Slumdog Millionaire contains numerous violent scenes that adults are the most likely audience for this theatrical film. The scenes showing the police brutality in India depicted violence. They showed Jamal being interrogated rudely and tortured. The tortures included Jamal's head being forcefully submerged, Jamal being brutally beaten and later on electrocuted until he was unconscious. Other scenes that showed violence included killings showing Jamal's brother shooting people. A disturbing scene is when Jamal's brother shot a gangster when he was still in his teens. There were also scenes which showed anti-Muslims hitting, killing, and burning every person in Jamal's village. There were also scenes that showed women and children physically abused. The bombardment of violent scenes would most likely make the audience feel desensitized and less sensitive to the succeeding violent scenes in the movie. This is the possible effect of the violent content of Slumdog Millionaire as proposed by the Desensitization Theory.
Poverty was also strongly depicted in the movie. Scenes of the slum and the way of life of the less fortunate are showed scene after scene. There are scenes where children were shown being forced to work, begging money for the gangsters, getting hungry because they don't have anything and anyone for them, and being forced to commit petty crimes that later on turn to serious ones. These socially relevant issues depicted in the movie so heavy could potentially cause desensitization as well. Uninvolvement to these socially relevant concerns is a potential crucial effect of the desensitization in this case. However, being that the likely audience of this movie is adults, they are more inclined to think critically. Perhaps the bombardment socially relevant issues in this movie might cause them to be more involved and sensitive to the important issues in the Third World.
On the other hand, the Social Learning Theory tells us that the violent scenes in Slumdog Millionaire could potentially be imitated by the target audience. Since the adults have more experience in the world and is more likely to be able to tell reality from fiction...
However, equally violent scenes such as physically abusing women and children could potentially be imitated by the adults though not to the same degree as was shown in the movie. Another behavior that may be imitated by the adults is the way foreign tourists in the movie dealt with the slumdogs in India such as protecting the child being beaten up by the police and giving money to compensate for the physical injuries.
In conclusion, Slumdog Millionaire could potentially affect its audience by making them desensitized to violence but more aware of the critical social issues in Third World countries such as India. Should the society come to be desensitized to violence, there would be less people who would care about injustices brought about by violence. It would also mean less people safe-guarding the rights of every human being. Should society be more aware of the important social issues in Third World countries, society could come up with effective solutions to these critical issues and work together in to slowly but successfully solve these social issues. This movie could also affect the individual through the socially learned behavior of dealing with people from slums. This is a cause of concern since the modeled behavior in the movie does not solve the root cause of the problem instead it was just an immediate remedy. A better way to help these people is through advocacies.
References
O'Rorke, K. (2006). Social Learning Theory & Mass Communication. ABEA Journal, 25 (Fall 2006). Retrieved April 20, 2009, from http://abea.asu.edu/v25/v25v22n2.pdf
Rockler-Gladen, N. (2008). Theories of Violence in the Media: Desensitization, Cultivation Theory, and Other Concepts. Retrieved April 20, 2009, from http://medialiteracy.suite101.com/article.cfm/theories_of_violence_in_the_media
Yates, B., Ballard, M., Ferguson, M.A., Filer, K., Villanueva, A., Knott, A., et al. (1998). Video Violence: Desensitization and Excitation Effects on Learning. Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~byates/video.htm
