No amount of thick Indian accents or Pussycat Dolls in bindis will make it Bollywood, says Amina Ali
2008’s Slumdog Millionaire went from a straight-to-DVD failure to a critically acclaimed Oscar winning ‘success.’
Yet for South Asians up and down the country, including myself, the film has become just another stereotype. All my life, it’s been used as a stick to beat me with and just added to the typical stereotypes of Asians being violent, angry and dirty. It even gets to the point where the white people around me assume they know the whole of South Asia better than me, because they watched a two-hour fictional film made by a guy from Radcliffe.
Growing up, we had a ‘Bollywood’ dance class every year from primary school until the end of secondary school. Taught by white women with no rhythm, what transpired was an hour of ‘screwing the lighbulb’ and ‘posting the letters.’ Would you like to guess what song became the backing track to these masterpieces of dance? Jai Ho. Not even the original. The Pussycat Doll version, which borderlines on cultural appropriation. No one wants to see Scherzinger in a sari.
It got to the point in my teen years where those around me would claim to ‘love Bollywood,’ yet admitted to only ever watching Slumdog Millionaire. Ah yes, the classic Bollywood film directed by Danny Boyle and produced by Christian Colson. I actually hate it more than I’m letting on. I hate it so much that I won’t even utter the name in social circles, for fear that I’ll summon the gaggle of dance teachers from my childhood as they continuously screech Jai Ho heeyah heeyah in my ear.
The film is British. Plain, boring, flavourless, just like spotted dick. No amount of thick Indian accents, mediocre actors or Pussycat Dolls in bindis will make it Bollywood. Stop assuming that this film is the be all and end all to Indian cinema. It’s like when white men make curry but completely forget the masala, chilli powder, turmeric, bay leaves and cardamom. Then they claim to make a ‘killer curry.’
Slumdog Millionaire is like the chicken tikka masala of curries. Tolerated, sometimes forgotten by the Asians, but overly adored by the British.
