Libre Magazine

External observers to the field of development often fail to understand the worth and significance of the work undertaken by development specialists. Paradoxically, such realities are stronger in the developing world relative to the developed world, where the need of the profession is most significant. To note, several times, I have been asked, as to how I categorize my study relative to much more hard core professions such as finance and technology, which are believed to be opportunity enhancing and money making professions. Further, comments such as, development economics being the dead-end of economics is a common perception undertaken by some third parties. To top it off, observers, who are alien to the profession and influence, at times fail to distinguish the work undertaken by Angelina Jolie and Bono, with work undertaken by research and scholarly professionals in the field (atleast interms of thought and specialisation), and if anything, given the media scaled importance, the former are given greater prestige.

Amna Khalid in her article ‘Arrested Development: The Untold Story of Development Managers’ argues how Hollywood can influence such perceptions.

She notes:
‘‘Have you noticed how television shows now revolve around different professions? There are shows about lawyers, doctors and even stupid columnists. A couple of years ago the only occupations television producers deemed worthy (for TV) were those of policemen and detectives. Things changed when ER invaded the channels. TV hotshots realised that people thought the lives of doctors were exciting enough to watch. They added in some drama, love triangles and sexy actors and Grey’s Anatomy emerged. But the television executives didn’t stop there. Ally Mc Beal and Judge Judy were recruited to bring the courtroom drama to our television screens. The business men and women joined the doctors and lawyers on TV with ‘The Apprentice’. CSI and 24 replaced the old crime shows. Sex and the city conjured up false images of the lifestyles of columnists (How Carrie Bradshaw can afford her lifestyle by writing 4 columns a month is beyond me!). Even public school teachers were put in the limelight via Boston Public. As if that wasn’t enough Entourage and America’s Next Top Model were brought to TV so that we could learn about what it took to be a model or an actor! Everyone got to be on TV- everyone except development managers.

Development managers don’t have a show of their own-reality or fictional. We don’t make guest appearances. We’re not even given cameos in movies! It’s like we don’t exist. Hollywood has made countless movies on ballerina’s, sportsmen, teachers and even mathematicians! A movie about development managers would easily outclass Proof. It’s not like we live unexciting lives or don’t have much to say. Easterly’s poverty case studies from Kenya and India could be as inspirational as Dangerous Minds-a movie that focused on challenges of growing up in the ghetto and of the efforts of a dedicated teacher to allow her class to learn basic elementary education.

The show Heroes could easily have been about us. The original series tells the stories of ordinary individuals who discover that they have superhuman abilities. It explores how these people adapt to the changes these abilities bring and their roles in preventing catastrophes and saving humanity. Development Managers are the real heroes. We save humanity without superhuman abilities. We work on improving health, alleviating poverty and reducing crime. None of the other professions can do ALL of that. Noah Bennet could easily be replaced with Jean Paul. The company in this case would be the World Bank. A young Jean Paul would join World Bank to save the world. With time he would become disillusioned, realizing that the bank did more harm than good and turn against it. He would join LSE in hope of convincing the young heroes (in DESTIN) of the evil nature of the World Bank. The show would reach its climax when Jean Paul with the help of DESTIN would expose to the world the scandal of Paul Wolfowitz and the unethical pay raise.

Another great movie could be ‘The Life of E.A.Brett’. The movie would be about how Teddy, like Kevin Spacey, went to extreme lengths to prove to the world that the participatory approach to development wasn’t as effective as it was traditionally believed to be.

We could even direct a romantic movie ‘What Happens in LSE…’. Diana Weinhold and Robert Wade would replace Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher as the two completely opposite protagonists (Diana with her evidence based policy school of thought and Wade with his strong belief in policy based evidence), who are hired as consultants for the same project by Stuart Corbridge. Stuart would threaten them their jobs so they would be forced to work on the project. They would hate each other in the beginning and try their best to bring the other down but would finally fall in love and realize that by taking the middle path to both the schools of thought they could live happily ever after.

There are a lot of books that can be turned into movies. And if directed well the movies could actually be better than the (sometimes) lengthy and boring books. ‘Development as Freedom’, ‘The Bottom Billion’ and ‘The White Man’s Burden’ would be make great movie titles.

There are so many other ideas that can be converted into great movies. If only Hollywood would notice us.’’

I couldn’t agree more with amna’s viewpoint, which I find extremely relevant and vital. I say this being a movie buff and television fluff addict, where unwillingly but crucially, the underlying medium influences my thinking. Broadly, media as an institution has a strong impact on our day to day life, whether through entertainment avenues such as cinema, theatre or television production, or interms of documenting and interpretation of facts through news and information based channels. The medium is probably one of the most under-rated yet influential avenues of impacting human development and its related channels of social, emotional and psychological realities.