Slumdog Millionare: Class Wars

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The film “Slumdog Millionaire” is set around three main characters: Jamal, Salim, and Latika. It follows their lives from when they were young children up until young adulthood. They go through many struggles and even some dangerous situations in their lives. One of the main themes in this film was wealth vs. poor. Prejudice can be defined as “a negative attitude toward and entire category of people, often an ethnic or racial minority group”, and this film portrays this very well. The wealthy were prejudiced toward the poor, “slumdogs” and set standards for the poor people. The “slumdogs” had no say in their lives because the wealthy have already decided what they are capable of without giving them many chances. Prejudice from the wealthy is shown clearly in the opinion that someone from the slum could not possibly possess knowledge. The quizmaster – who himself has gone from rags to riches - presents this belief to the audience, and their response shows them to be in agreement with it. The wealthy were seen as intelligent and were given more chances to move up than the poor people from the slums. The inspector was a middle class man who probably never knew what it was like to be poor. He immediately felt that Jamal was a lying, cheat and that he couldn’t possibly have known the answers because he was only a poor “chai walla”. This is a contradiction because one of the inspectors involved was really stupid and showed it in the way that he got angry when Jamal used big words or said something he didn’t understand. So, not all upper class people are smarter. Latika had it worse because she was poor and female. In most third world, or less developed countries, women are seen as inferior and permanently unintelligent. The gangsters in the film all believed this about Latika and all made choices and decisions for her without her consent because she was “weak” and an

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