With his movie 28 Years Later in the news, Director Danny Boyle said in Variety magazine recently,
“Would not direct “Slumdog Millionaire” today because of “cultural appropriation” and “I’d be looking for a young Indian filmmaker to shoot it.” “We wouldn’t be able to make that now. And that’s how it should be. It’s time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we’ve left on the world… At the time it felt radical. We made the decision that only a handful of us would go to Mumbai. We’d work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture. But you’re still an outsider. It’s still a flawed method. That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be. I mean, I’m proud of the film, but you wouldn’t even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn’t even get financed. Even if I was involved, I’d be looking for a young Indian filmmaker to shoot it.”
Which in reality means to have a brown faced subservient Indian to push the same Hinduphobic hate propaganda as he put in that movie, like Dev Patel, who also starred in the same movie, and whose recent movie flop “Monkey Man” was full of Hinduphobic narratives.
This is a good example of how historical racism and religious stereotypes are often updated in politically correct language, for example, where in the past they called you “Dark cholera spreading, pagan thuggee, satan- idol worshipping, heathen hindoo savages sacrificing humans to Ma Kali” ect, to now in present times going through the PC washing machine and filter it changes to “Global Hindutva, Hindu Nationalists and Right Wing Hindu Brahminical supremcists ”
Remember, even Danny Boyle initially considered a career as a priest. He even took steps to pursue that path, applying to transfer to a seminary at the age of 14, but a priest warned him against it. Even though he later rebelled against his “religion”, don’t mean much as being an atheist or a church goer, the mindset remains the same, proving you can leave the church, but the church don’t leave you that fast which is why left wing atheist or right wing religious have the same reaction to those pagan hindu savages.
But then, why blame him alone when even in his movie, like Dev Patel, there were other Indians with “Hindu” names who were so proud to be given roles, proving again how subservient, embarrassing garbage that this wide circle of Indians are with a massive inferiority complex, where if a ‘Gora Sahib’ said his poo is more better and superior to Indian food, these same Indians would be lining up to eat it proudly while Hindus for Human Rights would be at the forefront calling Masala Dosa or Channa Bhatura as Hindutva food.
When Dr Koenraad Elst met Vikas Swarup , the author of the book Slumdog Millionaire, which the movie is based on, he asked him a few questions about his views on the movie.
“I asked Vikas Swarup whether he was disappointed or otherwise not so happy with the changes Danny Boyle had made while turning the novel Q & A into the movie Slumdog Millionaire. He acknowledged that changes had been made. Upon signing the contract, the representative of the movie crew had promised him that “the soul of the novel” would be respected, a sure way of saying that its body would be distorted.
But he took this as normal and fairly insignificant. In reality, the changes were highly consequential and significant for Boyle’s agenda and perhaps for what western audiences have come to expect from a film located in India.”
He explained how he had named the protagonist Ram Mohammed Thomas, representing every street kid in India, while Boyle had changed this into Jamal Malik, a fully Muslim name. He communalized the plot, with Jamal’s mother being killed by Hindu communal rioters and a Rama impersonation presiding over the violence. Boyle turned the protagonist into a poor hapless Muslim and the Hindus into the bad guys.
In this context, blinding a child-beggar to make him earn more by singing a Hindu religious song (a practice of which even the missionary sister Jeanne Devos says she has never come across an actual case during decades of social work in Mumbai), and of course not a Muslim song, adds to the image of Hinduism as gruesome. Briefly, he turned an innocent story into an anti-Hindu story.
The fact that the writer, as a somewhat secularized Hindu, representative for dozens or even hundreds of millions of similar Hindus, fails to see the hostile intention and the very partisan effect of this manipulation, says a lot about the silly and ultimately suicidal mentality prevalent among Hindus. Only a community of sleep-walkers could willingly come to the humiliating situation of the Hindus in India and the flood of anti-Hindu slander in the media. – Dr Koenraad Elst
Actually, we don’t care which ‘race’ makes the movies about India or Hindus but as long as they stop promoting the same extreme hinduphobic hate they’ve been doing for 100s of years. Even now, is there any Western movie or series that’s ever shown Hindus as good? Hardly any.
Because all we often see is the same extreme Hinduphobic hate that’s rooted in the same prejudices, but worse is still allowed as normal, while it would never happen against other indigenous non white people.
Movies and serials need to be made on how the Hinduphobic narratives have been going on for 100s of years till present times, otherwise we are sure Danny Boyle will be coming out with 28 days of Hindutva Zombie Rage next.
Slumdog Millionaire was a propaganda hit job! Vamsee Juluri | Sangam Talks
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