Everybody loves a good underdog story.
In a world enthralled by success stories and tales of unlikely heroes overcoming the odds, it’s not uncommon to see wealthy people downplay their affluence. It could be rooted in humility, a desire for privacy, an attempt to avoid jealousy, or perhaps just a quest for relatability. This trend has far-reaching and significant ramifications, raising questions about authenticity and the blatant appropriation of the working class.
In a new Netflix docuseries titled BECKHAM, Victoria Beckham—former Spice Girl turned fashion mogul—asserts she had a “very-working class” upbringing. This elicits an awkward on-camera moment where her husband urges her to be honest, compelling her to divulge she was in fact driven to school in a Rolls-Royce every morning.
This confession stirred the online pot, and a digital conversation ensued as to why she might mislead or downplay her socioeconomic background.
Surely appropriating poverty couldn’t benefit Posh Spice herself.
Appropriating poverty or downplaying one’s wealth is embarrassing, offensive, and raises ethical concerns. By pretending to be the underdog, wealthy individuals inappropriately lessen genuine hardships faced by those who didn’t hit the same jackpot—all for the purpose of being more relatable or generating empathy.
Underdog stories are a triumphant theme in literature, film, and sports, and are celebrated because of the human desire for success in the face of adversity.
These narratives resonate because they reflect the struggles and dreams of “ordinary” people. Successes of this genre include sports documentaries, films, and celebrity biopics, exemplifying our collective fascination with individual resilience and determination.
Audiences crave stories featuring those who achieve greatness despite coming from humble beginnings and facing seemingly insurmountable odds.
Think Erin Brockovich, A League of Their Own, and even Kung Fu Panda, where Erin’s fight against a mighty corporation and Po’s journey from noodle shop owner to Kung Fu master make them compelling characters who achieve an unanticipated triumph. These feel-good stories are far more palatable than much of what you’ll find on Netflix, anyway.
However, there’s an unfortunate catch.
Consider the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, portraying a man from the slums of Mumbai who becomes a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” and wins by a landslide when he refers to his life experiences. The movie ends on a hopeful note—the main character flees a cycle of poverty and orchestrates a flash mob at a train station to win over the love of his life.
Though Slumdog Millionaire captured hearts worldwide, filmmakers were criticized for exploiting the poverty of slum residents in Mumbai to create a striking, emotive, and sympathetic visual narrative.
As the film invites viewers to consume working-class struggle for entertainment, the film veers into voyeuristic poverty porn by filming these conditions.
Poverty porn is a term used to describe media exploitative of the hardship’s individuals or their communities face for the emotional or voyeuristic gratification of the audience. This concept centres sensationalism and dramatization to depict poverty-stricken individuals as helpless victims or objects of pity, reducing countless complex lives and experiences to one-dimensional portrayals.
While Slumdog Millionaire shed light on critical issues of child exploitation, wealth, and social hierarchy, it was a massive commercial success and reaped profits that never sustainably benefitted those portrayed.
The film is a product of Hollywood, written and directed by a millionaire white man whose film subsequently won eight Academy Awards, who didn’t give back to the community that gave him his notoriety.
In 2009, Tapeshwar Vishwakarma, a representative of a slum-dwelling welfare group, filed a defamation lawsuit against the film’s music composer and actor Anil Kapoor, alleging the grim depiction of the Mumbai slums violated the human rights of those who were portrayed.
Protests ensued, and slum dwellers expressed discontent by ransacking movie theatres and holding up signs reading “I am not a dog.”
The world’s fascination with underdog stories offers opportunities to raise awareness and inspire change, but these stories must be approached with sensitivity and ethical consideration.
Appropriating working-class status is misleading, exploitative, and erroneous. It’s incredibly distasteful to downplay wealth to appear relatable, as it undermines the authenticity of genuine narratives and hardships fronted by marginalized communities.
By obscuring the reality of privilege, audiences consume and perpetuate an incomplete and damaging perspective of struggle and inequality, hindering progress toward integrity.
Tags
Movies, Pop Culture, Underdogs, wealth
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