It's a bleak friday night with no prospects for any social engagements. Or rather, the usual "let's get wasted and forget our names" mentality didn't seem appealing at the time. My boyfriend Kevin and I head out to Hollywood Video on East State Street to see if there isn't something visually stimulating to occupy the next few hours of our evening. I notice Slumdog Millionaire and figure I'll grab a copy to see what all the hype is about. The scenes are beautiful with fancy camera angles and quick action changes. It's easy to see where the interest originates from. 120 minutes later I find myself staring blankly at the screen, wondering how I'm supposed to feel. Kevin remarks on the noticeable trend revolving around the Indian culture. True, there were only two recent films that we could recall that are set in India (the other being The Darjeeling Limited), but I couldn't help but relate this discussion back to the ones we've had in class. 

Those of us dwelling in the Western hemisphere of the world have always had a fascination with the East and their vastly different cultural tendencies. They appear as foreign and mythologized creatures, almost barbaric in some cases. They are the "uncivilized other", and as Thomas C. Patterson describes in his book Inventing Western Civilization, the concept of civilization was created by those "classes whose privileged existences are guaranteed by the institutions and practices of the state" (10). This is to say, that the wealthy will always be the ones who determine what is considered socially acceptable as they are the ones who hold the power to do so. Through this, we have taken it upon ourselves as the superior culture to study and explore those that are less competent. With the example of Slumdog Millionaire, director Danny Boyle offers his interpretation of an entirely different culture and wins the Oscar for best picture. Yet in his depiction of the life of poverty-stricken Mumbai residents are unconsciously placed stereotypes that transcend generations of misunderstanding. What are your thoughts? Are these movies simply perpetuating an invisible barrier between the Orient and the West?