Slumdog Millionaire - Appeals

Slumdog Millionaire uses many different ways to make the audience try to identify with the characters. They want the audience to feel a part of he film, and not just like they are watching something, a film that the audience can dive straight into, and can personally identify with the characters, specifically Jamal, who is made out to be the innocent, vulnerable character. The encoders of the film want the audience to obviously take the preferred reading of the film, however there are situations where some audience members have misread the situation, and taken a negotiated, or even oppositional reading to the film. 

The audience are forced to sympathise with Jamal, as usually, he seems to be the victim in every situation. The encoders portray the older Jamal to be a teenager that is vulnerable, on the verge of danger every time, and he is changing into an adult that can’t survive on their own due to his innocent, and this transition is evident from the Who Wants to be a Millionaire scenes, where at first, he seems innocent and doesn’t crack a smile, until about half way through, when he says to Prem about him being nervous, indicating the change he has gone through. 

The audience are forced to sympathise with Jamal as he is the victim in every situation, he is a vulnerable teen who is transitioning into adulthood and struggling to stand on his own two feet due to his innocence and introverted personality, this encourages the audience to want him to succeed as we can see his troubled past and how he has had to fight through it, it is common for the audience to want the underdog to win and have success. In addition to this the audience identify with him as no one succeeds all through life everyone has flaws and dips in their life exactly as Jamal does. 

As an audience we are also manipulated emotionally as many of the things that happen to Jamal have happened in many people’s lives, for example we see Jamal lose his mother which is a very relatable things as many people will have lost a love one so therefore audience members are able to feel the emotion they felt when they lost their loved one so can empathise with Jamal and understand what he is going through, however to lose a mother at such a young age may be rare which would make the audience even more emotionally connected as a child needs a parent to care for them making the audience want to take that role on for young Jamal. 

The audience’s emotions are also manipulated by Salim as we see him as a child who had to grow up extremely fast and be a parent to Jamal, however Salim can be seen as a parent to Jamal but also a villain as he constantly pulls Jamal and Latika apart making the audience hate him, but at the end sacrifices his life so Jamal and Latika can finally be together. “It’s a widely engrossing movie that takes us from innocence to salvation” – Clint O’Connor, Rotten Tomatoes. 

This quote shows the film engaged an audience through its character development and how the audience were able to personally identify with the characters. Another quote to show how the film was successful and attracted a large audience is “Many films tell stories of underdogs, unrequited love and such, yet Slumdog Millionaire feels breathtakingly fresh, at times inexplicably so” – Steve Parsall, Rotten Tomatoes, this shows he has taken the preferred reading as although the narrative is generic and conventional it is different and that is what the audience loved about the film. Slumdog Millionaire became something to talk about and if you hadn’t seen it you couldn’t engage in conversation about it which meant more people watched it as they wanted to be socially involved in the latest thing. 

On the other hand not all audience members took the preferred reading some took an oppositional and or negotiated reading to the film, “Slumdog is a good film and an appealing film with some lovely performances but it’s not a great film: it’s too sentimental and predictable for that” – Deborah Ross, Rotten Tomatoes. Here the preferred reading hasn’t been taken as although they have understood the intensions of the film they felt it was common and nothing to be excited about. In addition to this audience members felt that the film was not convincing and more of a cliché showing that the preferred reading was not taken and in fact rejected. Other reasons audience memebers may have not taken the preferred reading is that Boyle wanted to show a real India and avoid stereotypical ideas of India (not wanting a cow in the film) however there is a shot with a cow in the film which meant he could not avoid all stereotypical views as they were shooting on location, however people believed the representation of India was extremely generic and not realistic at all.

Overall Slumdog Millionaire was a very successful film, and despite having some critics who clearly took a negotiated reading to the film, the vast majority of the audience took the preferred reading. The encoders wanted the audience to understand that Jamal in the film is meant to be the ‘underdog’, his lack of formal education and youth portrays Jamal to be a character that should have no hope of winning the money, and a huge majority of he audience recognised this.