Success spawns uproar. Great success spawns great uproar. This certainly has been the case with Slumdog Millionaire. It may or may not win the Oscar for best picture, but it's already carried away the prize as the most hotly debated film of the season.

I'm going to set aside the question of Slumdog's cinematic merits (which I and many film critics agree are numerous) and focus on the charge that has been popping up on a number of blogs: that the movie is "poverty porn." As I understand it, this accusation boils down to three issues, all of which have misconstrued the nature of art.

These critics are angered that hordes of Pepsi-sipping, popcorn-munching, affluent Western audiences are entertained by a spectacle of India's poor struggling for survival in the slums of Mumbai. They're also upset that director Danny Boyle, a white guy, is being lauded for a film about India that just doesn't get it right, that's filled with cliches and exaggeration and people who are downright bad. And lastly, they say the film reinforces centuries-old stereotypes about India - dirt, poverty, chicanery and worse (think Macaulay, think Kipling) - and doesn't show the modern India with its economic successes, the India of the reverse brain-drain, India shining.

To answer the first criticism, I would like to point out that the film is entertaining almost as many affluent people in India as in the West - if by affluent, we mean people whose economic status is significantly better than that of the slum dwellers. And for many of them, the Dharavi slum in Mumbai is a foreign, unseen country. Literally for some, because they live in neighborhoods that, only miles away from an urban slum, are worlds apart; metaphorically for others, because painful, persistent realities tend to become invisible to us. As for being fascinated by the misadventures of characters who are beleaguered, and feeling better about our lives by contrast, isn't that part of the timeless pull of art?

As to the objection that only Indians (preferably, only Indians living in India) can truly understand the complexities of their country and show an authentic India, that, too, arises out of a misunderstanding of the nature of art. Decades of abuse from Orientalist writers who have objectified and denigrated India in order to promote an agenda of Western superiority have fostered this mind-set.

But the world is different now. It has moved past colonialism - and even post-colonialism, I dare say - into globalism. It is a world in which we can know more about each other - and hear each other's uncensored voices. Thus, it is now far more possible for artists, regardless of their race, to create a valid representation of a culture, if they have done their homework and are passionate about portraying the truth as they see it. It will not be the whole truth, particularly in the case of a roiling, complicated and contradictory culture such as India's.

But I don't think art aims at that. It aims at portraying a slice of life honestly and memorably. And if, through what we read or view, we have understood even one life better - and bettered our understanding of our own existence and our connection to others - the artist deserves our admiration and thanks.

Those who claim that Slumdog is filled with exaggerations and cliches need to remember that this is fiction. In documentaries, exact representation, uncolored by personal beliefs, might be the goal; in feature films (and fiction and painting), it isn't necessarily so. When one accuses Slumdog of exaggerations and caricatures, it is similar to accusing Van Gogh of distorting his sunflowers or M.F. Husain, one of India's foremost living artists, of not getting his horses' colors right. In Slumdog, Boyle is following the convention of the picaresque, a genre that depicts with energetic abandon the many misadventures of a hero, usually of low social class, who ultimately triumphs over a corrupt society by using his wits.

But, in fact, are the details exaggerated in the film? Ask the volunteers of Pratham, a nonprofit organization that has been working in the Dharavi slum since 1994, spreading literacy through their modest, single-room balwadis (slum schools), and they will tell you of children forced to work 12-hour factory shifts for a payment of two daily meals; children beaten by parents, employers and the police; and, yes, children orphaned, kidnapped or mutilated. And they will tell you of the amazing rescues they've performed, of children now educated, placed in safe homes, vocationally trained or entering college.

One of the aims of art is to hold up a mirror to society in the hope that uproar will lead to change. Charles Dickens did this successfully - novels such as David Copperfield led to child-labor reform in Victorian England. Sarat Chandra Chatterjee's early 20th-century novels, such as Palli Samaj, inspired a movement in Bengal that bettered the condition of widows.

Perhaps Slumdog will be the catalyst for a similar transformation, one that will make India shine for more of its people. It is certainly possible. Perhaps, even, it is written. But that depends on what we, the viewers and the world, choose to do next.





Third world countries have rich people and a large amount of poor people and a small middle class or no middle class at all. India's middle class is growing but it will be interesting to see if the growth will be stopped by the huge amounts of corruption in politics and business. Our country is great because it has a large and strong middle class. Once the middle class in our country shrinks, it will be hard to get it back. The rich have much more power when there is only rich and poor so they prefer that things stay the same (think Mexico). Obama's "stimulus" plan will pull down the middle class, not lift up the poor people.