Thoughts on Slumdog Millionaire and the 2008 Oscars

I thought briefly about coming up with an Oscar post, but though Sunday’s telecast certainly had its highs and its lows, I just couldn’t muster up the interest in recapping the whole thing, particularly with the profusion of liveblogs all over the internet.

However, while watching Slumdog pick up award after award, I became more and more bothered by something that I’d had an inkling about at the Golden Globes and even before that. Of all the people who climbed the stage to accept little gold men for their work on the film, only two of them were ethnically Indian – Resul Pookutty, who shared the Best Achievement in Sound trophy with two others, and A.R. Rahman, for score and for song (he shared the latter with Sampooran Singh Gulzar, who was not present).

For a film that featured no Anglo actors, and was based on material written by an Indian, this discrepancy bothers me. When you add this to the incredible industry of film production in India, the whole picture looks even more disturbing. For example, Rahman is one of the most prolific musicians working in Hindi film, creating gorgeous scores and songs for films like Lagaan (nominated in 2002 for Best Foreign Language Film), Dil Se ("Chaiyya Chaiyya" is one of my favorite songs of all time), Kandukondain Kandukondain and Guru, some of the biggest hits of the past ten years. He’s also done work in Western cinema, partnering with Deepa Mehta on her elements trilogy, and with Shekhar Kapur on Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

Not to undercut the terrific work Rahman did on the Slumdog soundtrack (“Jai Ho” is an awesome song), because I’m glad to see him getting some worldwide recognition, but I see him as the perfect example to make my point – India has a long and fascinating cinema history, one that has been ghettoized due to form (and I’ll admit – three-hour musicals aren’t for everyone) as well as cultural divides. My hope remains the same as when I saw Slumdog two months ago – that maybe the next time America rallies behind a film full of South Asian faces, there won’t just be white men behind the camera.