucratic support.)
One Hollywood/media blogger a few weeks ago was asking whether Danny Boyle, the director of the film, was now responsible for the little girl's father trying to sell her. Dude, did she watch the fucking movie? The tenor of some of these commentaries seems to suggest that it would have been better to bring in middle class child actors to portray these so called slumdogs. Of course, this actually would allow the filmmakers to forget about them after filming since they would be assumed to have been taken care of afterward. So do not give children closer to the experience the opportunity to make the film because it's too uncomfortable to think about the fact that after the film is made they have to keep "gigging" in the manner suggested by the film itself.
Plato's Cave here. They're looking at the shadows on the wall and ignoring the great big fire burning all of these children's very real asses every day.
Where-as the presumably middle class children that would have gotten the gig in these bloggers' imaginary other world would have gone on to another acting gig, perhaps a commercial for one of the products the children they portrayed may be now scavenging in the land fill, or perhaps for a laxative so as to produce more shit for the children to provide latrine service over in the future.... Indeed, while the imaginary comfortable children go back to their imaginary comfortable lives, these children go back to their regularly scheduled programming and their next gig is to get sold to the highest bidder, whether it be a rich Persian family who wants to adopt the little girl, or some rich man who wants to shuffle the little girl who played a prostitute in the Oscar-winning movie into his own little concubine army for a couple of years of novelty kink before discarding her in the landfill of adulthood those former child prostitutes who live find themselves in. These children have to go back to their real lives.
And that's a little too uncomfortable for some of these clueless, western-culture media bloggers to contemplate apparently. Bonnie Fuller said, "You can't take children from a planet of deprivation, walk them down a red Oscar carpet, bring them as guests to the Vanity Fair Oscar party, have them toasted by all of Hollywood, and then send them back to live with their families in squalor."
Really, Bonnie? Are you suggesting that Danny Boyle and the filmmakers kidnap them using their financial resources and legal might, like Madonna, and raise them in London, Paris, Hollywood, and on the covers of Vogue and Vanity Fair? After Oscar night just never let them go home? Would that make you feel more comfortable? Would that help you, Bonnie Fuller, ignore the children these children portrayed in the movie? Or forget? Would that help you forget so you can hug yourself and find that sentimental tear again that sprouted up during that big, happy dance number at the end of the film?
Her point is that economically the filmmakers needed to do more, etc., and from her little privileged perch she's trying to take credit for the fact that there are now social workers looking after Rubina's interests, but it's all condescending hooey. It's all about her own discomfort with the facts on the ground, or the facts in the sewers, or the bordellos, or in the oil drums that provide shelter at the edge of some uncared for place.
The father could now get a high price for his daughter, except that it was stopped due to this same media spotlight that might have allowed him to get away with it. If the film had never been made, she may have been sold for nearly nothing. We never would have heard about it.
And Bonnie Fuller would have had to write more posts defending Madonna's adoption rights over and above the rights of the father of "Mercy" because, in her words, "I don't recall theatergoers telling their children that poor little Annie should have stayed in the orphanage because Daddy Warbucks is too rich, too single, and possibly in too much of a midlife crisis to adopt her."
Annie is a play, a musical in fact. Slumdog Millionaire is a movie, almost a musical in fact. Mercy is real. Rubina is real. The child whose eyes were carved out so that he could haul in more cash begging is.....
Oh, sorry, Bonnie. You're on to defending Susan Boyle's makeover.... I didn't mean to disturb your concentration.
I described Slumdog Millionaire as "gruesome" to a friend who had not seen it yet, and she said, "That's the first time I've ever heard anyone describe it that way." I find that interesting, given the story it chooses to tell.
Also, now having seen the film, I have to say I'm more and more disgusted by some of the western media's takes on this film and especially on the their focus on Danny Boyle's responsibility toward the children's continuing fate. (Not all of that focus, but some, for example Bonnie Fuller's clueless squawking.)
