Slumdog Millionaire

Went to see this last night. Very well done, very good movie. Got me to thinking about two things. One is how useful hope is when it is completely unrealistic. Vast swathes of people will get behind those who go from obscurity to fame and/or fortune overnight because they see themselves in those people, and it helps them have hope of a better life. Now, most people who end up rising out of slums and horrible lives do so out of a combination of hard work, intelligence/savvy, and luck. Plenty of people who combine those things don't have quite enough of the luck or whichever to make it out anyway. Granted, winning some game shows takes a bit of hard work and intelligence/savvy, although not all, but still the chances of that happening for any individual have got to be astronomically low. It's kind of like inner-city youths hoping to make the NBA - sure, it's a worthwhile dream, but it's so unlikely that it's almost counter-productive, unless the coaches are able to translate some of that hard work into other areas. So, I guess what bothers me is setting these unrealistic hopes for people that might make them sit and hope for salvation rather than have any faith in their ability to rise out on their own and concentrate their efforts there.

Furthermore, I think it's a way that people can get really dissatisfied with the lives they have. "Oh, I'm making enough to get by, and I've got this great family, but that guy's got this incredibly romantic story and is a millionaire! Why can't I have that?" Well, the vast majority of people can't have that - especially both parts. Romantic movies with their ridiculous happy endings have this effect on people all the time - David Sedaris talked about going to see The End of the Affair with his longtime partner and how it had that effect in his book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. It's so true - it leaves people thinking that love is easy and fated and just around the corner, and super romantic and happy all the time - and makes them wonder why their pedestrian relationship isn't the same way.

The other thing that it made me think about was the extent to which Western cultural chauvinism will impact the success of this movie. I had a couple of different classes this last semester that talked about the effect that has on feminism and on human rights movements. We have a tendency to assume that we have reached the pinnacle of both women's rights and human rights, and to assume that the way we view and value treatment of women and people generally is the best way to do so. As a result, when we see things that are done wrong in other countries, we shake our heads and think we need to help them - according to Leti Volpp, we often do so while ignoring the similar problems that still exist in America. I don't know that I buy that things are as bad for women in America as they are in every other country in the world, but I do think it's interesting to note just how easy it is to accept the depictions of some of the horrible things that go on in the movie, maybe partly because we're seeing them happen in India. Our country has its share of horrors, too, but I'm inclined to think that if the movie was set here or in any other Western country (made by British filmmakers), then it would be harder for many Western viewers to take the extent of the misery and abuse depicted in Slumdog Millionaire at face value.

All in all, a great movie - but I'll still pick Milk over it.

Merry Christmas!!!!!

And Happy Hanukkah, and Happy whatever-else-you-may-celebrate!!! It didn't feel like Christmas till I was stuck in airports all day Monday, but I am glad to be home and I hope it's a wonderful season for all!

Rick Warren

I've been traveling, so forgive me for being a bit behind the ball on this (oh my many (2?) loyal readers), but the Warren thing really does bother me a lot. Obama's caught flack already for his choices of religious leaders, so I'd have expected him to be a little less tone-deaf on this particular item. Perhaps it's because I just watched Milk (GREAT movie), but it seems to me that any outrage over this from the LGBT community is perfectly reasonable and justified. I am pretty loyal to the Democratic Party, but I find it frustrating when its leaders act like they can take various minorities and suppressed groups (blacks, women, gays, etc.) for granted because they know that those groups can't really go elsewhere - the Republicans would be worse. I hope that Obama shows that this gesture does not mean any of what progressives are all worried it may mean, but even so - what I've read elsewhere is right. We should not give any semblance of credibility to people who express hateful views. Then again, Chris Matthews is still on the air, so what are you going to do?

The Electoral College

Yesterday, the Electoral College convened and officially elected Obama to be the next President of the United States of America. While that is a wow moment, certainly, because of all the historic indications of electing Obama, it also makes me think about how amazing and somewhat ridiculous it is that we still have the Electoral College operating in our democracy. The founders created the institution as part of a massive compromise in order to compensate for a lack of access to information and to find a way to ensure the smaller states were given more than their fair share, proportional to population, of a say in who was elected President.

It was a great solution at the time. Certainly, there was not the same level of access to information that there is now, in the age of the internet, and candidates could not so easily get around from state to state as they can now in order to be accessible to all voters nationwide. However, now it makes no sense. There is, if anything, too much access to information about the candidates, and voters generally do not know how their electors are chosen, much less who they are. They are voting for the candidate.

Are we still so concerned with the representation of small states in electing the President that it makes sense for us to maintain the Electoral College? Is that more important than ensuring that someone (like Gore) who wins the popular vote by a half million votes nationwide becomes the next President? Personally, I think it makes a mockery of the idea of universal suffrage and democracy. I, like many Americans, expected there to be outrage and perhaps a strong movement to abolish the electoral college after the farce that was the 2000 Presidential Election, but there really hasn't been much of a movement at all. Why? And why haven't the movements that have been started been more successful?

Blagojevich is... NOT Stepping Down?

So obviously this Blagojevich thing is a pretty ridiculous and borderline unbelievable scandal as it is. The guy sounds like he is a bit unstable as well as strikingly arrogant and corrupt. Still, though, once federal agents wander into your office and take you into custody, I think it's time to realize you've made a few serious mistakes. I hope he does sign the legislation to give away his power to appoint someone to the Senate seat he tried to sell, but I really have a hard time understanding how anybody could think that was sufficient. This and various other recent scandals just go to show how important it is that politicians understand that they are not above the law, and that they understand what the law is. I wonder if it's that these people were attracted to politics because of the power it would give them, or if the power somehow got to their heads and made them think they could get away with anything. I suppose it isn't an either/or situation, though, and that there could be other considerations as well. Still, I hope someone somehow talks some sense into Governor Blagojevich and convinces him to step down to save everyone the time, expense and hassle of an impeachment.

Top Political Scandals: No Plame-gate?

Chris Cillizza has an interesting post up today listing his top ten political scandals since (and including Watergate). I absolutely agree that Watergate is the biggest scandal of the last forty years in politics, but there is a lot in that list I can't agree with. Most notably, how is it possible that there is no mention of the whole Valerie Plame incident? That resulted in the indictment of a senior level White House official - the first time it had happened since the Grant administration well over a century ago. Although we still don't know for sure how high-reaching it was, it's still a pretty huge deal. What about torture, and Abu Ghraib? What about GITMO? What about the falsified evidence that Bush used as a basis for convincing us to invade Iraq? Am I just being overly biased and historically shortsighted? I don't think so. The Plame incident was a massive abuse of power that reached to the White House. Somehow, Blagojevich's crazy rantings and Spitzer's loose zipper seem completely inconsequential in comparison.

Rod Blagojevich is... wow.

I guess this is what I get for posting about how Republicans are always doing bad things. Not sure whether I'm more appalled by the whole scheme to sell a Senate seat, or his apparent confidence that he could get away with it. So bizarre. What country does he think he lives in? Thank God for Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzmas all over again - I'm so glad this got caught before Blago appointed someone.

Is Our Tax Code Anti-Democratic?

Our tax code is so long and detailed that no average citizen will understand it. Accountants, lawyers trained in tax, some few others - those people might know what the various provisions or proposed changes mean, and what effects they will have, but the vast majority of us (speaking as a 3rd year law student at a top school who has not taken tax) do not know, and do not have the time or energy to find out. Our government is meant to be by the people, for the people, of the people - but if we can't even understand what our government is doing, then how can it be?