Slumdog Millionaire - Weekly Blog

A couple of weeks ago, the class was presented with a small clip from the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire'. At first, I did not know what to expect from the movie, but looked forward to watching it after hearing so many positive stories and reviews, and watching it win so many Oscars.
After seeing a short clip in class, I am now very eager to watch the entire movie. A young boy grows up in the slums of India and is a contestant on the 'Who wants to be a millionaire' show and ends up winning big. This leads people to become suspicious as to why the young boy knew the answers to such questions, and is targeted as having cheated his way through the game. I believe that this movie was such a big hit because this young boys life does a complete 360 from growing up in the slums of India to winning big and becoming rich.
After the clip, the class shared their thoughts on the movie and discussed questions related to the film. One thing that was mentioned in class was the stereotypes that were potentially represented in the movie. All the men were portrayed as being extremely mean, always shown yelling and being very violent, while the women were shown to always be very hard at work. Furthermore, the children in the movie were always screaming and being brats to one another in the street, and India itself was shown to be an extremely dirty and poverty stricken country. Although these stereotypes are clearly identified in the movie, individuals in class were discussing the reality to some of these stereotypes, and how many areas in India are just that - living in extreme poverty. It was interesting to hear different people's thoughts about the movie, and felt that it was a great class discussion.