The end of originality?

Jorge Luis Borges wrote (where exactly I can't recall; am getting old!) that all stories are mere retelling of the first original one, Don Quixote. 

In the contemporary world, it seems increasingly so.  Music and movies often tend to generate a sense of I have heard/seen this before, and often it is not wholly imagined.

In the research in the humanities and the social sciences, rare is any original insight, and forever we are echoing ideas and arguments sometimes even from centuries ago.  The internet has further facilitated this process of all of us becoming DJs of sorts--all we appear to do is nothing but remixing in so many ways.  This blog post, and the blog itself, is evidence of the remixing that happens every single day. 

The following video (ht) conveys the point so well through images and sound from the world of cinema.


Everything Is A Remix: THE MATRIX from robgwilson.com on Vimeo.

Slumdog Millionaire

Jorge Luis Borges wrote somewhere that all stories since Don Quixote are only retellings of the Cervantes classic.
What does this have to do with Slumdog Millionaire?



As the movie unfolded, I kept thinking that this was so similar to Forrest Gump. Gump managed to be at the right places at the right times, and despite the low IQ person that he was, well, he turned out to be one successful guy. And, of course, Gump was forever after that same girl in his life--despite how much ever she shunned him.
Here, the slumdog--Jamal--didn't quite know anything really; he just lucked out with the questions--they all somehow related to his life experiences. You know, life is like a box of chocolates, as Gump opined.
I guess the only difference is that Gump girl dies in the end, whereas Jamal and Latika get together in the end, in quite a cheesy ending to the movie.

A quick Google search for the Forrest Gump comparison, and here is an excerpt from one of the results:

In championing Forrest Gump's purity, Robert Zemeckis's film mocked both U.S. history and the complexities of adulthood, helping to fan the flames of American anti-intellectualism to a towering mid-Nineties blaze. Boyle's ode to dumb love and circumstance hasn't the same deliberation, but "Slumdog Millionaire" does manage to make bombastic offense. Jamal's success on the TV show makes him a hero to slumdogs everywhere (they gather around televisions in the cities and on the farms with that nostalgic fellow-feeling), but he doesn't care about being rich. He just wants to be with Latika. Quite instructive to the billions of poor people in the world foolishly aspiring to subsistence, let alone wealth. See that heartwarming montage of Jamal through the years, laughing despite the begging, stealing, and enslavement? He's postcolonial, post-material, totally adorable. Love is all Jamal needs. Love and a lobotomy.

I thought it was interesting with the names of the characters--the brother is Salim Malik, and the brother's boss--the crime leader in the slum--is Javed Miandad. What is special about these names? They were big time cricket players from Pakistan; Malik was eventually banned from cricket for match-fixing, and Miandad is currently the head honcho of Pakistan's cricket board.