When I first saw Shakespeare in Love, god how I adored it. I went to see it two times in one day. And then I’m pretty sure I saw it a third time after that. The premise was just so clever! The dialogue so witty! Everything fit together so perfectly! It was utterly and completely impossible to duplicate. It was a feel-good movie that catered to smart people.
I basked in its glow for a couple of weeks. Then it started to pick up steam in the press, and with the public. By the time it won the Academy Award for Best Picture, I was so done with it. The premise was just too clever. The dialogue too witty. Everything fit together too perfectly. It was utterly and completely superficial. It was a feel-good movie that flattered people who wanted to feel like they were better than the groundlings in the pit because they actually “get” Shakespeare.
And so I find myself reliving the same pattern with Slumdog Millionaire. I absolutely loved it when I first saw it. The premise was so clever! The setting so gritty! Everything fit together so perfectly, etc, etc, etc. In the theater where I saw it, when the movie ended, there was a moment of silence. So I started clapping… and soon, the whole audience was clapping too.
Funny thing is, whenever I told people about it, I would point out its flaws even as I gushed. “It was WONDERFUL! I mean, it kind of bothered me how the romantic leads grew up from dark-skinned kids into light-skinned model types! And how it reinforced the fate narrative that’s fucked up India through the caste system for thousands of years! But it’s just so clever, the way the game show fits in with the story!”
Needless to say, now that it’s won Best Picture… Well. Did I say I ever liked it? I deny your slander uncategorically. It’s cotton candy. It’s the same old crappy story about people who succeed because the sky fairies want them to. And it uses the beautifully trashy slum setting to get in under the defenses of people (like me) who would normally know better. Damn. I led the clapping. Man, I feel lame now.
I really dug Mitu Sengupta’s criticisms:
It is no secret that Slumdog is meant to reflect life in Dharavi, the vast sprawl of slums at the heart of Mumbai. The film depicts Dharavi as a feral wasteland, with little evidence of order, community or compassion. Other than the children, the no-one is even remotely well-intentioned…
But nothing is further from the truth. Dharavi teems with dynamism, and is a hub of small-scale industries, whose estimated annual turnover is between US$50 to $100 million. Nor is Dharavi bereft of governing structures and productive social relations. Residents have built strong collaborative networks, often across potentially volatile lines of caste and religion….
In the end, Slumdog presents a profoundly dehumanizing view of the poor, with all its troubling political implications. Since there are no internal resources, and none capable of constructive voice or action, all “solutions” must arrive externally. After a harrowing life in an anarchic wilderness, salvation finally comes to Jamal in the form of an imported quiz-show, which he succeeds in thanks only to “destiny.” Must other unfortunates, like the stoic Jamal, patiently await their own destinies of rescue by a foreign hand? While this self-billed “feel good movie of the year” may help us “feel good” that we are among the lucky ones on earth, it delivers a patronizing, colonial and ultimately sham statement on social justice for those who are not.
Yeah. What she said.
And also that I’m a shallow wannabe hipster who can’t handle liking things that other people like.
Though that said, I still like Jackie Chan.
I still like “Shakespeare In Love”. It’s more a send-up of the mythology around Shakespeare than a direct reflection of his body of work, so I would actually say it’s more populist than “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”.
Great, one more person who likes Shakespeare in Love. Now I’ll never be allowed to like it again.
Yay! Can we start a club where we pretentiously hate on things everyone else likes? And then we can talk about things we like, and start hating those things, too, because other people like them! This’ll be so much fun, except not so much fun that we have to start hating it!
Content: I was reluctant to see Slumdog Millionaire, not exactly because of that effect, but just because an uplifting heartwarming feel-good romantic romance that’s really about love (did I mention it was a romance? Danny Boyd really likes saying that) set in the slums of India and made by and for white people sounds really, really problematic. And I’m… glad to see that it is. So I can be all like, I do not like this popular thing, of course.
