The Post Slumdog Millionaire World Is On A Race To The Worst
More terrible news for the children of Slumdog Millionaire, of course.
Woof.
Well, this is what happens when you exploit people for "art" and, more importantly, "profit." It turns families against each other and ruins communities. But wasn't that Bollywood number at the end magical?!
As much as I did not like Slumdog Millionaire and thought that it was a glorified afterschool special that used abject poverty as a colorful-but-meaningless backdrop, it's the aftermath of India's Crash that is the real bummer. Duh. That movie should apologize for what it's done. And i mean a real apology, not a Bonus Feature on a Special Edition DVD apology.
You know who else should apologize, though? This fucking newscaster. We're being shown horrible images of women fighting in the streets over the future of a child whose father is rumored to have tried to sell her on the black market (although I doubt that), and this guy can't even pronounce his g's? Show some respect! "Slappin' and chokin' and clawin' at each other." GOLLY. I know that FOX News is jus' folks, but Jes' Christ.
How about just everyone apologizes. (Via Dlisted.)
Posted by Gabe at 2:30 PM in Backlashes, Where Are They Now?
Tags: Child Actors | Danny Boyle | Fox News | Poverty | Rubina Ali | Slumdog Millionaire
I never thought I'd think this but I think the lesson here is "Next time hire real child actors with real cynical Hollywood stage parents."
Score = 6
Just wait, someone will come up with the idea for a sequel. Ugh.
Score = -1
Hey, don't blame the newscaster, he's just reading the Teleprompter. Remember: "It is written."
FAIL.
Score = 0
Come on. The movie didn't "do" this. The kids had an opportunity and it was a good opportunity. It could have led to future work in India's thriving movie industry. Maybe it still can. It had some unfortunate (and mostly unforeseeable) consequences, but how is that the movie's fault?
By the way, Susan Boyle is also completely unequipped to deal with her fame and now has any number of people looking to exploit her. Does that mean she shouldn't have been given a chance?
Score = 21
WIN.
Tired of bullshit hipster logic:
If I didn't discover it and it is popular, then I will hate it and give the most sensationalist reason my fellow hipster discourse has provided me.
Fucking assholes. Keep claiming that 400 Blows and Wild Strawberries are your favorite movies before someone else likes it and you subsequently have to hate it.
Score = 2
Good comment. Very critical.
Score = 0
it's just ironic that a film that owes the majority of it's emotional impact to rubbing our faces in the horrors of the exploitation of these kids didn't see (and plan for) the potential for their real-life exploitation, despite the fact that they live in the midst of circumstances that are exactly the same as the characters they played. giving a modest sum of money to parents who have been ground to dust by their abject poverty doesn't guarantee a trickle down of amazing opportunity for the kids. why would we assume that because they have the door cracked for them into a new world that ISN'T flooded with feces that they would have the ability to take advantage of it?
i also think that comparing these kids to susan boyle is really disingenuous. susan boyle is an adult who has had a lifetime of access to information that would prepare her, at least on some level, for the shock of sudden fame. she would only have to netflix any number of movies, watch a zillion 'e! true hollywood stories' and 'behind the music' episodes, and still be infinitely better prepared for her fame than the majority of third world kids. it's not an intelligence issue, it's an access to information issue.
that certainly doesn't guarantee that susan boyle will avoid exploitation or that the slumdog kids will be exploited, but the deck is massively stacked in SB's favor and i think we all know it, if only because the depths to which her exploitation could sink her are a fuckload higher up than those poor kids. it's unlikely anyone would try to sell her into slavery or something, whereas that kind of thing isn't out of the realm of possibility for those kids.
Score = -2
Who the fuck said they would be guaranteed amazing opportunity? None of us are guaranteed shit. I said they're in a better position for opportunity than they would have been had they not been chosen to act in the movie. Yes, they could be exploited, but those kids have ALWAYS been at risk for ALL KINDS of exploitation. The movie didn't create anything that wasn't already there.
I see two likely possibilities for them: either their (modest) fame fades and their lives continue as before, or it gets parlayed into future work for them and their lives improve. The filmmakers don't owe them lifelong support and protection, I'm sorry. That's not how things work.
As for Susan Boyle, I think the difference is one of degree, not of kind. She is not a worldly person, she's had limited life experience, and she had learning difficulties growing up. I see her as extremely fragile.
Score = -1
The fact that this was treated as a relatively light fluff piece, delivered in a joking tone, sums up everything wrong with Fox News.
Shut it all down, everyone report to Terrible Person Prison now.
Score = 19
Gabe is 100% right, poor people in slums, especially 3rd world ones, don't deserve to be in movies, because they are lesser people and can't handle it. Maybe their brains aren't fully formed developed? You see, Gabe recognizes that this is INCREDIBLY exploitative and so, like, wrong, while the Damon Weaver phenomenon is perfectly acceptable because sure his cuteness is being incredibly exploited in a very similar fashion, but he's a poor first worlder, so it's different (also black).
Score = -5
Uh, what? I don't think Gabe said the poors were exploiting themselves; he said they were being exploited by people who turn others' real poverty into their own real money. Or maybe I missed the opint.
Score = 8
Good comment. Very critical.
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"Smackdown"? Ugh. He sounded like he was channeling Kenneth the Page with all that G-droppin'. Except without the kindness/compassion Kenneth would have had.
Score = 1
thank god, i thought i was the ony one who didnt like slumdog millionaire. Milk, Benjamin Button, and Dark Knight were all much better
Score = -7
Milk sucked
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FOX seemed completely reluctant to even report on them, rather having them remain as inspirational memories from that one movie way back in 2008. We should just petition jolie, and Madonna to go ahead and scoop them up and be done with it.
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And saying they should apologize for the movie is ignorant. The ghetto wasn't doing so great before the crack Gabe.
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I'm sorry Slumdog Children. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. No...look at me. It's NOT your fault!
Score = 4
Yeah, ive yet to see this ,but i know someone who walked out of the movie b/c the way they treated kids. This is pretty sad to see :(
Score = -2