Sunday, October 18, 2009
Slumdogs, Extracts, and Fascism At The Movies
by Caleb T. Maupin
The right-wing preaches that Hollywood, California is Leftist/Marxist occupied
territory. It is true that there have been a great deal of films with a leftist
bent in recent times, not including Michael Moore's documentary film
Capitalism: A Love Story. It is indeed true that the recent film Surrogates has
an anti-capitalist and consumerist message, as do other great films like V for
Vendetta and Revolutionary Road.
However, recently Hollywood has released two films of a racist, sexist, and
"survival of the fittest" nature that preach anything but a leftist message.
These films, though poorly put together, have been raised as "great art" by the
ruling class and treated as such, one of them winning "Best Picture" at the
Academy Awards of 2009.
Slumdog Millionaire Speaks for Billionaires
The film Slumdog Millionaire is a right-wing, pro-capitalist rant. While it
imagines that it is The Grapes of Wrath or Schindler's List, it is simply a
right-wing propaganda piece with "epic" content and a Horatio Alger plot.
The film portrays a young, impoverished boy in modern India. When Muslims
attack his family, the government sits by and lets it occur. He travels
throughout India in poverty, and is taken advantage of by a man who tries to
blind him. The man attempts this in order to take advantage of those who would
give him "charity" with their "compassion" because of his condition.
The Message: Compassion rewards cruelty and the weak.
Of course, through his "free will" and "intuition" the main character triumphs
and wins on India's version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?", but he is
tortured by the Indian government, because they refuse to recognize he is
capable of success. He is punished brutally for succeeding, by the supposedly
lesser human beings who run the state. John Galt would probably wet his pants
with happiness at this crude, hateful, right-wing film.
The main character's brother turns to crime, and ends up dead, of course. He
could have got by "honestly" and become a millionaire like his brother, but he
broke the "social contract" and became a "criminal." So, of course, he deserves
to die because of "personal choices."
Two particular sections in this film portray the disgusting atmosphere as
blatantly as possible. In one section of the film, the boy is being beaten. A
tourist couple from the U.S. stops the man from beating him. The innocent "John
Galt" child cries out: "This is what the real India is all about."
The U.S. couple looks down on him with smiles, and hands him a wad of U.S.
federal reserve currency, and tell him: "This is what the real America is all
about."
They rub him on the head, as any good compassionate imperialist carrying their
"white man's burden" would.
The Message: The white western civilization of the U.S. is an honest, free
market society, in comparison to India, a nation depicted in the film as filled
barbaric brown skinned people who do not have "free market" ideas.
In the second sequence the main character looks out from a construction site at
a city and speaks of how great it is becoming now that western capitalists have
come.
The Message: Western Capitalism and Domination is saving India from its ways.
Slumdog Millionaire foams with racism and colonialism to its core. It tells us
that India is a pre-capitalist hell-hole, that is gradually being saved by the
free market and Imperialism. The film glorifies western capitalism and depicts
the brown-skinned people of South-East Asia as barbaric and ignorant, in need
of the guidance and domination of western Capitalists. The film portrays
compassion, sympathy, and such as a character flaw, and champions ruthlessness
and "the rule of law."
Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Ludwig Von Mises could not have written a better
propaganda film. The worst part of this, is that some on the left are confused,
and somehow think the film is an exposure of the poverty created by capitalism.
They don't seem to notice that the thrust of the film is the lie that
capitalism destroys poverty and saves indigenous people from their supposed
inherent idiocy and socialistic tendencies that justify imperialism.
Another film could show the same horrific conditions, yet champion the Naxalite
Rebels of the countryside or the worker's movements of the industrial centers.
These movements do have a chance of stopping these atrocities, and are
motivated by a desire for liberation, not capitalist greed.
But this is not the message the film portrays. This film is a product of the
"Revolutionary Right-Wing" that proclaims that the world must go backwards
toward "good capitalism." The admiration of western civilization, the
demonizing of the indigenous peoples, and the Neitschzian "ubermenchen" theme
make this film the kind of magnum opus to expect from Leni Riefenstahl or D.W.
Griffith.
Extract of Exploit
