Why Danny Boyle Had To Save His "Slumdog Millionaire" Star From Being "Sold"
Update: Since this post was written, the "Slumdog Millionaire" trust fund has hired a social worker to look after Rubina's interests in India. "The trust is in regular contact with Rubina Ali and her family and has hired a social worker to assist in looking after her welfare and that of her co-star," one of the trustees said in a statement. Read more here.
How can it be that the star of the Oscar winning Best Picture of the Year, a little nine year-old girl, can be fated to be sold to the highest bidder by her poverty-stricken family? The movie has made $326 million so far -- how can she still be living in a shack?
The British tabloid News of the World is standing by the detailed story they broke about the father and brother of "Slumdog Millionaire" child actress Rubina Ali demanding $400,000 for their "Oscar child." Though the father is now denying that he tried to sell his daughter, he's been arrested by the Mumbai police and a huge uproar has ensued.
Local papers in Mumbai, 
where Rubina lives in the sprawling slums, have reported that her biological mother, Khurshid, got into a physical altercation with her daughter's stepmother after the story broke. She is now demanding custody of her daughter. Meanwhile relatives of the father, Rafique, explained to The Times of India: "Why will he sell her? She is going to earn so much more? Does anyone sell a cow that can still be milked?"
"Cow that can still be milked," " golden goose," "Oscar child." That is what this little girl is to this family. It sounds awful on this side of the Atlantic, but apparently selling children goes on all the time in India, although for A LOT less than $400,000.
"You have to understand that families can easily get into desperate situations," Carolyn Boudreaus, the founder of The Miracle Foundation, which operates four orphanages in India, tells me. "We've had parents give up their children to us because they couldn't afford to pay for food. We've also had to 'buy' children out of indentured servitude. They had to work to pay off their parents' debts. We bought one boy his freedom for $17."
The news that Rubina Ali could have been sold is a huge story in India because the little girl, despite returning to live in her slum home, is a HUGE star.
"People in India are horrified and concerned," says Boudreaus.
About the only person in this uproar who hasn't expressed his horror and concern publicly is genius "Slumdog Millionaire" director, Danny Boyle. An email to his office asking for comment went unanswered.
Listen: I know that supposedly he and the movie companies involved are paying for Rubina and her young impoverished co-stars to attend school -- though it's not considered a top school in Mumbai -- and there are trust funds that have been set aside until they are older, but this isn't enough.
A $326 million intervention has already dramatically altered their lives. 
You can't take children from a planet of deprivation, walk them down a red Oscar carpet, bring them as guests to the Vanity Fair Oscar party, have them toasted by all of Hollywood, and then send them back to live with their families in squalor. Is it really surprising that little Rubina's father wouldn't be tempted to cash in on his meal ticket? Apparently he is known by locals to also have a drinking problem on top of his poverty problem.
And it's also not really surprising that it's Rubina, and not her young male co-stars, who was being sold. Females don't have the same value as males in the country and the results are deadly. There are far fewer live births of female babies in India -- 927 girls for every 1000 boys. One out of six girls doesn't live to see her 15th birthday and every 6th girl child's death is due to gender discrimination, according to CRY: Child Rights and You (a non-profit aiding children in India).
Will little Rubina live to see HER 15th birthday? Authorities in India are investigating the situation, but it sure seems like a little more of Boyle's attention and box office bonanza needs to be redirected to making sure his young stars aren't victimized and that they get the opportunities that the movie's fictional star slumdog millionaire earns when he wins his million.
To help India's impoverished children, go to miraclefoundation.org.
For more on Rubina Ali's situation follow Bonnie Fuller at twitter.com/bonniefuller.
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She was in the movie for about a total of 20 mins. Also, as director, Danny Boyle can do little about this. He did not finance the film, he is merely on their payroll. If you really want to blame someone for not giving these kids a larger share...blame Fox Searchlight, the studio who produced and financed the film, and is enjoying the most profits from it. Danny Boyle simply did his job of directing, and got paid for it. He does not allocate where any money goes.
