At the time of its release, Slumdog Millionaire took the world by storm in a way that many of its producers did not anticipate. While Danny Boyle is a huge name in cinema and the film was sure to be a success, the magnitude of its cultural impact—the fact that it did so well commercially and critically, and ended up taking home eight Academy Awards—was greater than anyone had expected. However, there was also a great deal of backlash against the film, with its dissenters arguing that it put a distinctly skewed and Western lens on its Indian subject matter and that it treated some of its Indian creative team poorly in favor of its Hollywood heavy hitters.
One criticism that was leveled against the film was that it paid its young child stars poorly, particularly the children who played the young Salim and Latika. Allegedly, Rubina Ali, who played the young Latika, was paid $700 for her participation in the film, while Azharuddin Ismail, who played Salim, was paid $2,300. In an article in Vulture about the controversy, it said, "Slumdog’s makers have reportedly set up trust funds for the young stars and paid for their educations, as well as arranged temporary housing for them and their families until current controversies blow over."
Additionally, many Indians, including both those from its actual slums and those who thought it failed to depict the beauty of India, disapproved of the film's attitude towards its subject matter. That same article in Vulture reads: "'We will burn Danny Boyle’s effigies in 56 slums here,' says the general secretary of a slum-dwellers rights group." Even the Bollywood star that is referenced in the film, Amitabh Bachchan (from whom Jamal gets an autograph) spoke out against the film, saying, "If Slumdog Millionaire projects India as a third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations...It's just that the Slumdog Millionaire idea, authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a westerner, gets creative global recognition."
