The BBC has been swooning at the success of the film “Slumdog Millionaire” at the Oscars all morning. I haven’t seen the movie yet so can’t comment on it but I do note that several of the young people that star in the movie repeatedly refer to their home city as “Bombay”. The BBC really must have a word with them – don’t they know it is Mumbai?
SLUMDOG ALERT
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noticed this myself –was changed to Mumbai by Indian gvt in 1997, but most of the locals still call it Bombay –however this smacks of British colonialism. I compared this with Humberside + East Yorkshire debate (East Yorkshire won in the end)
Mumbai was from the previous colonists, so thats alright.
Morning all,
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The name was changed to “Mumbai” by a an extreme Hindu Nationalist government in the 1990’s, and is completely bogus, but naturally the BBC would toady to that.
The original name is Portuguese, and means “Good harbour”, which indeed it has. It was a British possession for some 300 years, and during that period Bombay rose as a great trading and industrial city. Its wealth also supported educational, cultural and sporting institutions, which continue to this day.
The BBC are incapable of grasping any of this, being merely a collection of leftist public-sector parasites.
This whole Oscar hype has gone way over the top. Im sick and bloody tired of hearing about Slumdog Millionaire. It’s reached Obamesiah levels of adulation by the BBC. Im sure it’s a good film but they’ve been banging on about it for months. A handy distraction from the doom and gloom of the Great Depression mark 2? And I wonder if it would have recieved the same BBC attention had it been set in a council estate in Leeds. Doubt it.
The film, set in the slums of Mumbai (Bombay), won eight awards in total, including gongs for best adapted screenplay, cinematography, sound mixing, film editing, best original score and best song.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/oscars/7904567.stm
sawtooth 23.02.09 – 9:49 am:
“The BBC…a collection of leftist public-sector parasites.”
Excellent description! I laughed like a drain. I wonder if DV would consider adding this as a sub-title to the blog?
DV: ” I haven’t seen the movie yet so can’t comment on it”
I’m sure you won’t let that stop you. After all, ignorance has never held you back in the past.
I loved the film but it certainly doesn’t portray Bombay/Mumbai as a particularly nice place. Amusingly this has led to various left wingers dashing to the papers to make clear that whilst there’s hideous poverty, disease, suffering etc etc in the slums they’ve all visited and have never seen anywhere with such vibrancy, you’ll never see so many smiling faces in the evil west etc etc. arf.
This is the sort of pointless story here that means thats its hard finding some real bias today. The BBC call it Mumbai cos its officiallt called that; every other news organisation does the same. Yes the locals call it Bombay, who really cares what the correct term is; it doesnt prove bias, it just proves that BBCBiased have to have a new story every few hours, and in the lack of a real story, this will do.
Most people seem to say the book Q&A is better than the film.
I’ve spoken to Indians and they say both names are in use. The stock exchange and the high court still keep the old name. Old habits die hard.
Being realistic why shouldn’t the BBC follow with the naming decisions of the local government no matter what was once common. It has nothing to do with political correctness and there is no hard and fast rule.
Does the BBC still call Russia’s 2nd city Leningrad or does it call it Saint Petersburg? I can imagine the outrage if the BBC started referring to the Jerusalem as Al Kuds or Yerushalayim. Peking became Beijing without fuss unless it’s a duck or a homo erectus cave-dweller.
The official film site (UK and US) use the term Mumbai, so does Fox News and every other news site I can find.
To criticise the BBC for biased political correctness regarding this, implied or otherwise, is frankly ridiculous.
“And I wonder if it would have recieved the same BBC attention had it been set in a council estate in Leeds. Doubt it.”
Maybe not Leeds, but certainly Sheffield.
Beeboids seem to like British films set in the People’s Repuiblic of South Yorkshire – Billy Elliott, Brassed Off, Full Monty etc, all offset against the ruin caused by the evil Mrs T !
The poor uneducated kids of “Mumbai” can`t be expected to know where they live.
The film is good but not that good. I am surprised that it has won best film award.
Ah I see DV is taking the blog in a new direction.. white noise..
This is the sort of pointless story here that means thats its hard finding some real bias today.
God only knows there is plenty of bias every day–thanks to the mindless leftie stereotypes “working” at the BEEB.
In the real world of working people (ie those not funded by a bogus tax) most believe the BBC to be left leaning and out of touch with the real world. This blog is supplied with new ammunition every day effortlessly by the BBC.
Get used to the fact this anachronism will cease to exist in it’s present form in short order!!!
