• DOI:10.1080/09528822.2010.491379
• Corpus ID: 145021606

Showcasing India Unshining: Film Tourism in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire

@article{Mendes2010ShowcasingIU,
  title={Showcasing India Unshining: Film Tourism in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire},
  author={Ana Cristina Mendes},
  journal={Third Text},
  year={2010},
  volume={24},
  pages={471 - 479}
}

• A. Mendes
• Published 1 July 2010
• Art
• Third Text

Abstract Cinematic representations of Indian poverty have been by and large open to allegations of aestheticising and showcasing squalor for artistic and/or commercial purposes. The purpose of this article is not to reiterate these in relation to Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, but to attempt a critical analysis of the film that reaches beyond the supposedly romanticised images of photogenic and picturesque poverty themselves to scrutinise the modes of circulation of these representations in the field of cultural production, as well as their role in enhancing the processes of an ever‐increasing consumption of India‐related images. Against Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy’s unfavourable readings of Slumdog Millionaire, this article concludes by considering whether it might be possible to discern a self‐ironic stance towards representations of the so‐called ‘real India’ in Boyle’s incorporation of Bollywood staple techniques and motifs into his film, in particular in the closing scene.