Slumdog Millionaire is a film directed by Danny Boyle which portrays the life of a young man, Jamal Malik, from the Juhu slums of Mumbai, India. Jamal appears on the Indian game show of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Surpassing everyone’s expectations, Jamal reaches the final question that would win the $1,000,000. Because he was just a “slumdog” who couldn’t possibly know all the answers, the police attain him and beat him trying to get him to confess he has cheated. While being beat, Jamal has flashbacks of his life that signify why he has known all the answers. Through these flashbacks, we see the struggles and accomplishments he has attained being a young man growing up in the slums of India. After seeing each of Jamals flashback’s, the audience gets a feel of what it is like for both girls and boys growing up living in India versus the growing up experience for boys and girls in the U.S.
Some of the flashbacks we are shown of Jamal are of him watching his mother being beaten to death in the Bombay Riots that took place in Mumbai in December 1992, and January 1993, where nearly 900 people died. In those 900 deaths, close to 600 were Muslims and 300 were Hindus (Mumbai.) With no mother, Jamal and his brother are forced to take comfort among the streets where they find a little girl also from the slums, Latika. The three stick together and are found by a gangster, Maman, who tricks out children and later makes them blind and trains them how to become singing beggars to make more money. Understanding the situation they are in, Jamal and Salim escape on a departing train, leaving Latika behind. Having no home, money, or parents, the boys are forced to make a lifestyle of picking pockets, working as dishwashers, and pretending to be tour guides where they steal people’s shoes and sell them. Latika was recaptured by Maman who turned her into a prostitute and was selling her virginity for a high price. The boys rescue her by shooting Maman and flee where Salim pulls a gun on Jamal and tells him to leave so they can be together. Jamal, being all alone, finds a new job where years later he is able to communicate again with Salim, who is working with a crime lord, and Latika who is playing maid to the crime lord. Needing the answer to the last question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Jamal calls Latika where she helps him win and is soon reunited with him after being helped escape by Salim. Salim kills the crime lord where he is soon to be shot and killed by his coworkers.
After watching Slumdog Millionaire, the viewers get a view of just how much gender issues there are in the coming of age experience in India versus the U.S.. We watch Latika as she is captured and is forced to become a prostitute and her virginity was being auctioned off for a high price. Even after being rescued from his hands, Latika was just passed onto another crime lord who used her for her services, not caring about who she was. Latika had no choice but to follow their commands or she would be killed or left on her own. We also see how Jamal’s mother, a grown woman, was beat to death during the riots despite her age. In the U.S., girls aren’t always respected but they are also not forced to become prostitutes. When U.S. girls succumb to the prostitution life, it is hard to get out of that life just like in Latika’s case. Like in the story of Persipolis, Latika was also not able to express who she was because she was always being “owned” by a lord. In the story of Persipolis, she was not able to dress how she wanted due to the government “owning” the woman and telling them how to dress (Satrapi).
For boys, we look through the eyes of Jamal and Salim who lost their mother at a young age, forcing them to have no one. In the U.S., there are group homes they can go to for shelter and stability. They were also captured to make money, and only found themselves on top when they were joining the evil ways of the crime lords. Even when the boys only had each other, Salim still turns on his brother only knowing force as a way of getting what they want. Their whole growing up experience included situations where there was always someone being in control of others. Also, because of Jamal’s background of being a “slumdog” the government and population saw him as knowing nothing. In order for Jamal and Salim to live, they stole from people because that was the life that they knew in order to stay ahead. This reminds me of the story by Allison we read in Without a Net, she was always stealing stuff because that was the life that she had always known growing up (Tea).
"Mumbai Riots." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 20 Mar. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Riots>.
Satrapi,M.(2003). Persepolis the Story of a Childhood. New York: Random House.
Tea, M. (2003). Without a Net. Allison (15-20)
