April 4th featured a screening on our campus of Born Into Brothels, the Academy Award-Winning documentary about kids born in Calcutta’s brothels taking pictures. Among the more indearing character was Avijit, who is 19 years old now. He was the guest speaker for this screening and took questions and layed out his side of the story.
One of the more startling facts he made was that his late mother was in fact a teacher and not a prostitute as the film portrayed and pointed out when it said his mother may have been killed by her “pimp”(Avijit thinks it may have been suicide). I commend Avijit for correcting the audience and detailing a slight but notable class distinction that may explain his ambition and status among the other children. Another interesting point he made was about the paradox of portraying nations other than your own. He maintains that the portrayal of poverty-stricken Calcuttans was honest and needs to be continued as such.
One analogy I heard once is that if the United States was portrayed by the media as the third world is portrayed, the world would only see Baltimore, Detroit, and South-Central Los Angeles.
One plea I have heard regarding alternatve portrayals is to show viewers the richer areas in poverty-stricken countries. The question I would pose to them is “How many residents get to enjoy those rich areas?” Would showing the upper-class areas of the third world be a proportionate portrayal of the conditions on the ground? What if instead of showing Michigan, we showed Washington? I’m no fan of always seeing poverty around the world, but it’s a bitter truth that needs to be addressed anyway.