If Jodie Foster got involved with drugs after starring in Taxi Driver, would you have screamed that it was Martin Scorsese's duty to rescue her?
Why does the world expect Boyle to save the children of the city where he shot a movie? He's just a film director. Why don't YOU save the kids?
He's gotten rich off of them. Are you kidding?
I don't care who is to blame for taking care/not taking care of the 2 youngest children in the movie. I want them! If there was a way for me to be able to take care of them I would do it. I watched the movie for the first time 2 weeks ago and not a day has gone by that I haven't thought of Rubina and Ayush. I don't care if her father tried to sell her or not something happened. I saw the video of Ayush getting hit/kicked by his father and it brought me to tears and that was before I saw the movie. These are children, it breaks my heart that they have to live like they do and get abused. I just wish I could save them. I would love to take care of them until they can be on their own and do what they want. I would love to give them food everyday, new clothes when they need them, take walks when they want to go for a walk, go to school everyday, and most of all for them to not have to worry. These are children that have to worry about things no child should worry about. I wish for them that they could just be children....my thoughts are with them everyday, I just wish I could make a difference in their lives.
So if the movie had made fifty million dollars what would Boyle be required to do? People keep saying, give these kids a million each, well which of the kids in it gets a million dollars, there were fifty to a hundred kids in the movie. Do you give them all a million bucks, how much money do you give them? How do you figure it out. The school they are being sent to is the best school in the country, talk about ingratitude. I understand they live in poverty, and I understand that there is a lot of money to throw around. But because you know how much money Boyle made nothing he ever does will ever be enough. He gave them all apts, and money enough to be middle class. Well why aren't they upper class. If they are upper class how come they are mega rich, come on Boyle you can give more. Everyone who works on a movie doesn't get rich. Sometime what you get is a break. These kids have a chance to earn money in Bollywood or hollywood. They have a resume that makes them marketable. They have talent, but Danny Boyle isn't there dad, he isn't their friend. He is a guy who made a hit movie and his responsibilities are over.
One thing this whole ugly business has achieved is to throw a spotlight more vividly on poverty in India than even the movie itself managed to achieve. This issue is not going away and people are galvanised in a way I can't remember seeing before.
Bonnie, I take your point about what an upheaval this has been in the children's lives -- but imagine if Boyle had instead chosen to use child actors from better-off backgrounds, then the families of Rubina and the other children involved would STILL be living in abject misery, only without the $3,000 actor's fee, and the trust fund, and the apartment, and Rubina wouldn't be going to school.
I still think this could turn out for the best. If Boyle hadn't hired these kids, then the only thing that would've happened is that nothing at all would have changed.
I volunteer extensively (and work full time at a non profit hospital) both at home and abroad for causes related to both environmentalism and poverty.
I have talked to a lot of my fellow volunteers about this case, and I've yet to find one (though not saying they don't exist) who blames Danny Boyle for this. However, when on HuffPo, whenever I have pressed his most vocal critics, to the last one they have admitted that they do absolutely no charity or volunteer work themselves.
What I personally think is that the people who are most ciritical of Danny tend to be people who have their hearts in the right place, but are frankly too lazy to try and do anything to fight poverty themselves. Criticizing Danny Boyle (who isn't even responsible for paying the kids in the first place, that's the studio) while sitting on your @$$ at a computer is really easy, and it makes you feel like you've done something to help poverty without having to actually spend your precious time or money doing it. So they try and force others to be charitable when they do nothing themselves.
If you care about the poor, do something your own damn self. Don't throw a tantrum and expect a Hollywood director to do it for you. That's not his job. He's a director, not head of save the children. It's not his job to save these kids lives.
Post of the day.
amen. I am like you. I work at this every day. I do agree that Boyle is a skum bag but I also agree with you that I wonder what these other folks are doing.
