Cinematic Clash of Culture

With me being an avid viewer of Hollywood films, and my dad being a fan of Bollywood films, we rarely watch movies together. “I don’t want to go to the theatre and sleep when I could do that at home,” he often says in his somewhat raspy voice. Although, when Slumdog Millionaire came out, he asked me to go to the movies with him. I agreed, because finally, there would be a movie that both my dad and I could enjoy. It was a movie that integrated aspects of Bollywood and Hollywood, and was also receiving critical acclaim. When we arrived at the theatre, we got the last two tickets available for the seven o’clock show time, thus raising our anticipation. “If so many people want to watch it, then it must be good” I kept trying to reassure myself. However, when the movie was in progress I couldn’t stand it. It was another boring cliché love story that kept dragging on and on. While I was fidgeting endlessly, I glanced at my dad, who was taking a nice little nap, and was happy that he didn’t like it either. “How was your nap?” I asked him once we got out. “It was better then watching that movie,” he said through laughter. Apparently he agreed that it was too sappy, and he also felt that it was a poor representation of Indian culture. Although, at the end of the day we continued to have differing tastes for movies, we both felt that Slumdog Millionaire was a dreadful movie.

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