This blog desperately needs a F.A.Q. Despite it’s name this blog has long dealt with all types of BBC criticism including but not restricted to bias. That includes it’s financing, standards of journalism, editing, and general sloppiness which are not necessarily related to bias.
DV’s reference is to Political Correctness. In this case I think he has got it wrong.
The Oscars and similar awards, Brits, etc. are just about a bunch of incestuous, overfed baboons getting together and stroking eachother to promote their films. It’s just advertising posing as entertainment! When will the beeboids and other media learn that. Someone did say on Radio 4 this morning that millions of Indians will never see the winning film and don’t care.
Maybe some are taking this post a tad too seriously. I was simply entertained that some of those in the movie call the place they live Bombay. The BBC knows better, obviously.
Deegee,
Currently being revised and will appear.
Interesting comments about the name Bombay above.
I was surprised when I saw the film to see that it was not as ‘on message’ as most big films usually are these days. For once, the bad guys were not the British colonialists or the Americans or capitalism or multinational companies. The actual story was good, and the message was that India is full of cruelty and corruption which needs to be acknowledged. A bit like a Dicken’s novel really, ie going through a life story and exposing what goes on along the way.
It exposed pointless violence, kid exploitation, forced prostitution, the usual obsession with virgins of any age, police corruption, and real poverty.
Anyone notice how many beeboids were out in the USA covering the Oscars?
Don’t know if anyone noticed but the female beeboid that wore the Oxfam dress was interviewing Danny Boyle. Right behind her was the biggest tosspot at the BBC, a bloke called Colin Patterson (a cross between lurch and and egg) who works for Radio 5.
As female beeboid did interview Patterson had his mic showed in Boyle’s face, so he got the whole interview. However as soon as she finished he decided to interview the bloke again. Why? Did the BBC really need to send so many people out there?
The BBC knows better, obviously.
David Vance | Homepage | 23.02.09 – 1:33 pm | #
Except it refers to it as “Mumbai(Bombay)” in the article about the film winning the Oscars. Which you didn’t link to. Did you read it?
He may have got it wrong over the name of the city but I note how the BBC has relegated Kate Winslett in favour of the Indian film. She is only the Best Actress after all and doesn’t even merit a front page mention or even a wee photo. Other broadcasters managed both Kate and Slumdog. That terrorist Ethiopian of course gets his mugshot on the front page. That’s the BBC for you!
Don’t know if anyone noticed but the female beeboid that wore the Oxfam dress was interviewing Danny Boyle.
martin | 23.02.09 – 2:07 pm |
That sums the bbc up for me,champagne sipping trots pretending to be poor.
When I first heard how the movie was brutally marketed by offering freebies to reviewers, I did think it was going to be absolute crap. But having watched it I can say it is OK in its own way. having seen the actors on the Beeb this morning though, it is clear that acting they were not.
On a related topic has anyone noticed when the beeb stopped using Myanmar (or whatever it is) and started using the original name, Burma? (Oooo, I panicked).
Slightly Off Topic: “Q&A”, the book on which “Slumdog Millionaire” is based, was about an indian Everyboy called Ram Mohammad Thomas to represent the three big religions in India. The director of Slumdog, lefty Danny Boyle, has said he changed the protaganist to a specifically muslim boy to highlight what he claims is hindu oppression of muslims, and you will notice that all the bad guys in Slumdog are indeed hindus.
The only other person I know of who has noticed this muslim bias is Charles Moore in his column in this week’s Spectator.
BBC Radio FiveLive has promoted this film relentlessly for months in a way unmatched by their support for any other british film. I suspect that this is at least partly because it supports their leftist islamophilic worldview.
Rob Santiago | 23.02.09 – 4:11 pm
OT, but If you go to the next page Charles Moore writes about what happens if you don’t pay the telly tax:
“What happens is as follows. TV Licensing’s inquiry officers have no special powers. If they suspect you of having a television and no licence, they must first caution you under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Only then can they proceed, as they do with 139,000 people a year, to take you to court. If you are convicted, you face a maximum fine of £1,000 and, although it is a criminal offence, no criminal record.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/the-week/3367756/part_3/the-spectators-notes.thtml
Of course, Beeboids have only ever stayed in the best hotels in Bombay. No slumdogging it for them !
@ DV Maybe some are taking this post a tad too seriously. I was simply entertained that some of those in the movie call the place they live Bombay. The BBC knows better, obviously.
Sorry David, but you seem to be taking the default and obvious option in response of criticism of; ‘it was only a joke, don’t take too seriously’.
What other posts on Biased BBC should I treat like that?
‘it was only a joke, don’t take too seriously’.
What other posts on Biased BBC should I treat like that?
