"Commercial for Poverty"
I'm with David Denby, who wrote in The New Yorker about "Slumdog Millionaire:"
"... every surface and texture shine glamorously, including the piles of garbage that Jamal and his brother live amongst. Boyle has created what looks like a jumpy, hyper-edited commercial for poverty -- he uses the squalor and violence touristically, as an aspect of the fabulous."
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Susan Brown says:
Yes! A year ago, I got a
Yes! A year ago, I got a save-the-date engagement announcement for a clean and shiny young relative, who with her equally clean and shiny fiance was dressed in 'street clothes' and posed in front of gang graffiti on an overpass. It took me weeks to figure out what bothered me about that picture but finally I got it--it was poverty and violence as a 'theme,' these two clean and shiny and well-fed young people posing as though they were tourists at a wild animal park. I knew they felt no common humanity with people who lived in that neighborhood, and so took down the picture and tore it up. Susan
Judith Tannenbaum says:
Thanks
Thanks,Susan. My work life has been primarily sharing poetry with public school children and state prisoners and I feel what you describe here completely. Judith
jitu rajgor says:
new
Hi Judith,
i practice medicine in down-town area of fifth largest city of India.I have never heard children thrown out of a running train as a punishment for stealing 'paratha' [Indian bread] as shown in this film, nor i know of police chasing poor children on bike. This all is melodrama. There are lot more important issues about India and about this world too. Using poverty as a commodity is not at all an intelligence.
Judith Tannenbaum says:
Thanks, Jitu
Thank you for writing and sharing these examples. I agree completely with what you write about "poverty as commodity."