While we’re hating and navel-gazing, you know what else I hate that’s really popular? Stuff White People Like. White people, however, really like it. In fact, all the white people I know like it so much more than any of the things actually featured on the site (Ugly sweater parties? Seriously?), he should just post “Stuff White People Like #122 – Stuff White People Like,” and let the thing eat itself. Except, of course, there’s a book out, which means the monster can’t really be stuffed back into the bottle. The book will be purchased by ironically racist hipsters to demonstrate their detached ironic non-racism. And then there will be a book tour, where the white writer can talk to all his white fans about how white they all are, and oh my god have you ever heard Frank Warren talk? It will be so. much. worse.
Having never seen either Shakespeare in Love or Slumdog Millionaire, I can’t weigh in about the merits or lack thereof of either one. This would be because I sail through life mostly unaware of what other people like or dislike about nearly everything associated with pop culture. I am always dead last in terms of noticing any trend in TV, movies, music, fashion, even books, much as I love ‘em. This usually results in me liking or disliking things with no association at all to whether or not anybody else likes or dislikes ‘em. Admit it, Quin. You’re so jealous of my total obliviousness!
Violet: I visited that site once. Ran away as fast as I could. Because I realized that, if I kept on reading it, soon I wouldn’t be able to like anything.
By the way, I think our blog just started eating itself, cuz I’m pretty sure that Stuff White People Like has been on our blogroll for, like, two years or something.
Lisa: Obliviousness?? That’s no fun! You’ll never get that blissful “jaded hipster’s high” if you don’t even know which popular things you ought to mindlessly shun!
Quin, if you keep up that attitude you will find very soon that the only thing left for you to like will be Hasselhoff-movies…
And Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan will ALWAYS get a free pass.
Eh, we have multiple authors, who do not have to agree on everything. No ouroborosity necessary.
He’s totally making a comeback. Ironically, of course.
What’s wrong with just liking what you like? I liked Shakespeare in Love. I also love Disney movies. I also have movies that are, for all intents and purposes; shit. It’s okay to like great movies and crappy movies, and even enjoy them for different reasons.
My friend PE likes really HORRIBLE B-list movies, because he enjoys mocking them. That’s cool too.
I didn’t like “Stuff White People Like” because it assumes no sincerity. I happened to have a blast at the family ugly sweater party. I also, legitimately, enjoy classical music. But, that’s a personal taste.
If other people like, or don’t like, what you enjoy; that’s OK.
Hmmm, what examples do we have to bring up to scare you away from your self-destructive hipsterism? Battlefield Earth? I’m rather sure it will always be available.
“Left Behind.”
I was bored to tears by Shakespeare in Love. So if it helps, you’ve got someone to hate on it with you.
Eh, we have multiple authors, who do not have to agree on everything.I’m not convinced!. All authors who feel that we do not have to agree on everything, say “Aye”.
Unless the vote is unanimous, I’ll take that to mean that we do have to agree on everything, and thus I’ll be forced to agree with you.
Obviously, there’s no need to vote. We all agree
with Violet. on everything, including the fact that we always 100% agree with whomsoever is the most recent person to edit a comment.And the last person who edited this comment decrees that nobody else is allowed to edit this post forever and ever to infinity plus one.
There! Beat the ouroborosity on that one, I dare you.
[ mwhahaha. ~v ]
[ HO HO HO HO HO. ~~Q ]
I AM THE MASTER OF THE COMMENT!!!! MUWAHAHAHA
I may have just escalated our ouroborosity into the outer reaches of unreadability.
i have been pwned
.
Hah! Now I wish our comment revisions (and who did them) was tracked, so I could figure out what the hell is going on there. :p I guess I started it (but you asked for it!)
Of course, then Marc could come in with m4d SQL sk1llz and really fuck with us.
What’s going on in here? *looks innocent*
Antigone, I could explain it step-by-step, but as always with these things, I think you just kinda had to be there…
*giggles*