To What Extent Is Slumdog Millionaire an Accurate Representation of Modern India?

Slumdog Millionaire is a British Drama Film, set in India. India is the second largest country by area in Asia, and with over 1.2 billion people it is the second most populous country in the world, after China. The film was released in 2008 and portrays the different aspects of India as a country. Throughout the film different themes are addressed especially the issue of poverty. The word Slumdog refers to someone who lives in a slum, as does Jamal Malik the protagonist in the film. During the film, the subject of poverty was actively depicted. Even though this issue has raised great concerns for India in the past, statistics show that this problem has gradually decreased. In 1978 the percentage of people living on less than $2 per day was at 89%, however now it has fallen to 69%. Even though this is still a large proportion of people, as it is over half the number of people living in India, we have to note that the crisis is slowly getting better. Slumdog Millionaire presented India as being a poor country lacking in money, but it failed to show its audience that India is improving. For example the unhygienic living conditions in the slums and the stealing of food for survival is shown, but is described in such an extreme way that the situations appear unrealistic. What they didn’t detail, was how India holds a significant proportion of the worlds riches and when richer people were actually shown, they are described in the extreme opposite of the poorer people. There was no in between, the characters had to be either awfully poor or exceedingly rich. This made the representation appear to be unrealistic because even thought there may be some people in that situation; middle class people were unsuccessful illustrated. This was probably the case because the film wad made to suit Hollywood, as the main aim was to make sure it attracted viewers. It was not ideally written to detail India in a truthful manner, so the truth may have been twisted by the