Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Slumdog Phenomenon
- SLUMDOG AND THE NATION
- SLUMDOG AND THE SLUM
- SLUMDOG AND BOLLYWOOD
- SLUMDOG'S RECEPTIONS
- Chapter 10 Why the Sun Shines on Slumdog
- Chapter 11 Slumdog Celebrities
- Chapter 12 Slumdog Millionaire and the New Middlebrow
- Chapter 13 Slumdog Comprador: Coming to Terms with the Slumdog Phenomenon
- Chapter 14 The Life-Cycle of Slumdog Millionaire on the Web
- Conclusion: Jai Who?
- Select Bibliography
- Films Cited
- Index
Chapter 10 - Why the Sun Shines on Slumdog
from SLUMDOG'S RECEPTIONS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
- Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Slumdog Phenomenon
- SLUMDOG AND THE NATION
- SLUMDOG AND THE SLUM
- SLUMDOG AND BOLLYWOOD
- SLUMDOG'S RECEPTIONS
- Chapter 10 Why the Sun Shines on Slumdog
- Chapter 11 Slumdog Celebrities
- Chapter 12 Slumdog Millionaire and the New Middlebrow
- Chapter 13 Slumdog Comprador: Coming to Terms with the Slumdog Phenomenon
- Chapter 14 The Life-Cycle of Slumdog Millionaire on the Web
- Conclusion: Jai Who?
- Select Bibliography
- Films Cited
- Index
Summary
I originally wrote this soon after the Oscar awards in 2009, hounded by two questions: Why Slumdog Millionaire? Why now? This essay examines the recent success of Slumdog Millionaire (hereafter Slumdog) by undertaking a contextual reading of the film based on its expected appeal for American audiences (where the author resides). It recommends that we read Slumdog as the arrival of a specific kind of cultural hybridity, a process begun in earlier texts. It then outlines how such a reading of hybridity must be placed within three interrelated contexts of American political, economic and social life that helped the film achieve its place in the sun.
Slumdog garnered numerous accolades. Journalistic accounts of its success typically focused on its feel-good storyline, its effervescent music score (by A. R. Rahman, one of India's most prolific and creative composers) and the freshness of its unknown cast of actors as primary factors in its success. Built into such accounts was a narrative of implausibility, the rags to riches story that has taken the film from straight-to-DVD distribution to the Oscars. These were all important elements but, I suggest, proximate causes, not ultimate ones. In what follows, I suggest some entry points for a more complete discussion of the film.
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- Information
- The 'Slumdog' PhenomenonA Critical Anthology, pp. 143 - 148Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2013
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