However, your argument has one flaw. The people pointing the finger at Boyle did not get rich or acquire great status as a director, thereby secruing more work for hte future. I heard this guy interviewed a while back and was horrified at his lack of judgement and insight into what he was actually doing to this situation. A documentary would have been best. And a foundation set up with the profits to benefit the problem in a lasting way. This is pure and simple greed on his part. He's _ _ _ _ in my book. But , again, point well made.
Bonnie,
While I see where your heart is, I think your arguement is total bunk. No one in their right mind thinks this girl should be sold, but her Father is not in his right mind. How many children total fit this same bill? Millions? Hundreds of millions? Is this girl worth more than the rest of them because she was in a movie? Do you value her over them?
Using these kinds of emotional arguements are dangerous and you could be cast the same way as Danny Boyle. After all, you could, with your network of friends, gather up the 400k and buy the girl couldn't you? I mean, why arn't you? Why have you allowed this girl to suffer so? For that matter, why have I?
This is not Danny Boyles problem any more than it is mine, or yours. It is EVERYONES problem, but the Government of India has to be responsible here, not us, and not Danny Boyle. Not that any of us should turn our backs on good works (and I know that is part of your point), but you have gone way to far hold Danny, or anyone else, responsible for the actions this Man has taken in regards to his daughter.
Sad. Sick. Wrong. Perhaps, but there is much, much worse going on right now, with real villians behind it, that is more devistating than this.
This is a terribly difficult situation but I don't think it's fair to blame Danny Boyle for it. Obviously the girl's father is unfit to be a parent and I hope that someone does adopt her and gives her a decent home. I hope she gets to attend school, have some sort of normal, healthy life and keeps out of show business until she comes of age.
Taking a child from her family, even a dysfunctional family, can be devastating.
Yeah right. Keeping the child IN that family can be devastating! Her father wanted to sell her to rich sheiks from Dubai for the "good of her future". That is, the "good of her future" as a camel jockey and sx slave.
Obviously you missed the news about the other child star in Slumdog, who was beaten by his father. The film company took these kids from their families and returned them with a buttload of money but no way out of the slums. It's an unnatural situation for lower class families and they don't know how to react.
He's not to blame but he bears more than his share of the responsibility. He chose to make money off the situation and the kids were used to that end. He needs to do something.
I'm horrified that you would consider blaming Danny Boyle for this. Slumdog is a movie that did so much better than anyone ever predicted but it was a small budget production. Danny Boyle and Christain Colson did their best to make sure that the children's interests would be protected in years to come. Boyle knows that media attention can be fleeting and he wanted to do something to help the children in the long run rather than just throwing money at them. He focused on education and he attached strings to make sure the children would stay in school and make something of themselves. Boyle could not have been prepared for how the parents of these two children would behave. Who would even consider that a parent would could sell their child to the highest bidder. It was probably right that Boyle and Coulson didn't throw money at these families.
Coulson did wire money to the family of the little boy when his home was destroyed but the money went 'missing'. I've seen interviews with the parents of the other children and they said that Boyle and Coulson treated them well and the amount paid to the children was fair considering the budget of the movie.
Boyle is in a no win situation because no matter what he does someone will find fault. He has gone over and above what he should have done. How many people expect to be set up for life after working for only 30 days?
Greed. It's ugly in any language, in any context. What a mess.
Three cheers Bonnie!!!
Danny Boyle is morally bankrupt.
How did you win your acclaim?....on the backs of some very talent children.
Danny Boyle these children were there for you. Now you need to be there for them. It is called helping those who have helped you.
What world are you living in? They were "there for him"? Are you kidding me. He HIRED them, they didn't do him a favor.
I do freelance artwork on the side. Sometimes I will design logos for small companies, for which I'm paid anywhere from $50-$300. I'm not doing the company a FAVOR. I'm not HELPING them. I'm performing work in exchange for payment. And I FULLY understand that if one of my logos becomes the next Nike Swoosh, I'm not going to get a single dime more than what I was originally paid. That's just the way it works. I did my job, I got paid, if the company makes millions more because of my designs, i won't see a penny of it and I won't expect to.
