Survival

Kristin DeWinter

ENGL 495 ESM, Wexler

7 May 2012

Survival

            In America, we watch movies like Slumdog Millionaire and we marvel at how the characters must conquer their circumstances to survive.  We become grateful for our own lives as we watch the protagonists, Salim and Jamal, struggle to find the resources they need after their mother is killed and can no longer provide for them.  As the movie progresses, we feel hope for the slight chance that there will be a happy ending—that Jamal and Salim will rekindle their relationship as brothers and that the love story  hidden amongst the other subjects will come to a dreamy close.  And as the movie ends, we are left with the uplifting feeling that can only come from the notion that the “American Dream” still exists and can still be executed the same as it ever was. 

The American Dream is this idea that regardless of the social or financial stature that an individual was innately part of, he or she could move up in an American society with hard work and achievement.  In his essay, “Where Did the Future Go?”, Randy Martin discusses capitalism and the American Dream, stating that “the fortunate would be freed from work in the form of retirement and leave the earth secure in the knowledge that their kids would do better than they had” (1).  The less mentioned, but more conspicuous part of the American Dream is “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” simply due to the capitalist society that praises the hard-working and able-bodied persons who do what needs to be done by means of survival.  Danny Boyle’s Academy Award Winning film Slumdog Millionaire displays the epitome of a capitalist society and how the wedge driven between upper and lower classes can greatly affect what it means to survive.

Today’s capitalist economy praises the proletariat; however, the workforce is losing control.  Not too long ago, laborers could go on strike if conditions or wages were poor; business owners could not afford to let workers go and therefore had to adhere to their demands.  But the American business sector has changed: workers no longer have control because outsourcing has allowed for cheap labor (Harvey).  If workers go on strike because they want higher wages and better working conditions, that business owner can seek employees from other countries and hire them at half the salary: “Corporations could threaten plant closures, and risk––and usually win––strikes when necessary” (Harvey 53).  As a result of outsourcing for cheaper labor, there are fewer jobs for those at home.  Because of this, when Jamal briefly covers the phone-line for a friend in Slumdog Millionaire, and is forced to talk to a customer, he lies about his location and tells her he is “right down the street from you” instead of in India.  The concept of outsourcing is present in the film, as is the potential controversy surrounding this business strategy.  David Harvey, in his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, says this marks the “the momentous shift towards greater social inequality and the restoration of economic power to the upper class” (26).   The poor remain poor and the gap between the upper and lower classes gets progressively larger. 

In Slumdog Millionaire, Jamal and Salim belong to the “slums” of Mumbai, India.  Because the people of Mumbai have such little wages, money is extremely valued.  An example of this is shown in the film when we see Salim charging people to use the public outhouse.  Later in that same scene, despite his brother’s malicious and cunning attempts, Jamal receives an autograph from his favorite television star.  Salim, in an act of greed and perhaps jealousy, sells Jamal’s cherished autographed photo for the money he’s offered.  For Salim and Jamal, this is what it takes to survive.  Because they belong to the lowest class in society, the boys must do whatever it takes to gain money and security.  They join Maman’s orphan mill in order to receive food and shelter each day.  When they discover that Maman has mal intentions, the boys run away from this lifestyle and into a vagabond’s where they lie, cheat, and steal to survive. 

The expanding gap between the lower class in India and the upper class in America is displayed when Jamal is held responsible for an American couple’s car getting stripped.  The driver begins beating him and tells the startled couple: You wanted to see India—well here it is.  The couple urges the driver to stop the beating and shows Jamal the “American way” by handing him a one hundred dollar bill.  Upper class American citizens can afford to essentially throw away one hundred dollars, while lower class Indians are forced to swindle their way into any small fortune at all.  This wedge that’s being pushed between the upper and lower classes is clearly defined.  Salim joins a gang run by Javed, the mob boss of India, in order to make a life for himself that’s better than the one he had.  Jamal, on the other hand, is stuck in lower class delivering tea to outsourced telemarketers.  The only way for him to cross the swelling gap between classes is to essentially “get lucky.”  Jamal wins the Indian version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and is able to live the rags to riches American Dream ironically due to his experiences as a member of the lower class.

Slumdog Millionaire displays the means for survival and how this varies between classes.  While the rich get richer by means of outsourcing and global expansion, the poor remain impoverished.  Salim is shot while voluntarily submerged in a bathtub full of the one thing that consistently mattered to him: money.  Jamal is able to live the American Dream in India and change his financial stature for the better.  For Jamal, living as he did in the economy he was raised in has proved beneficial.  Not only did he fight for survival in a capitalist society and then win a game show because of it, but he may also be able to remain a member of the upper class due to this form of economy.   

Works Cited

Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford Univ., 2007. Print.

Martin, Randy. "Where Did the Future Go?" Logos 5.1. Logosjournal.com. Logos Journal, Winter 2006. Web. 07 May 2012. <http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_5.1/martin.htm>.

Slumdog Millionaire.  Dir. Danny Boyle.  Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2008