[Pen-l] RE: Movies...

[123hop@xxxxxxxxxxx]

JD wrote

"fatalism isn't really that important to "slumdog millionaire"
(pronouced "millinair"). The hero is lucky, yes, but some of process
of getting to the end is hellish."

In the movie, the hero keeps saying that the outcome "was meant to be" or some such. In other words, it was his fate to win the game show.

The fact that the process is hellish is what justifies the big win. This is the founding myth of capitalism. It starts with Robinson Crusoe; to abbreviate the plot: Robinson is stranded on an island where he "re-creates himself" allbeit by salvaging a lot of technology it took humans hundreds of thousands of years to create and through the assistance of Friday (a native he saves from cannibals). After much "hellish" suffering on the island, reinventing himself, he gets rescued and discovers that all the time he was on the island, a slave colony he owned made him a lot of money & he is now free and rich. The reader is supposed to feel that this is justified because he suffered on the island and proved that he could support himself in a natural state. 

For a modern version, see "Shawshank Redemption," in which an investment banker is falsely imprisoned, suffers for twenty years (including repeated rape), and then escapes, taking with him all the income that resulted from the slave labor of the other prisoners. The audience feels his taking the money is justified because he suffered. 

Notice that in this equation, the suffering of the other prisoners  or of Crusoe's slave colony does not matter; it does not add up to any kind of happy ending.

In SDM, the hero, having suffered, is fated to win the game show -- and when he walks away with the money and the girl, you're not supposed to ask how his good fortune does anything for the gazillion others who now remain exactly in the state he was in before.

The "suffering hero" is the mythic representative of the capitalist who, true to his Puritan roots, has earned his great fortune through suffering or hard work. If you don't think that's true, ask yourself why SDM is a "feel good" movie that will probably win a lot of Oscars.

Now, of course, all heroes suffer: that's why they're heroes. But the classical hero's (Odysseus) suffering does not mean anything other than the fact that he, being a hero, is capable of fully meeting his fate. And the hero of the fairy tale suffers too, but that's not what gets him to his goal. As shown by that structuralist whose name I can't remember right now (Popp?), the difference lies in whether at any point in his quest, he has (gratuitously) helped anybody on his way.

I guess, basically, heroism of any flavor does not actually fit well with Capitalist ideology. It always smacks of justification.

Joanna
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