alternet.org — This is one of the most hyped movies in years. It struck me as truly sad to learn that two of its child stars were dramatically underpaid for their roles, are still living in horrific slum conditions, and have even been told that they will not get any more money until they are 18 and stay in school the whole time! A bit colonial, no, Danny Boyle?
Feb 8, 2009 View in Crawl 4
diggzdeFeb 8, 2009
I'm confused. Is it 1 years work or 30 days work?Author's words:"Ali earned 500 British pounds ($710) for one year's work and Ismail earned 1700 pounds ($2414)..."Quoted Fox Spokesperson: "For 30 days work, the children were paid three times the average local annual adult salary."So what was it?!
yahtzeeFeb 9, 2009
@ kublerross:Well, maybe, but that's still a grossly paternalistic, neo-colonial viewpoint. "We know best!"
teckieeeFeb 9, 2009
where the hell is Christian Bale when you needed him!
theotherone135Feb 9, 2009
se1zure, they worked for their money. Because of their situation, the parents didn't know the proper value of their work, and probably didn't understand the terms of the payments. So now, the kids technically were paid but the money isn't being paid to the kids except little by little. (It's either in a trust or an annuity, and it's possible that it was done that way so they could actually pay less now and have expected interest add up to the total promised value over time).If I hired you to do a job and promised to pay you $2,000, you'd expect to get that $2,000 at the completion of your job, right? I doubt you'd be happy if, at the completion of your job, I told you that I'd bought you an annuity that would pay you $10 per month for the next decade, with an additional $800 at the end of that decade.
danplainviewFeb 10, 2009
But in the end he just guesses the last question. The point of that was that he didn't care about the money, he just wanted to be with this girl that he had been attached to since childhood. A girl that he spent his entire life trying to find and to be with. He didn't care about the money. And why would it be so bad for this kid, who had pure intentions and was a good person, to be rewarded with a large sum of money. That's not a lesson nor is it a fact, but it is uplifting. I don't see any hypocrisy in this movie. The brother who let greed get in the way is killed in the end, the one who never cared about becoming "rich" is the big winner. I'd say that's in keeping with what is going on. The kids were probably just happy to be in a movie and now the greedy parents only care about the money and not this amazing experience their children received. The movie industry is a business after all and not a charity. If Hollywood ran things the way that you would apparently run things then they wouldn't be the biggest movie industry in the world like they are now.
Closed AccountFeb 15, 2009
Wasn't the extreme and hopeless poverty shown in the movie terrifying? How could that happen? Here's part of the answer:Forty-two years of SOCIALISM !!!!!!!!!!After the British left, and the nation of India was formed in 1948, they operated under a form of socialism for 42 years, until 1990.The system was called, by it's opponents, LICENSE RAJ."The architect of the system of Licence Raj was ...Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. Inspired by the economy in the Soviet Union, he implemented mixed economy in India. ... Private players could manufacture goods only with official licenses. The quantity of goods they were allowed to produce was determined by the license regime, not by free-market demand." wikipedia.comThere were so many licenses required to do business that nothing got done. And the little that did get done involved bribing bureaucrats to get these pointless licenses.No business growth, no jobs. No jobs, no income. No income, grinding poverty.
barnziMay 27, 2009
The lump sum and school and stuff is a good idea definately, i mean they will go alot further with a decent education.BUT everyone seems to be overlooking the fact that in order to get their money at 18 they have to make it to 18, which isn't exactly a given living in those conditions. Maybe im being extreme but still, i think they should be getting more than 20quid a month for food and school? Understandably india is alot cheaper but given the large family size it defo isn't enough.:s