Peter Wilson | 23.02.09 – 5:23 pm |
your own.
Grant: Oh I think there’s a lot of dogging goes on at the BBC.
I’m just struggling to understand how it is a “British film”. I gather because it was made by a British director with British money. By the same token, would a film made by a Dutchman with Dutch money set in the Lake District be a Dutch film?
I have to say that I consider the BBC’s general treatment of this film to have crossed the line from reporting into promotion.
maybe its so good our kids can watch it at school after Al Gores blockbusting flick, an inconvenient load of bollox
The BBC don’t mind so long as money is being spent on the arts.
Note whenever money is spent on science it’s seen as a waste.
‘it was only a joke, don’t take too seriously’.
What other posts on Biased BBC should I treat like that?
Peter Wilson | 23.02.09 – 5:23 pm |
your own.
vicky | 23.02.09 – 5:27 pm | #
Though mine’s a comment not a post
Just going off at slight tangent here,but what percentage of bbc TV presenters are from ethnic backgrounds?It looks to me like ‘positive discrimination’has gone into overdrive!
Peter Wilson:
spot on. I wonder if 99% of the posts here could be classified as a ‘joke’…
Gus Haynes: You’re a joke for starters.
Hugh Oxford | 23.02.09 – 6:26 pm
Funding, director, producer, leading man, and the screenwriter are all british.
i’m still waiting to hear martin about your postive input into your community. about all the hard work you do improving society. i am willing to be proved wrong. do tell me about how you personally go about fixing things. or do you just complain, moan and insult?
Gus Haynes | 23.02.09 – 7:52 pm |
or do you just complain, moan and insult?
thats rich coming from you.
Though mine’s a comment not a post
Peter Wilson | 23.02.09 – 6:52 pm |
true that..still bollocks though.
Peter Wilson,
Did I say my post was a joke? My point, wonderfully ignored by some, is that I find it interesting that some people who live in Bombay call it, erm, Bombay. In comparison, the BBC seem loath to say the B- word.
Now then, just to extrapolate from this, my broader point goes to the use of language by the BBC since this DOES cut to the heart of the bias issue. When the BBC refers to Hamas Jihadists as “fighters”, for example, they convey a mask of semi-respectability upon the Gaza scum. When they refer to Ethiopian illegal immigrants as British “residents” they wilfully obscure part of the picture.
Language IS key and whilst this post is by no means the world’s most substantive, it tries to draw comparison between how some of the actors IN the movie compare to their home city and how the darlings at the BBC do so.
Am I joking? No. Deadly serious and I look forward to your participation in the several other threads I put up today, if you feel up to it.
Well said DV. The abuse of language is the abuse of thought itself. Shameful.
Bombay is/was the English name for the city, whatever Indian politicians chose to change it to, and the natives of the place continued to be the inhabitants’ name for it, why should the BBC change, unless to “send a message”. Chennai is even sillier, since it bears no resemblance to the old name. It is actually quite flattering for a place to have different names in different languages: i.e. it has such importance for people in other countries that they have their own word for it.
I meant to say, ‘it continued to be the inhabitants’ name for it”.
There can be no doubting that the BBC entirely approves of Slumdog Millionaire’s success. They certainly won’t tolerate any criticism of the film or the reasons for it’s Oscar success. I posted a comment on BBC’s “Have Your Say” forum suggesting the film’s success was motivated by political correctness and that the same film made about a white child in a British city would not have won any Oscars. My comment was rejected. The BBC seem to have a list of things that must not be criticised – Obama is on the list so is this film – the list grows daily
Billy Elliott was based in the fictional ‘Everington’ in the real County Durham” – not South Yorkshire.
Though mine’s a comment not a post
Peter Wilson | 23.02.09 – 6:52 pm | #
————————————-
Eh? On this here internet, people commonly POST comments, ergo that which is posted is commonly known in the lingo of t’net as a POST. QED
PS: Nobody is denying that it is a comment!
Did I say my post was a joke? My point, wonderfully ignored by some, is that I find it interesting that some people who live in Bombay call it, erm, Bombay. In comparison, the BBC seem loath to say the B- word.
Of course some people in Mumbai call it Bombay, the same as some residents still call St Petersburg; Leningrad or even Petrograd – but it’s official name is still St Petersburg.
What’s the BBC suppose to do? The offical name is Mumbai, every news organisation calls it so, the official film site says so and the BBC reports as it as Mumbai (Bombay), so they weren’t even loathed to say the B word as you suggest, but referred to it’s previous name in brackets
In my view, as an example of BBC bias it’s a poor effort…sorry