The white policy at the Oscars
With Mother India, Salaam Bombay, Lagaan failing to make it to the awards amongst the Oscars, after being nominated, there is a question that comes to the mind and that is whether none of this film deserved the Oscar.
As far as Lagaan was concerned, Aamir himself put in a lot of effort to promote his
film amongst the whites.
And I believe, after watching Lagaan, many Indians were expecting an Oscar for it, but
it did come.
It is because a policy of the whites has been in practice since a long time. And the
policy is this:
"Do not fulfill their needs. Give them free gifts and make it a habit in them."
The words "their" and "them" refers to us Indians.
To put it in Hindi,
"Zaroorat puri mat karo. Free Gifts ki aadat dalva do"
This is the formula that has been used by them to do business since a long long time.
With the current example where India won 3 Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire, this formula and the principle comes into light.
Add to this, the film Slumdog Millionaire was shot by a white man himself. And giving
this award to us is a way of telling us Indians,
"It is we who call the shots and then you get name, fame and progress."
even i feel dat slumdog has nothing gr8 in it 2 get 8 oscars, its promoting poverty in india across d world!!
ReplyDeletei guess other nominated movies were far away better than dis 1!!
full marks to author for clearly expressing d thoughts!
I almost agree with u siddhesh but, the work of the indians in the film should not be ignored..
ReplyDeleteand i must say A.R.Rehman has produced far better music earlier than he did for slumdog millionaire...
this 'free gifting' happened earlier for miss world/miss universe i think..just to open a new market for international cosmetic brands...
nice blog!!
rale saheb goryanwar kadaadale..
ReplyDeletejokes apart, I have a different view about the controversy behind slumdog millionaire. I think showing slums and poverty of india was a requirement of script because the story is about a guy who came from a slum. However The director chose the particular script just to show india in bad light is quite illogical and unacceptable. Sadly overall tone of the controversy supported the latter.
But you have made an interesting observation. That it can be a part of white policy. When indian movies which were far better than slumdog millionaire were rejected and slumdog millionaire was acclaimed at the oscars; A common indian mind starts thinking on other plausible reasons.
I personally think it wasn't such a great movie, surely not better than mother india, salaam bombay and lagaan. But the success of the movie and oscars have shown one thing to the filmmakers that India is not only a huge market for hollywood movies but it also provides you a ground to make a film which is as good(in standards of quality of film making process) as other hollywood movies.
We cannot deny the possibility that Hollywood wants their filmakers to focus on India as a next market and thats why they selected 'slumdog millionaire' as a best motion picture. But extending your thoughts to the point when you say
"this award to us is a way of telling us Indians,
It is we who call the shots and then you get name, fame and progress."
is a lil too much. you need to relax here. No one except Danny Boyle has got name, fame and progress from slumdog. You might not be aware that A R Rehman is a big name in Hollywood already, much before slumdog. So its like a bunch of white guys appreciating a movie made by a white guy and the black guys who helped him making his film are also getting their part of reward. You are letting down your own people by not recognizing their efforts and saying that the oscars given to them were free gifts. (this might not be the best shot of AR Rehman but SM's music was way better than other nominated films, and so was the screenplay, editing and script)
Lets just accept that slumdog millionaire was intentionally awarded at the oscars to open a new market for hollywood movies. But can we deny the truth that 'people' liked the movie. We can not, and it would remain true even if the movie was not recognized at oscars.
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