Comments on: Slumdog Millionaire Star’s Home Demolished

By: joshywashington

joshywashington — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:48:35 +0000

This is terrible, and a testament to a blood sucking entertainment system…but I cringe at the focus on this one kid, when thousands if not millions of people face similar dire situations daily. Ah, but we know his face. We cheered his success, naturally e should be elevated above his poor peers…right?
He was used, no different form the people we use to make our Nikes and ipods.

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By: Shreya

Shreya — Sat, 16 May 2009 19:10:15 +0000

Same story with the film “Salaam Bombay”…many of the child stars just ended up worse off. If you take a kid who’s seen nothing but the slums and put him in the spotlight for a while only to abandon him later it’s probably going to end up hurting more. These movies become so popular that the child stars are catapulted to great fame which even professionals can’t handle. Sinking back into obscurity must be so difficult…

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By: Jacquie Kubin

Jacquie Kubin — Sat, 16 May 2009 01:29:04 +0000

I would like to see the children in the movie given help, but it would seem to me that the studio, directors, actors and all those that made a profit from this film would be doing “something” to change the circumstances of all those that live in the slums of Mumbai.

Director Boyle has made promises, there is a trust fund, apartments being made available, the children are going to school. Claims throwing money at it is not the solution. But too little has been done (http://tinyurl.com/o2xtl4) as is obvious that this young persons “home” was demolished before he could remove his belongings, or even his pet kittens and hen.

They opened the viewing audience’s eyes to what is really unacceptable and then turned a blind on it once they had used these people for their benefit. I know that I could not have slept at night after returning those children back to the slums after they spent those days in Hollywood. You don’t miss what you don’t know. Its like flying first class. Once you have done so, its hard to climb back to coach. I find this very, very sad.

And have to wonder why nothing is being done? The film earned over $162 million. A few of those millions could not be sent to this area to help these people, all of them, improve their life conditions.

How greedy, how stingy can we be?

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By: Julie Schwietert

Julie Schwietert — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:14:35 +0000

A few weeks back, I spoke with a Brazilian film director about this same issue. Long before “City of God’ achieved the same kind of wild popularity that “Slumdog Millionaire” enjoyed, there was a movie called “Pixote,” and the directors went into the favelas to find kids who could play “authentic” “characters”… because they weren’t characters. I don’t know how successful the movie was commercially (it was released in 1981), but it was a profoundly powerful film. A few years after watching it, I read an essay about the film in which I read that most of the kids who’d been recruited for the film had been killed. Their circumstances never changed. I’m not sure that the directors/producers of these kinds of films have responsibility for lifting kids out of poverty, but if they’re utilizing them for commercial success, there’s something that feels really shady about just packing up the cameras and going home after the film’s released and leaving those kids in the same conditions.

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By: Hal

Hal — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:13:06 +0000

And what about all his neighbors who don’t even have a hope of receiving assistance?

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By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:50:12 +0000

It’s pretty messed up that these kids haven’t been able to make enough money to get themselves some decent housing, while the studio and the rest of the actors are surely making plenty of cash.

I’m also wondering why the government of India promised to put them both and their families in better housing after the movie won all of those oscars, yet haven’t done so.

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By: Carlo

Carlo — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:24:19 +0000

I’ve recently finished Shantaram, in which the author talks a lot about the slums of Mumbai (and the demolishing of illegal shacks). Seeing this really makes it real.

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