Servitude, Discontent, and Politicized Vulgarity: A Study of the Figure of the Migrant Servant in Indian Metropolises

Abstract

Frantz Fanon set out a graphic understanding of the colonized, i.e., the native, in his The Wretched of the Earth ([1961] 2004). Though they denote different conditions, the colonized and the migrant have degrees of dehumanization in common, wrought by their colonizers, landlords, and masters. Often, these latter figures embody similar principles of subjugation (labor exploitation, ghettoized living, transformation into objects of disgust, and so on). This paper considers the migrant servant as a figure of re-emerging depictions of class and caste tensions in cinema through The White Tiger (2021), a film following Balram, an impoverished migrant servant existing in close quarters with his upper-caste masters in the 2000s as India was becoming increasingly globalized.

To do this, it analyzes the film within a network of related works like Sir (2018) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008) that take up similar characters and filmic strategies; it consequently situates the film within a new, global subgenre of popular cinema I shall describe as “Eat-the-Rich.” The paper lays out the ethos and conventions of this subgenre, which developed in conjunction with popular politics in the late 2010s and of which emphasis on images of deliberate and insistent vulgarity is prime, i.e., spectacle as a kind of violence. It concludes by understanding The White Tiger not merely as a rags-to-riches story but as an instance of popular expression of political anger and resistance.