Editor’s Note: Vishakha N. Desai is president and CEO of Asia Society, a global educational organization. 

Last Sunday, I watched with some pleasure, some pride and some pause as “Slumdog Millionaire” began to sweep the Oscar Awards. And all of my emotions peaked when it was declared the best picture of the year.

Seeing so many Indian faces on the stage of the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles was in itself a sight to savor. But the more I watched, the more uncomfortable I became about one particular element. In the sea of men — British, American and Indian — there was one lone woman, lead actress Freida Pinto, and one young girl. This realization made me think back to the movie itself and to the role of female characters in the movie. As is true of many Bollywood films, “Slumdog” perpetuates the idea of women as victims, preys of men without any sense of power or agency.

Take the brief role of the mother of the two boys: One minute you see her working hard, and the next minute she is burned alive. Her victimhood is clear — no struggle, no fight and no help. Now take the case of Latika, the lead female character. As a young girl she is as playful, determined and individualized as the two boys. She speaks her mind; she plays with them on equal footing. As she becomes a young woman, she is simply a pawn in the power games of men. First she is forced into prostitution. Later she is stuck in an abusive, manipulative relationship. The young boys in the film make their varying escapes, but not the girl. It is as though upon reaching puberty, she can no longer exert her individuality. Even when she finally escapes the impossible situation with the mafia-boss-like slumlord, it is due to the male characters around her. Thus, a young third musketeer, full of vitality as a child, has ended up as a victim, a pawn or survivor, to be saved by an idealistic male figure, even though the young man has no more social power or status than she does.

I am fully aware that the movie is both hyper-real in its depiction of the slums of Mumbai and over-the-top non-real in its narrative. I am also mindful of the fact that in India, as well as in many traditional societies with rampant poverty, women are often the worst victims of society. However, it is also true that in the lowest strata of Indian society, whether in the slums of Dharavi in Mumbai or any other urban poor area, it is often the women that keep the family together and provide financial support by creating micro-enterprises when their husbands lose their meager salaries to alcohol.

For once, it would have been wonderful to see a stronger woman in a Bollywood-like movie by a serious non-Bollywood director with a happy ending.  Given its increasingly huge potential to reach millions of viewers with no connections to India, “Slumdog Millionaire” could have presented an aspect of an Indian woman that could have lifted the spirit of those women who have the strength to stand on their own.