Slumdog questions 8,10&14

8. The game show format brings into to focus the culture of meaningless competition. What does the spectacle of the game say about what people value today? What values does the media promote? Are they humanizing values?
People value being wealthy and gaining money in a relatively easy way. The media promotes values such as the richer you are the happier you will be, it is not a value but that is what it promotes. I do not think they are humanizing values because they are placing more value on material thing than people.

10. In one pivotal scene, the show’s host tells Jamal his own story about coming from the slums. He then gives Jamal the wrong answer written on the mirror in the rest room. Why did he give Jamal the wrong answer? What did Jamal do? Because he did not want Jamal to win, I think he did not want Jamal to have more money than him. Jamal

Didn’t take the bite and he answer the correct answer which wad D.

14.This film weaves together nightmare and impossible dream. What do you take away as the most important message or impression from the film? I think the most important message is that you should not judge someone by appearances that even a slumdog chai seller can have values and be smart.

By: Priscilla Grasman

Slumdog Millionaire

5. Is ethical decision making possible when one must make choices based on survival Do seemingly “bad” choices make a person bad?
Situations can force us to do things we don't wanna do, or if it's a case of life or death we can even do things that go against our principles, unethical decisions.
Repetead "bad" actions can change people, even if it's not really on purpose, but for example if Jamal stole or something like that, it did not have a bad influence on him because he's a really noble person and would always be.

6. What do you think the film is saying about the globalization of culture through media? We see the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” adapted in the Indian culture. Is this a sign of progress? Why or why not? What is this film saying about the effect of money on culture?
Globalization is always in progress. The adaptation to the indian culture of Who Wants to be a Millionaire is a clear example of this. No culture should be left out, it's always good to take everyone everywhere in account. About money, the film reflects the importance of money on people's lives, as if money was everything there was in life. But Jamal does not see it that way, even though he won a lot of money, his true happiness was in Latika.

7. In one exchange of dialogue in the film during the interrogation of Jamal, the police inspectors discuss the impossibility of what Jamal knows.
Police Inspector: Doctors... Lawyers... never get past 60 thousand rupees. He's on 6 million. [pause]
Police Inspector: What can our slumdog possibly know?
Jamal Malik: [quietly] The answers.
Discuss the irony in the film that Jamal “knows too much” and is suspected of cheating. Discuss the irony that in the end, his poverty may make him rich. What point is the film making? What is real wealth?
It's normal. Whenever someone is too good at something, people think he or she is cheating in some way. Even when Jamal always lived in poverty, he knows almost all the answers by himself because of personal experiences. As if the questions were all based on his own life, except for the few that he didn't know and he had to use the options of ask the public, 50·50, etc.
His poverty made him rich in the end, how? Jamal lived a miserable and hard life, but thanks to his experiences in that life he had, he began learning the answers to the questions he'd be asked years later, in the decisive game where he becomes a millionaire.

Slumdog Millionaire questions (1, 2, 3)

What does the title mean? How does the title and the contrasts within it provide symbolic summary of the film?
The title is a little paradoxical because a slumdog is like a person who lives in a poor place and lives the "low life" and a millionaire is, well, someone who is rich and wealthy.
It's like a small summary of the film because Jamal was always considered a slumdog, but then entered "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" and became a millionaire himself

Early in the film we see the young Jamal dive into a latrine pit to steal a glimpse at a visiting movie star. How does his single-mindedness to see this movie star reveal his determination? What other examples do you see in the film of his
determination?
Jamal wanted to get the autograph no matter what, he was determined to get it even if it meant diving into a pit full of waste.
Another example would be when he wanted to get back with Latika. He went to the mansion where she lived and lied to get in. He assured the 'receptionist' guy or whatever that he was the dishwasher they had asked for. He dared enter the domains of a gangster just to see Latika again, with lies and everything but he got it. That's what I call determination.

In the film, the theme of destiny is a central theme. What does it mean that all Jamal desires is just out of his reach? (The prized autograph, Latika, his brother, the answers, etc.)
Apparently, Jamal had a very bad luck; he got the super autograph but Salim sold it, he met Latika but they got separated, his brother Salim was affected by greed and all and he kicked Jamal out, the answers? He knew most of them because he lived them.
However, it was Jamal's destiny to get Latika back and to know the answers, as tough as it was. As it was said in the movie he'll win because "it is written"

Excerpts on Death Penalty

The Death Penalty is a form of torture

The cruelty of torture is evident. Like torture, an execution constitutes an extreme physical and mental assault on a person already rendered helpless by government authorities. Abolitionist groups claim that the cruelty of the death penalty is manifest not only in the execution but in the time spent under sentence of death, during which the prisoner is constantly contemplating his or her own death at the hands of the state. Prison is an extraordinarily severe punishment that should not be exacerbated with torture or the death penalty.

