Cultural Dimensions in Slumdog Millionaire Anonymous College

Slumdog Millionaire is a movie that invokes various cultures at work within India including Muslim/Hindu tensions, British colonialism and American pop culture in the form of the framing device of an American game show. Based on an Indian novel, the movie also adds another layer of cultural bias when it is based on Oliver Twist. Furthermore, there is a class structure in the movie that contrasts the poverty of the protagonist with the game show of the middle class existence. Even within the poor culture, there is a subculture of crime that is respected by the members of the poor class, but is largely ignored by the middle and upper class people. The criminals in Slumdog Millionaire are similar to the Ryan Reynolds character in Adventureland. He is the repairman for all the rides and among the teenage workers who are working at the place for their summer jobs, he is the highest class member of the fair. Yet, among his peers he has low status.

According to Edward Hall, culture is “an unconscious framework of shared meaning which makes communication possible but makes intercultural conflict inevitable.” (Shaules, 2007, p. 27) The screens of intercultural knowledge are constantly being challenged in this film as Dev Patel’s Jamal...