Why outrage over depiction of slums in Bollywood

Okay please calm down. This isn't supposed to be a trigger post, but a conversation rather.

Believe me when I tell you that Bollywood has not explored the pitfalls of slum dwellers well enough. You wouldn't know that every morning in the slums you start the day with a bucket of water and walk a few mins to the nearest public toilet (not everyone uses rail tracks). Then you have to stand in a queue for your turn to relieve. If you're late for school/work and the wait is too long, well, you just throw all the water in a nearby open drain and head home clutching your belly and trying to fight back the excretion. It was for this problem that Ayesha Shroff made Jaggu dada to move out from his chawl (and believe me a chawl is NOT a slum. Slums are shanties. Chawls are 'building's). Almost every slum starts leaking in monsoon. So you're watching TV and suddenly you're drenched because the roof is leaking. So you fix the roof and put a bucket underneath. And keep emptying the buckets on regular intervals... The drunkards. The violent brawls. The regularity of watching blood being spilled in front of you. No matter how much I tell the middle class may never understand the perils of being a slum dweller. Unless you've stayed hungry for 2 days and after raiding the house found a few rupees to buy rice and dal, you wouldn't know how heavenly that plain food tastes.

Let's assume you are a Bihari and hear bahan*h06 instead of the tapori bhen*h06 in a Bollywood movie. Or assume you're a Gujarati and hear kem chho, majja maa. Or a Marathi and heard lav*ya. And so on. For an instant something connects you to the character, maybe subconsciously.

Now consider this, almost half (~40%) of Mumbaikars (Mumbai residents) live in slums. So 1 in 2 Mumbaikars you meet could be a slum dweller. (In reality you'll likely meet disproportionately more middle classers.) Crores of Indians live in slums. Many more are poor.

When a poor guy or a slum dweller sees his/her representation on the big screen, something somewhere touches him/her as well. I cannot explain it properly in words, but it's a sorta kinda nice feeling. Unless its an "art" tragedy.

And there are crores (tens of millions) of such guys out there.

Why does the Indian middle class so pungently hate depictions of Indian poor. I get that they feel India's image is being incorrectly portrayed to those outside India. But what about these crores and crores of poor guys who live in India. Who work their behinds off in the day to buy night's dinner. And who actually -no kidding- go to sleep hungry if there was no work in the day. They kinda sorta like their portrayals in movies.

The problem is Indian middle class starts sl*tshaming (not the right usage but bhaavnaon ko samjho) any filmmakers who portray slums or poor. And they create this invisible pressure to not portray poor India's stories. So all we see are movies made for the middle class. Thereby alienating the poorer classes who become even less interested and invested in movies. And this becomes a vicious cycle where multiplex wins over single screens.

Just look at the number of movies where protagonists were rural or poorer, just a few decades back. Compare with today where 90% characters are middle class or super rich. Why?

But do movies rightly portray the slum life? All they want to show is outer look of the slums which also isn't true..agree life in slums isn't rosy and easy but it isn't as bad as shown in depressing movies. If movies show the daily life, the struggle, bonding between the dwellers it would be better..Neel batte Sannata was one such well made movie which showed the life and not the slum. I remember there was this show Nukkad years ago and it was awesome.

People don't have a problem with showing poor people..the portrayal of poverty should be sensible.

About the outsiders..they r of n opinion that India is a country of slum dwellers, filth and dirt..They know about developing India and r well aware of its progress but will lap up whatever matches their age old opinion

its all about baLance. If the slum life and the high rise life was shown eqaully alliver itd not be a big deal. Highvrise multiplex life is a reality of many indians too and they also have problems in their life too. Indians both plough the field and spend 10 hr in medical internship in a big hospital.

but the slum life is shown in abundance n not cz they think these issues need more attention but cz foreigners eat up the india=slums poverty snakes stereotype. They have insanely singlemindedness when it comes to the east. They think china japan korea all same. India is all slums. Middle east all terrorists. And they dont like the one faced notion getting challenged cz thats change in pov ,thats mental work.Its easier to put any country in one or two characteristics wale box n spend life with less info i guess

I don't know what you're on about... People will watch a movie if it's good. Or are you saying that people who live in slums then want to pay to watch their struggles depicted on the big screen?

If you mean Slumdog millionaire I bet no slum dweller cares about that movie. And it's a rubbish movie..but it gives the rac i st white man a chance to feel better about himself. There's tonnes of articles on the white man's obsession with Indian poverty. And it's covered with such a thin veneer of altruism...I mean the pretension is so in your face it's laughable. Poverty p o rn is vrry real.

is this related to Gully boy? creating buzz for the Oscars, or? 😆

Because truth is bitter and people don't like it.

Because who would watch this movie? Middle and higher classes don't want to watch it because it makes them uncomfortable/not relatable.

Someone who is living in a slum is looking for escapist/ feel good/mindless cinema. You can see that in the last decade on which movies have done well.

A realistic, nuanced depiction of slum life is never going to get footfalls- as it would never attract sufficient paying audience would tread too close to the documentary territory.

Originally posted by: powpow

is this related to Gully boy? creating buzz for the Oscars, or? 😆

No it isn't. Honestly. But when I saw reactions to Gully Boy it did reinforce this thought that privileged Indians hate any depiction of the Indian poor.

Originally posted by: nigahen

I don't know what you're on about... People will watch a movie if it's good. Or are you saying that people who live in slums then want to pay to watch their struggles depicted on the big screen?

If you mean Slumdog millionaire I bet no slum dweller cares about that movie. And it's a rubbish movie..but it gives the rac i st white man a chance to feel better about himself. There's tonnes of articles on the white man's obsession with Indian poverty. And it's covered with such a thin veneer of altruism...I mean the pretension is so in your face it's laughable. Poverty p o rn is vrry real.

That's one bet you've lost 😆

Heights of Unemployment 🤣