One of the biggest differences between the film Slumdog Millionaire and Vikas Swarup's novel Q&A that stuck out to me, was the absence of the "The Death of a Hero" storyline from the book. This chapter initially mirrors the first minutes of the film, when Jamal recounts meeting film star Amitabh Bachchan. In the book, however, it is Salim who meets HIS idol, film star Armaan Ali. Salim admires everything about Armaan, and Salim is especially angered when he sees magazines suggesting that his idol may be gay; as Ram notes, "Salim hates gays." When Salim and Ram go to see a movie starring Armaan, an old man sits next to them and starts touching Salim. Salim attacks the man when he realizes what is going on and it is discovered the man is wearing a disguise; in the theater's dim lighting, the man appears to be Armaan Ali itself.
I wonder how this storyline, had it been incorporated into the movie, may have affected the tone of Slumdog Millionaire. Or, was this storyline PURPOSELY omitted from Slumdog so producers could avoid addressing issues of homosexuality, perhaps even as it relates to symbols of/celebrities within Indian pop culture?
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It's an excellent point, and not the only time homosexuality (and it's usually closer to perversion than it is to some honest depiction of homosexual desire in the novel) is elided. The Priest and Father Tim's son; Gupta and Salim; etc. And then there is also the heavily coded relationship between Ram and Gautam/Shankar in which the characterization borders on desire that cannot be named: "beyond friendship. Beyond companionship" ... The novel at least has to deal with these questions (since it's primarily a novel in which men are adventurers and women are trials they must pass through -- standard convention of Romance).
ReplyDeleteI'd be curious to know what you made of this problem in the movie -- and why the movie can't deal with homosexuality.
Here's my take: the film and the novel have different ambitions. I don't think that Vikas Swarup knew how well and widely his novel would be read and as a consequence, it's ideological and aesthetic directions can be a little more idiosyncratic. Besides, the direction of the novel's depiction of homosexuality borders on homophobia (are there any sympathetic gay characters in the novel?) and it's unlikely that Danny Boyle's more cosmopolitan sensibility could truck that kind of ideological position (most of his films are well within the orbit of the politically correct).
At the same time, most (many?) Romances are steeped in homoerotic desire (it's almost always two men on an adventure together, even when there is an ideal love interest on the horizon). Think of the 18th century Gothic novel, for instance. It seems to me that the film does attempt to shift a lot of the aesthetic sensibility of the novel in order to make the movie feel as slick as it does.
By the way, it's fairly widely spread rumor (bordering on reality?) that major Bollywood producers demand sexual favors from male actors in order to get their big breaks. It wouldn't (I don't think) be a shocking fact to most Indian readers, though the episode of Armaan Ali stalking a slum kid in order to exact sexual favors would be (and is, at least to me). Why in the world is this supposed to be plausible?
I think the movie cannot deal with homosexuality because it is (as we discussed in class) a Hollywood film. The examples of homosexuality in the novel consist of abuse and horror. There are not any (as least as far as I have read) happy homosexual relationships. Older men for the most part are initiating and younger boys receiving. If some of the homosexual scenes from the book had been placed in the movie, I have a feeling it would not have done as well. The lack of these scenes and others with abuse in them make the movie much more optimistic and much less disturbing. I do think the novel is more realistic, but Hollywood is not always a fan of realism.
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