This last Sunday, I was watching the 81st Academy Awards. As expected by many, Slumdog Millionaire won for Best Picture (among numerous other categories). I don't know how many of you have seen it, but it is by far the best movie I've seen this year.
But then I got to thinking: what is it about this theme (that is reproduced over and over) that appeals so much to us; this theme of 'rags to riches'.
This idea is produced so much throughout our culture. On the big screen, movies such as the Pursuit of Happyness and Rocky, even Disney's Aladdin, use it. On TV, game shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (like in Slumdog Millionaire) and Jeopardy (perhaps you've heard of Ken Jennings?) and reality shows like Survivor and American Idol show us the story of people coming from little or nothing and reaching this level of wealth and fame that seems so unachievable to the rest of the population.
Is this why our culture idolizes famous movie stars? Should we feel in awe by the amount of success they have achieved (whether it be from luck or talent)? Should we hope that one day, our lives will be like that? Is this fascination driven by something that we try so hard to hide: jealousy?
5 comments:
I too saw this movie and thought that is was great! I think that the reason we love the "rags to riches" movies is that it gives people hope. Hope that their life could get better one day...
I believe we all grow up with the Cinderella fantasy idea. Instead of hard work we want everything easy.
It's funny because while the means may have changed the ultimate goal has not; get rich as fast as possible. Think about the gold rush and how people were dropping everything and rushing to California in hopes of finding their own mountain of gold. People race to achieve their American Dream; the house, the family, the money. The faster the better, just stay ahead of the Jones'. It's not necessarily jealousy as much as it's competition.
I caught this movie on Saturday and as much as I tried to enjoy it I ended up with a bit of cultural studies sticking in the back of my head. With that in mind I took away from this movie the idea that it's a universally human trait to want the underdog to pull through. We love the Cinderella story in any form we can get, our sports, our movies, our own lives. When the nice guy gets the girl or when a slumdog becomes a millionaire. I think we can all at one point in our lives or another identify with having the odds stacked against you and although the real world lacks most of the happy endings we so desire I feel like having a cultural icon to point to where things DID work out makes getting through our own ordeals just a little bit easier.
They old idea was that if you work hard enough you can become wealthy and successful. With reality television being such a huge influence in our lives today, everyone gets the idea that there is an easier way to do it. Just go on TV. and you can become rich. People are always worrying about how they are going to "make it big" and be rich. They aren’t seeing the bigger problems going on in the world today. Most of us are just being capitalized by the 1% of our nation’s population that own everything and have all the money and are never going "make it big" anyways.
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