Slumdog Secret Millionaire

[ney001]

Anyone watch Slumdog Secret Millionaire last night?

Have to say I completely disliked the millionaire involved in last night's programme. It all seemed to revolve around her feelings and what would make her feel good at the end of her journey. I always did find secret millionaire just a little bit smug and she didn't disappoint!. I was particularly disappointed as well with the amount of money that she gave out £60,000 in total which really is not a large amount - I mean surely the production company or channel 4 could have made a significant donation along with hers, it all smacked again of taking advantage of a particularly poor group of people in order to make a wealthy woman feel good about herself.

During one part of the show she spoke with a large family living on the streets of India and they invited her to dinner. She learned that the family had to live on the streets because the father owed £5000 as a result of dowries/weddings for his two daughters and had to repay his debt before returning to his own village. This annoyed the millionaire & after that she said that she didn't trust him and decided to gift him the paltry amount of £120. She could not get over her own ideals & prejudices and try to understand why marrying his daughters off was so important to this man

Just a rant - it annoyed me last night & i'm still thinking about it.

 

[MandaC]

I meant to watch it last night and I forgot. I actually like secret millionaire - I found the first batch better as I reckon people now know the format and lick up to the secret millionaire for their handout. There was a lovely lady on once, who owned a transport company, her son got into drugs, she was really genuine, nothing smug at all and another guy who I think had a scrap metal business (did he end up going to Blackpool?) and there was nothing put on or smug about him at all. Another ex-soldier (who had been in Argentina) was also a lovely guy. I find the best ones are the ones who grew up working class, they have a better eye for spotting the genuine needy people, example, the scrap metal guy ended up not giving anything to a girl who was on drugs because he felt she was not helping herself.

This one will probably be on repeat and I will watch it then.

 

[woodbine]

When she gave the money to the lady who worked on the dump, and the lady said it would pay for half her daughters wedding i exclaimed to my better half "Why do they waste so much money on weddings when they have none (money) " And he pointed out that it happens in this country all the time.

There's been a lot of programmes on the Mumbai slums recently and from an outsiders perspective it's hard to know where to even start to try to make it better.

what a world of contrasts.

 

[Phibbleberry]

I have to agree to new001 - I watched this and while I usually enjoy the series (the earlier ones especially, as pointed out by MandaC), I really couldn't take to this woman at all. Given the fact that she was given a show twice the length of the normal one, I assumed that she was going to give a record-breaking sum for the series.

Though she seemed genuinely touched by some of the stories, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to, she seemed to be very influenced by her Uncle/Cousin saying they were all theives and sob-story-makers.

I felt the mobile school bus was a fantastically worthy cause. I also felt that Toybank was brilliant- she seemed to baulk at the idea that kids be given toys when they should be given food but I think toys are a fundemental part of childhood education and to my untrained eye, while they might not eat particularly well, they were not starving children and seemed truly overjoyed with the (largely cheap) toys they were given.

At the end of the day, she donated £60k of her own money so she has to be applauded for that - it helped people - regardless of the non-altrustic motivation behind it.

 

[ney001]

I do agree, 60,000 is a generous donation but as you said given that it was a once off special programme I really felt that there would be a huge amount donated - even by the tv company. I think the main thing that bothered me really was that she did not even attempt to understand the cultural aspects of her journey for example the man who had his daughters married. In the Indian culture, marriage of your daughters is hugely important, if they are not married off by a certain age they will never marry & will have a very poor future. She made a snap judgment on this man and the decisions he made and therefore gave him the really paltry sum of £120 which when you consider that he was so poor he didn't even have a sheet of plastic to shelter was quite ridiculous. Granted she couldn't help everybody but she could have helped those who she featured in her journey. I felt yes she did have sympathy for what she saw but overall I thought she was quite a cold fish who didn't really connect with anybody. She made quite a few comments throughout the programme about how she was giving money to certain people because she would feel good if she did that etc etc. What also really annoyed me was that she paid for half the wedding for the girl at the dump and then handed her some gold bangles. Supposedly she could hold onto them or even sell them at a later date. This girl lives at a dump with her children in the poorest area, not even a slum, what will she do with the bangles, put them into the floor safe??. No, she will have to sell them and get a ridiculously low price for them.

 

[lightswitch]

I have watched quite a few episodes and although I thought most of them were good there were quite a few where I thought they under contributed and were getting a "buzz" from the publicity.

The slumdog one I thought was particularly crass. The costs of the flights, accommodation etc, for the entire crew must have come to a substantial amount.

I wonder how we would feel if such TV shows had existed during the time of the Irish Famine......................... I wonder how the populations of the poorer countries today will regard them in the future.