wellspring staff blog

According to the experts – the ‘academy’, this is perhaps the equal 8th best movie ever, winning 8 academy awards. That puts it behind movies like Ben Hur (11) and Titanic (11), and on par with Gone With the Wind and Ghandi. That makes this ‘rags to riches’ movie a must see, and so I did.

It’s the story of a Mumbai slum dweller who becomes a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” With every question, we get a flask back into the life and hardships of Jamal, and how it is that this uneducated ‘slumdog’ has accumulated his general knowledge. Jamal, and his older brother Salim have learned all of their lessons the hard way. Their mother was killed in a religiously motivated riot when they were young, and people have been taking advantage of them ever since.

British director Danny Boyle says of his movie: “It is much deeper and more profound … than a game show. … I love that about it. It is a chance to get yourself lost in romance.” Yes it’s a romance too. Jamal and Latika meet as fellow slumdogs on the run, and Jamal has always had a soft spot for her. But his lot in life means he is unable to provide for or protect her, even from his own brother. So Jamal enters “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” not in the hope of winning money, but in the hope of finding his lost love, and having the means to live happily ever after with her.

The movie also bears all the hallmarks of a trying-to-win-awards movie. Its themes include poverty, disability, injustice, faithful love, innocence and the loss there-of, abuse, purity of heart, mindless religion, all in a non-linear plot. The storyline on the surface appear simple - the pure hearted naïve hero finally gets his girl, and the bad guys get their just rewards. But you don’t have to dig deep to find contradictions. What about all the other ‘slumdogs’ who didn’t escape? And the boy who was intentionally blinded by a repulsive man because blind beggars make twice as much money – when he is killed you feel justice is done. But what will happen to the 20 odd disabled children previously under his ‘care’? At least they used to get fed, and had a place to sleep. And it’s Salim, Jamal’s brother, who kills this man. This action simultaneously frees Latika yet sets his life on a destructive course. And having freed Latika, Salim then takes advantage of her. And then Salim … you get the idea.

So when you walk out of the picture theatre you feel a little confused. I ought to feel happy that Jamal got his girl and won the game show, but I also get that life in India remains very harsh and unjust for millions. How will they escape? Was Salim’s choice of a life of violence invalid? Was Latika’s choice to be beautiful-but-taken-advantage-of-girl invalid? What other choices did they have? And when, as younger boys, Jamal and Salim steal shoes to etch out a living, was this wrong? And the game show host … again, you get the idea.

When you walk out of the theatre you are not quite sure what to think. It’s as if Slumdog Millionaire is trying to be like a piece of modern art. The movie has rich content, deep themes, but you as viewer need to interpret them. The movie almost speaks, asking a question of you – what do you think I mean? What will you do with me, and the issues I raise?

And that is what makes the picture both brilliant, and hopeless. It’s a social commentary that avoids saying the simplistic, brings into focus the depressing and confusing, looks at it from various view points, and then says … nothing. And the fact that we, along with ‘the academy’ all stand around and applaud says volumes; about us, our culture, the things to which we aspire, and our distinct lack of a ‘compass’. Sorry I think I’m getting Slumdog confused with another movie – something about an Emperor and his lack of clothes.

So watch the movie, rejoice with Jamal, cry with Salim, and if you feel moved to combat poverty in India, start more TV game shows for slumdogs.

I saw an add for a TV show the other day, ‘bringing up baby’ I think it was. Anyway, the add when something like this: “In the 50’s parenting was all about discipline. In the 60’s parenting was all about Dr. Spock. In the 70’s parenting was all about attachment. Wouldn’t you like to which parenting method was the right one?”

I had to laugh. Why is that we think that we, in the 00’s (sometimes called the naughties), we think we have the ‘right’ perspective on parenting. Don’t you think that in 20 years time someone will be making another TV show saying something like “in the 90’s they thought parenting was about …, in the naughties they thought …, but we now know ….”

Or to put it another way, do you think Dr Spock, or any parents who followed his method, ever sat down and said “we want to parent in a way that is relevant to this decade only. We know there is a right way to parent, but we aren’t interested in that, we are only interested in a parenting method for the 60’s.”

For those of you have seen the TV show you may think I am missing the point. I may be missing the point of the TV show, but I am seeking to make another, far more important point. All things are seen from a vantage point. Perhaps a historical vantage point, as in this case. Perhaps a social, an ethnic, a gender, a generational, or from within a worldview vantage. Everything we see, we are looking at from somewhere, and the place from where we look shapes what we see.

For some of us this is a scary thought – that there is no such thing as true ‘objectivity’. Nothing, not even ‘science’ which at times has claimed to be about ‘objective facts’ is truly objective. Others of us are saying – ‘tell me something new’. ‘Relativism’ in now the way we think. Much ink has been spilt over this topic, some of it helpfully. But let’s not go there.

What was so amazing about the TV add was that it began by acknowledging the ‘contingency’ of knowledge (it depends on where you look from). Then it went on to suggest that the TV show could tell us the absolute truth about parenting. Who wrote that add, and what were they thinking?… Spock was influenced by his era, but we will tell you the timeless truth!

And yet we do the same all the time don’t we. In Australia we have this way of looking down our noses back at the ‘wisdom’ of the previous generations and seeing that their ‘truths’ were little more than projections of their era. We know better now. We know better than to think that smacking is effective discipline; that rote learning is effective; that strangers are the greatest danger; that homosexuality is evil; that immigrants take our jobs and don’t assimilate; that Islam is a false religion; that environmentalists are scare mongers and so on. We know better now.

Do we? …How? …Why? …On what grounds? I think it’s fair say that the above views are widely accepted, they are the ‘new orthodoxy’ if not ‘universal’. But how did they become so? Some came as a result of science we may say. We can prove green house gases have risen and track the correlation to global warming and the El Niño effect for example. Yes, we can, but this science, and all science takes place from a vantage point. Personally I am convinced that our current rates of growing emissions are problematic, and we need to act. But I am also aware that our science, our educational research, our economic modelling, our ethical reflections and so on all take place from a vantage point.

So what do we do? Doubt everything, become a sceptic? You could, but it is not a way forward. Scepticism may be helpful in showing you the flaws of others, but it contains the assumption that via a method of doubting and questioning everything, we will be able to do away with our constructs and be left with the bare essentials. We can then build the house of knowledge upon a firm foundation. Descartes tried this. I think therefore I am. The problem is, it was Descartes who was thinking. Therefore everything Descartes through remained a construct of Descartes. Scepticism will not build you a secure house if knowledge. So what will?

Faith. Faith? Isn’t faith the opposite of knowledge I hear you ask? What about Galileo and the earth centric Pope? Sorry, but that is such a 19th and early 20th Century view of faith and knowledge. As far as theories of knowledge go – the consensus is now that all knowledge is built upon a set of previously constructed assumptions – upon faith. And by the way, most 16-18 Century scientists were Christians, people of faith. Pope Urban VIII holds the minority view.

Anyway, if all knowledge is built upon what we might broadly call a ‘faith’, a worldview, a set of assumptions – then I want to say not all faiths are the same. Galileo was right, and the Pope was wrong. Galileo’s assumptions have proven to be more consistent and coherent with other things we have observed and ‘discovered’.

The implications of this are many and profound. I will simply tease out two. Whatever you think you know – some of it is simply the result of where you are looking from and the general consensus about what you see when you discuss it with those standing next to you. Second, if you want to understand another faith, you need to go and look at it from the inside out, and not from the outside in. Go and discuss what it looks like with the people who are standing in it, not with the people standing next to you.

Who knows – you might discover something of the truth God meant when he said ‘taste and see that the Lord is good.’