Torture Defined

Torture of prisoners violates the Eight Amendment’s provision against Cruel and Unusual Punishment, and also constitutes a violation of several international laws. The United Nations Convention on Torture defined torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”

An example of torture in the US Criminal Justice System

In May 1998, a lawsuit was filed concerning conditions for death row inmates in Idaho Maximum Security Institution. The suit states that inmates are held in solitary confinement for 163 of every week's 168 hours in small concrete and steel cells with solid metal doors and a narrow slit for a window. Inmates are allowed out of their cells for a maximum of one hour a day, excluding weekends, for recreation, alone and handcuffed in one of 12 enclosed wire mesh pens measuring approximately seven by 15 feet. The prisoner named in the lawsuit, Randy McKinney, states that he has lived under such a regime for 16 years, and that such treatment constitutes torture.

World Trade Center bombing (1993)

In february 26 of 1996, in New York City, an act of terrorrism occurred. What happened was that a car bomb was denotated below Tower One of the World Trade Center, and the gas was supposed to knock the North Tower into the South Tower (Tower Two) bringing both towers down.. Before the attack, Ramzi Yousef send letters to local newspaper, claiming he was in Isreal’s army, and he demanded that the US end all relationships with Isreal and all other Middle East countries. He admited that the bomb was terrorrism, but that it was justified. The event happened at 12:18 pm; this act of violence killed 6 innocent persons, injured 1,042 persons, and made victims of us all.
I know that in some cases, US havent took the best decisions, like war, but I still think that this act of terrorism isn’t justified because of those bad decisions. But if we try to be positive, only 6 persons died, instead of thousands.

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Japanese on the United States' naval base in Pearl Harbor, which was in Hawaii.

It happened on December 7, 1941, which resulted in the United States taking part of World War II.

Japan did this because they wanted to destroy the U.S. fleet and keep them from meddling in attacks Japan had been planning. The consecuences of this action was the sinking of four United States battleships and the damaging of a few others. Japan destroyed many other things, but talking about people, 2042 were killed and 1282 were wounded. The attack consisted of two aerial attacks adding up to 353 japanese aircrafts.

This happened before an actual declaration of war, and so, it was meant to happen 30 minutes after Japan had declined a possible peace negotiation. It was successful in its objective. Japan claimed to have won a "great tactical victory" but to have lost the war because of that.

As a side note, the United States got its payback with the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Don't mess with the U.S...

Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight

Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 (1988).

The attack I chose was Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 (1986). This tragedy happened on December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 headinf from London´s
international Airport to New York Kennedy international Airport exploded en route to Lockerbie Scotland. The flight originally came from Frankfurt, Germany, and there
wa where explosives (packed in passengers luggage) were placed onto the flight after being transported to Frankfurt on a flight from Malta.
The explosion killed all of the 259 passengers and crew as well as 11 residence of Lockerbie. Some investigations determined that Semtex (plastic explosive), was the cause
of the aircraft´s shattering, in other words that this kind of explosive was the one that cause the explosion in the plane. The explosives were wired to a divice that measured barometric pressure connected to a timer. this were placed inside a portable radio, and packed in a regular suitcase. It has never been certained how the luggage made through security and onto the plane. The explosives were triggered when the barometric pressure inside the luggage hold fell beneath a certain level during the first leg of the Pan Am, which began in Franfurt.
Many different stories about why the Lockerbie bombings happened and who was behind them have been put forth. Although trial concluded with the conviction of the two Lybyan suspects in 2003, the question of what happened continues to be discussed. In any case the terrorist attack is understood to be one event in a series of responsive acts of violence between non-states or states-sponsored terrorist groups and the United States in the 1980´s.
Iran is one of the considered countries that may have been behind the explosion because Iran is understood as responding to the American ecplosion of the Iranian passenger jet by American plane carrier, the USS vincennes, in 1986. Libya is also one of the candidates for the attack, because the Lockebie often considered to be one of a series of responsive strikes between the U.S and Libya that began with a nearly simultaneous attack on Rome´s and Vienna´s airport on December 27, 1985, attributed to the Abul Nidal group.
For the United States, the bombing was significant becuase it killed 189 civilians, more American civilians than any other attack up to that point. Also the use of plastics explosives was a innovation in terrorist tactics that circumvented metal detectors, and led to a number of new procedures to make airline travel more terrorist proof. All this was what made this attack so notable.

By: Priscilla Grasman