Poverty Porn: Reinforcing the Imperialist Gaze
There was an interesting post on Sociological Images (introduced to me by Katharine) about the “Slumdog Shooting technique.” I responded to it because I feel rather strongly that the postcolonial response to imperialist representations in modern media has taken a hypersensitized and cynical turn with the critical response to Slumdog Millionaire which originated the term “poverty porn,” you’ll see my comment below the main post. Check it out and see what you think. Would love to hear other ideas, here where I elaborate on my argument against poverty porn, or on the original post.
I don’t see either Slumdog or the Greenpeace-produced video highlighted in the original piece as “poverty porn,” a revolting phrase that I think the people who came up with should be more ashamed of than those who it’s applied to. I realize that pitching levels of sensitivity around contested areas is very hard to negotiate, but the “poverty porn” argument takes it to a very damaging and ultimately useless and bitter end by actually reinforcing the imperialist gaze that it seeks to undercut.
Briefly, poverty porn posits that Slumdog Millionaire, a story about three people from the slums, was exploitative in its focus on poor people in the slums as entertainment. As Alice Miles writes in the Times, “As the film revels in the violence, degradation and horror, it invites you, the Westerner, to enjoy it, too.” It really honestly saddens me that people could think that the film revels in the subjects as pure entertainment, and that it’s a film made only for Westerners. Both of these positions, I think, really dishonor the intentions of Danny Boyle, the filmmaker, who has already made a beautiful film about children in Millions, in which two English brothers who also face poverty, violence, loss, and fantasy in equal measures. No one cried out about exploitation with this film, I suppose because it takes place in England.
The implication of the poverty porn argument is that Western filmmakers are not allowed to make entertainment films about poor people in non-Western countries. Why not? Why should every film about poor people be only about their struggles and strictly in a realist vein? To say that is to say that the only audience that matters is a Western one. To say that light, escapist films can only be about rich or reasonably well-off people is to imply that poor people can’t be happy, and that their enjoyment of a film doesn’t matter–ie, that the Western well-off viewer is the only one that matters.
On to the argument that Slumdog exploited the city of Mumbai by only focusing on certain parts of the city. Expecting every visual representation of a place be completely three-dimensional and accurately representational is totalizing and damaging to art. A film can only be as representational as what the person behind the camera sees on the streets. The film was made by a primarily Indian cast and crew, so who gets the blame for not accurately capturing the city?
Finally, why should any dramatic story about India be a wholesale comprehensive depiction of the entire country? This is giving too much import to the documentary aspects of storytelling and not enough to the imaginitive or artistic aspects. As a narrative adapted from a fictional plot-driven work (and in no way a documentary), Slumdog was hardly positioning itself as an accurate depiction of the entire country of India or the city of Mumbai–which could hardly happen in a single movie anyway, since it is so diverse.
One of the main problems with the arguments around poverty porn are that they are the arguments of a subjective voice wanting an objective product about a contested area. There is simply no way a visual depiction of a place is going to capture every aspect of a place that every viewer will want. There is also no way a narrative-based story is going to represent a city or country in its totality. And ultimately, there is no reason why it should. But at its core, I think the real argument against giving credence to the concept of poverty porn is that it ignores and belittles the gaze and sentiments of the very people it purports to protect.
Posted on November 21st, 2009 by DeepthiW
Filed under: Global Culture, Media, Politics
I have never heard of “poverty porn” before (i’m still a ‘freshman’ in many ways) but I really like your point. Good Work, Awesome Job!
I can think of something that would be poverty porn, actually… But that would have to be much more specific than what is described (and contested by you) here. I can’t really think of any film I have seen that I would qualify as such, though. Censorship of the “rich people can’t talk about poor people” type is nonsense, obviously.
I keep thinking about Dickens here… Is David Copperfield poverty porn? Isn’t that even a ridiculous question to ask? Is it only OK to talk about poor people with a ton of pathos?
Though now that I think about it (and forgive me if I type nonsense, because I hadn’t really reflected on it before), and trying to find “representations of poverty that make it look attractive, by and for priviledged people”, the things that come to mind are the Catholic church (I’ve visited the Vatican with its marbles, its art, it magnificence, and I’ve heard the sermons about the happiness of the poor, andsee how a country priest lives — the life the church reserves for its footsoldiers is not much better than abject poverty…), maybe the Sovietic glorification of the people, of hard work and ascetism? I’m really not sure of what I’m typing here, but that is as fairly cynical and revolting as the term “poverty porn”, and that places Slumdog Millionnaire in a context…
Hey Lindsey, thanks! BTW, are you writing anything about those protests taking place at UCB and around the world? Fascinating stuff.
Charlotte, yeah, the romanticization of poverty does have a tradition, doesn’t it? Thanks, this is a big help, I may have to revise the post above to acknowledge that poverty porn does exist! Dickens is a great example, as are the others–a pattern of objectifying the poor towards a specific end–Dickens’ objective might have been the most noble, to paint them in rosy portraits as a way to make the wealthy want to support them. But the church and Soviet aims would have been much more of a propagandist agenda to shape society to their liking, making people think their suffering is “noble.” Thanks for pointing these out, I think they help locate the tradition of poverty porn and why it’s a very valid idea–just not, IMO, to Slumdog.
Actually, Millions by the same director, which I erroneously wrote above is set in Ireland (it takes place in England in the near future) deals a little bit with that connection between poverty and the Catholic faith, fascinating and incredibly sweet film.