by Kevin Clang
(An abridged version of this article originally ran in The Pendulum on May 3.)
You kind of had to feel bad for India last week. A country that has been ravaged by poverty, disease and terrorism in the past few months was given two brief slivers of hope only to have both of them dashed the next day.
First, “Slumdog Millionaire” had an historic night at the 81st Annual Academy Awards. En route to a near-sweep, “Slumdog” won eight trophies, including one for best picture. The wins completed an extraordinary underdog run at Hollywood. The relatively low budget “Slumdog” was able to eclipse big budget epics such as the effects-laden, time-bending “Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” World War II era “The Reader” and the acclaimed presidential drama “Frost/Nixon.”
Anyone who had been paying attention saw this coming, but that does not discount the significance of the movie’s wins. Accepting the best picture trophy, the elation of the film’s mostly non-white staff was obvious. It was especially evident in the eyes of “Slumdog’s” child actors, most of whom were picked out of actual Mumbai slums. The kids were given a weekend to remember. They were flown to Hollywood, given new clothes, and taken to Disney World.
This weekend they returned to slum life, struggling from day to day and sleeping on the floor. Not one day had passed after the Oscar wins when news started to leak from Mumbai that the “Slumdog” child actors may not have been adequately paid for their work. Budgeted at about $15 million, “Slumdog Millionaire” will likely gross over $100 million. Some of this money should be invested in the Mumbai communities “Slumdog” depicted to such success. Director Danny Boyle has promised to buy new flats for all of the children, but I will believe it when I see it.
On Tuesday President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress to discuss his stimulus plan. Republicans have criticized the plan since it was introduced, calling it costly, wasteful and unlikely to help the economy. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal offered the Republican response following Obama’s speech. Jindal, the son of Indian immigrants, is widely regarded as the next big name in the Republican Party and is oft mentioned as a possible 2012 presidential candidate.
He was a natural choice to deliver the response speech. The stimulus is absolutely something worth debating; the economy desperately needs help, and such an expensive endeavor must be guaranteed to work. Unfortunately Jindal offered nothing new to the argument. The Governor merely restated the same Republican talking points we have been hearing for the past month (small government, tax cuts, bad spending etc.) instead of offering a constructive argument with new ideas. Worse, his tone was called “hokey,” “amateur,” and “awkward” by pundits.
The speech was a missed opportunity for Jindal and the Republican Party. In Jindal’s defense, minority response speeches are very hard to pull off. With no audience to feed off of, one must get their tone exactly right early on. Even ignoring his poor delivery, Jindal’s written words rang hollow and hypocritical. Jindal has publicly stated that he plans to refuse stimulus money, which is only partly true. In the current plan Louisiana is due to receive $3.8 billion; Jindal plans to accept $3.7 billion.
If A bad speech is by no means a career killer. If Jindal wants to set himself up as a potential leader of this country, however, he will need to start offering new ideas to the American people instead of recycling the old ones. This is probably not the last we will hear of Bobby Jindal. Hopefully last week’s Oscars will not be the last time we hear about the “Slumdog Millionaire” kids and the Mumbai slums that they live in, either. The movie has finally shed light on a human rights crisis that most Americans had no idea about. Now that the film is over we cannot go back to ignoring it.
