| In my cultural world, two major events defined the beginning of the year 2009 — the Obama inaugural and the movie Slumdog Millionaire.
Both events are meaningfully connected in the popular culture. There is a synergy between the improbable victory of Obama in the presidential elections and the Hollywood/Bollywood rags to riches caper that went on to win the Oscar for the best picture of the year.
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| Barack Obama, a half-Kenyan American, from Hawaii via Indonesia and Chicago has taken on the mantle of the first African American and the first global president of the United States | Both stories are about outsiders who come from the fringes of society yet manage to prevail against all the odds. Obama, a half-Kenyan American, from Hawaii via Indonesia and Chicago, has taken on the mantle of the first African American and the first global president of the United States.
The key protagonist in Slumdog Millionaire is a young man, named Jamal, an orphan Muslim minority from one of the poorest slums in Mumbai, India. He not only manages to get on the popular game show, Who wants to be a Millionaire, but to the dismay of the game show host and the local police authorities, is able to correctly answer all the questions to take home the coveted prize.
Both narratives are also about the power of globalization. Obama’s win represents the triumph of the American brand of multiculturalism at home and abroad, won on the backs of the hard-fought victories of the civil rights movement and the emerging post-racial world.
Slumdog Millionaire represents the flush of new capital pouring into big metro areas like Mumbai, extolling the virtues of American greed and the free market economy, over the two thousand years old Hindu work-ethic encapsulated in the Bhagavad Gita, which professes that one should perform one’s duties (dharma) as self-less action (karma) and not to be motivated by the fruits of one’s labor or profits.
To the disappointment of many educated and diaspora Indians, who are part and parcel of the emerging “incredible India,” it is clear that old stereotypes are hard to change. In the movie, India continues to be depicted as “a vast public latrine,” as V. S. Naipaul said in An Area of Darkness almost 50 years earlier, but at least now it’s part of the back office of American corporations and other multinational firms.
Finally, both Obama and Slumdog represent a wave of populism that surfaces in hard economic times. Notwithstanding the hard-boiled film-making of Danny Boyle, the English/Irish director well-known for making gritty films about the downtrodden, the story of the orphan slum dwellers touches American hearts, because the global economy is in an abysmal dump. Thus, a brutal yet beautiful film makes us appreciate how blessed we really are as Americans and how good we really have it.
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| The key protagonist in Slumdog Millionaire, named Jamal, an orphan Muslim minority from one of the poorest slums in Mumbai, not only manages to get on the popular game show Who wants to be a Millionaire, but to the dismay of the gameshow host and the local police authorities takes home the coveted prize. | Observing the populist elation at the Obama victory, Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times, “We’ll soon remember that the country is in a deep ditch, and that we turned to the black guy not only because we hoped he would lift us up, but because he looked like the strongest leader to dig us out.”
However, populism can easily turn into rage against its chosen heroes. The actors in Slumdog Millionaire learned this when they returned home from the Oscars to angry mobs of slum dwellers who were upset at being depicted as a colony of sub-human species. Recently, the Obama dawg millionaires have not been spared the populist outrage either at their perceived lack of connection with the American people over the banking crisis and the dolling out of whopping AIG bonuses.
And therein may be the perils for Obama as well. |
