Western depictions of India - Reality or Stereotypical ?

Slumdog Millionaire, White Tiger , Lion(2016) etc - whether it’s movies or TV shows , the West has always portrayed India as some extremely poverty ridden place with only shady gangsters and corrupt rich people . Do you think they are just playing on the stereotype or showing the harsh reality ?

I think its showing harsh reality

Originally posted by: 2RsFan

Slumdog Millionaire, White Tiger , Lion(2016) etc - whether it’s movies or TV shows , the West has always portrayed India as some extremely poverty ridden shithole with only shady gangsters and corrupt rich people . Do you think they are just playing on the stereotype or showing the harsh reality ?

Those three movies portray India like that because it deals with class issues. Why did Lion show India as a poverty ridden terrible place? I don't know maybe because Saroo actually lived that life of poverty and his real life story was awe-inspiring so it just had to be a book and movie.

Aravind Adiga is an Indian man who wrote an award winning book depicting Indian class issues and then an Indian film producer Mukul Deora bought the rights to that movie. Then he hired an Western director to direct it. He could've hired an Indian director for his Indian movie. It has a Hollywood stamp but it is an Indian depiction of India in my book.

Hollywood has other movies where India is shown as a beautiful and mystical land. To me it is more problematic when Western movies gloss over the realities of India and paint it as a mystical lala land. I get not everything is black and white. It's not like India is either a magical land for eat pray love or dirty slums. There are stuff in the middle as well but the West doesn't have time to make movies about other cultures doing average middle class things. It wouldn't do that for any country.

You can't depict 1+ billion people in one movie. The West picks what it wants to show, and more often than not, those stereotypes are based on reality.

Complaint about Slumdog was that it showed only one reality. White Tiger is showing many things. So what is the complaint about now? If the idea is that Holywood should make propoganda videos for India, they likely won't because that won't make them much money.

Originally posted by: Maroonporsche

Darjeeling limited ?

Haven't watched it

Originally posted by: HearMeRoar

Complaint about Slumdog was that it showed only one reality. White Tiger is showing many things. So what is the complaint about now? If the idea is that Holywood should make propoganda videos for India, they likely won't because that won't make them much money.

They don't need to make propaganda movies but is the idea that ' India = slums and criminals' a selling point in the west ?

Originally posted by: 2RsFan

They don't need to make propaganda movies but does the idea that ' India = slums and criminals' sells in the west ?

Maybe because it's hard for people outside of India to look past that. I remember being TRAUMATIZED when I first went to India as a kid. Like I actually used to have nightmares after coming back (for years) and right before my second trip. I still hate going to India, it's way too sad of a scene there.

Originally posted by: 2RsFan

They don't need to make propaganda movies but does the idea that ' India = slums and criminals' sells in the west ?

1. They will pick what sells as stories. Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was actually pretty fun. I can imagine it set in any non-Western country, not just India. Monsoon Wedding was good.

2. They will also pick award-winning cinema. Vanaprastham, an Indo-French combo, had poverty in it but was hardly about poverty. White Tiger isn't just about slums.

3. No one from Hollywood wants to make a Scam 1992 because West already has Wolf of Wall Street or Black friday. Why would they make something like that on India which none of them will relate to?

4. Indian cinema can try making something that appeals globally, say like, Parasite.

Originally posted by: Sharpener

Maybe because it's hard for people outside of India to look past that. I remember being TRAUMATIZED when I first went to India as a kid. Like I actually used to have nightmares after coming back (for years) and right before my second trip. I still hate going to India, it's way too sad of a scene there.

Yes. I know kids in my family who visited. What sticks in thie mind: poverty, heat, mosquitoes, cows on the roads.

I remember that one scene in Avengers where Banner is shown in a poverty ridden part of India...I think Kolkata. And I saw the exact opposite when I visited the city.

Crazy how Hollywood portrays their own cities as perfect, but we all know that LA, NYC, London etc have poverty striken areas, much more dangerous than India.