The film shows such things as children working as outhouse attendants, prostitutes, scavenging for salable items in landfills, or getting their eyes carved out to make them more "attractive" beggars. Danny Boyle gave them a different, one-time gig. Now these western bloggers want those precious children to be safe forever and ever and if not it's Danny's fault.... Completely ignoring the reality of the situation the movie portrays.
(Obviously they should see financial returns, including the trust funds, improved schooling, etc. I'm speaking about more unrealistic criticisms, not against financial and bureaucratic support.)
One Hollywood/media blogger a few weeks ago was asking whether Danny Boyle, the director of the film, was now responsible for the little girl's father trying to sell her. Dude, did she watch the fucking movie? The tenor of some of these commentaries seems to suggest that it would have been better to bring in middle class child actors to portray these so called slumdogs. Of course, this actually would allow the filmmakers to forget about them after filming since they would be assumed to have been taken care of afterward. So do not give children closer to the experience the opportunity to make the film because it's too uncomfortable to think about the fact that after the film is made they have to keep "gigging" in the manner suggested by the film itself.
Plato's Cave here. They're looking at the shadows on the wall and ignoring the great big fire burning all of these children's very real asses every day.
Where-as the presumably middle class children that would have gotten the gig in these bloggers' imaginary other world would have gone on to another acting gig, perhaps a commercial for one of the products the children they portrayed may be now scavenging in the land fill, or perhaps for a laxative so as to produce more shit for the children to provide latrine service over in the future.... Indeed, while the imaginary comfortable children go back to their imaginary comfortable lives, these children go back to their regularly scheduled programming and their next gig is to get sold to the highest bidder, whether it be a rich Persian family who wants to adopt the little girl, or some rich man who wants to shuffle the little girl who played a prostitute in the Oscar-winning movie into his own little concubine army for a couple of years of novelty kink before discarding her in the landfill of adulthood those former child prostitutes who live find themselves in. These children have to go back to their real lives.
And that's a little too uncomfortable for some of these clueless, western-culture media bloggers to contemplate apparently. Bonnie Fuller said, "You can't take children from a planet of deprivation, walk them down a red Oscar carpet, bring them as guests to the Vanity Fair Oscar party, have them toasted by all of Hollywood, and then send them back to live with their families in squalor."
Really, Bonnie? Are you suggesting that Danny Boyle and the filmmakers kidnap them using their financial resources and legal might, like Madonna, and raise them in London, Paris, Hollywood, and on the covers of Vogue and Vanity Fair? After Oscar night just never let them go home? Would that make you feel more comfortable? Would that help you, Bonnie Fuller, ignore the children these children portrayed in the movie? Or forget? Would that help you forget so you can hug yourself and find that sentimental tear again that sprouted up during that big, happy dance number at the end of the film?
Her point is that economically the filmmakers needed to do more, etc., and from her little privileged perch she's trying to take credit for the fact that there are now social workers looking after Rubina's interests, but it's all condescending hooey. It's all about her own discomfort with the facts on the ground, or the facts in the sewers, or the bordellos, or in the oil drums that provide shelter at the edge of some uncared for place.
The father could now get a high price for his daughter, except that it was stopped due to this same media spotlight that might have allowed him to get away with it. If the film had never been made, she may have been sold for nearly nothing. We never would have heard about it.
And Bonnie Fuller would have had to write more posts defending Madonna's adoption rights over and above the rights of the father of "Mercy" because, in her words, "I don't recall theatergoers telling their children that poor little Annie should have stayed in the orphanage because Daddy Warbucks is too rich, too single, and possibly in too much of a midlife crisis to adopt her."
Annie is a play, a musical in fact. Slumdog Millionaire is a movie, almost a musical in fact. Mercy is real. Rubina is real. The child whose eyes were carved out so that he could haul in more cash begging is.....
Oh, sorry, Bonnie. You're on to defending Susan Boyle's makeover.... I didn't mean to disturb your concentration.