And I CERTAINLY don't expect not only myself but my entire family to be taken care of for the rest of my life because of one month's worth of work.
Umm...Danny Boyle is not in charge. He does not have boatloads of money to throw around. Sure he had control over who to hire for these parts, but Boyle hiimself was HIRED by the studio. They are the ones who are making the most money from this movie. Boyle was hired to direct, and he did.
Danny Boyle was a sucessful director prior to this film, so he did not win acclaim on the backs of these children. These children were paid actors just like any other child actors. They were paid to act in his film, which they did and they were well paid for their acting. Danny Boyle is not responsible for the children and the impoverished nation they live in. It is easy to blame him, but it isn't right.
Where's Madonna? She wanted to adopt, no?
Just kidding.
Question - what happened to her Oscar? Did she get to keep it?
If I had the money, I'd "buy" her and adopt her, although it probably wouldn't be that simple.
This is a tragic situation. I don't like taking a child away from her parents, but I think in this case it might be best. Can she go to boarding school in Britain, where she'd be away from her parents? In India even?
Boyle paid 700 pounds to Rubina for a year's worth of work (which is all she did). If that's not exploitation, I don't know what is. To top that, their initial response was - "well, we are paying 3 times the salary of what an average adult makes in their neighborhood". "Neighborhood" as in the slums the children live in, which all of a sudden provided them a good enough standard to determine the pay scale for their child stars. Ironically, the focus of the film is based on the exploitation of these slum-dwelling children.
Boyle is not guilty of making the dad sell his child, but he's definitely guilty of exploiting these children, and even after making millions off of the movie, did not make an honest attempt to do as much as to save the childhood of these innocent actors. As for the trust funds, they are full of clauses such as they will only get the money if they are enrolled in a school when they are 18. A virtually impossible scenario if their circumstances remain unchanged.
Be realistic, if a huge lump sum was given without strings attached, the children would not directly benefit from it, and they would drop out of school.
Be fair, is that the normal process of compensation for child actors everywhere? These children deserved the same respect (actually more than normal respect for their oscar winning work) and yes, the same compensation scale.
I think the kid actors only worked for 1 month, not 1 year.
Would you agree for your daughter to play that role (assuming you have seen the movie) for 700 pounds?
You seem to think that Danny Boyle is the one making all the decisions here. He isn't. There are producers and studio execs that take care of dishing out the money. The movie was originally going to be a straight to DVD release movie, so they weren't expecting it to make as much as it has.
From what I have read, the people behind the movie (and that includes Danny Boyle) are trying to do the right things by these two children. Apartments have been purchused for the familys (but Rubina's father said he wouldn't move into it because it wasn't in the same city. I've also read that the government is building them homes.
I don't see them getting exploited by Danny Boyle, I see these children getting exploited by their families. Which is just sick and wrong. Thank good they have the trust funds (clauses included), so that when they have finished their educations they will be able to enjoy their money and have better heads on their shoulders thanks to Danny Boyle, the producers and the studio execs that are trying to do what's best for these children but people like you just can seem to see that.
This situation calls for boarding school - maybe Oprah could guide Mr. Boyle in programs that would benefit the children of the film and many others in their situation
"People in India are horrified and concerned," says Boudreaus.
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Yeah, I'm sure they are... oh wait, little Rubina is part of a Scheduled Caste, otherwise known as "untouchables." No one in the castes above them give a flying hoot about untouchables.
to be more specific, when they say people in india, how many of the 1.3 billion people did they interview to make that claim ?
She is not a Scheduled caste she is a Muslim
Thanks to liberal left govts the people there don't interfere in Muslim households in cases of honor etc. for fear of being labeled Islam o fobe.
Blah, blah, blah - is there ANYTHING you don't blame on the left?
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