When Local Meets Lucre:
Commerce, Culture and Imperialism in Bollywood Cinema
Faiza Hirji
Abstract
Bollywood,
the most commercially successful form of Indian cinema, presents an interesting
contradiction in terms. It consciously mimics some American norms but mines
Indian culture for the success it enjoys among diasporic networks of South
Asians. In its avowal of nationalism and cultural tradition, it presents a
significant challenge to American domination of international film and culture.
However, it is too simple to say that Bollywood represents an assertion of
cultural independence in the face of an imperialist challenge, as Bollywood
films themselves replicate patterns of cultural domination, primarily marketing
Hindi-language films to an enormous community characterized by a high level of
linguistic diversity. In order to move beyond the complex question of whether
or not Bollywood can be seen as a symbol of resistance, this paper investigates
how hybridity may explain Bollywood films’ widespread and enduring popularity,
allowing viewers to accommodate the reality of exposure to different cultures.
Rather than attempting to evaluate the artistic merit of Bollywood
cinema, this paper focusses on the question of cultural needs and identity
politics that may be shaped by the themes apparent in mainstream Indian cinema
at a time when globalization can be seen as presenting a threat to local, marginalized
and diasporic cultures. In order to discuss this issue, it is useful to examine
questions of cultural imperialism, hybridity, globalization and glocalization,
with the word glocalization used to address the cultural debates surrounding
globalization, rather than economic or political issues. One debate over
Bollywood itself is whether its films have any discernible meaning or influence
beyond escapism.
As might be expected of an industry that regularly constructs and
markets films on the basis of star power, song-and-dance sequences that
frequently seem irrelevant to the overall story, a script that is nearly always
hastily cobbled together and largely predictable endings, the chief description
of Bollywood cinema is that it is pure fantasy.
This is a charge that not all of its adherents deny, many of them
pointing to the fact that their audiences are often composed of people whose
lives contain limited pleasures (see Chakravarty, 1993). If the cinema provides
them with the opportunity to temporarily escape the rigours of poverty,
political turbulence or family discord, then, some filmmakers argue, escapist
drama owes no apologies to its critics. Nonetheless, Bollywood producers often
do find themselves on the defensive, particularly when their work is weighed
against that of the so-called parallel cinema, a more artistic stream of Indian
film (Pendakur 1990, p. 248) which has focussed on tackling taboo subject
matter and winning worldwide recognition for its serious treatment of issues
pertinent to Indian life and culture. While these films only account for ten
percent of
Such
critiques of Bollywood are similar to Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s
vigorous condemnation of mass culture as instruments used to solidify the power
of the elite in a capitalist society, espousing ideological values that promote
a false consciousness amongst media consumers. Like Adorno and Horkheimer, who
distinguished between a low, common culture that catered to the masses’ thirst
for superficial entertainment and a high, elite culture that was capable of
improving and nurturing the intellect, Indian and foreign opponents of
Bollywood films suggest that the movies are vulgar and ridiculous,
demonstrating no discernible worth when compared to a more artistic type of
cinema (Gaur, 1973, pp. 100, 168; Pendakur, 2003, p. 98). As Sara Dickey notes,
those artistic films are frequently judged in terms of their resemblance to
European ideals of what constitutes important cinema (1993, p. 5; also see
Bhaskar, 1999, p. 140). It is not only American notions of merit and
appropriateness, then, that are viewed as normative; parallel cinema filmmakers
seem to derive more of an influence from European cinema, while Bollywood
filmmakers more frequently look to the United States for inspiration (Baghdadi &
Rao, 1995). Likewise, the division between upper and lower classes is
reproduced in Marxist terms through the idea that film viewing is often
dismissed as a pursuit of the uneducated masses, whereas filmmaking is the
responsibility of higher-class individuals, who have considered themselves
obligated to control the moral and educational tone of film content for the
sake of the audience (Dickey, 1993, p. 6). This divide becomes significant when
the debate over cinema addresses values, national and ethnic unity and media
influence.
Unlike parallel cinema, Bollywood films may occasionally address cultural
issues, but they will nearly always resolve them in a way that reinforces the
societal status quo. Discussing, for
instance, the question of gender in the enormously popular Hum Aapke Hain Koun (1994), Shoma Chatterji suggests that the film
replicates patriarchal norms embedded in an affluent, conventional lifestyle
that every urban Indian family would see as ideal (1998, pp. 5-7; also see
Gokulsing & Dissanayake, 1998, pp. 75-79, for a discussion about the female
figure and her symbolic identification with India, as well as Virdi, 2003).
Similarly, Hum Aapke Hain Koun, a
story of marriage and family, “reinforces India’s cultural heritage” through
its depiction of various rituals, including engagement, marriage and the mehndi, the traditional tracing of
decorative patterns on the bride’s hands using henna (Gokulsing &
Dissanayake, 1998, p. 44). Religious traditions are also affirmed, normally
providing a backdrop of divinely determined justice, even in films that do not
involve overtly religious themes, while the political and social issue of caste
is also frequently addressed (Gokulsing & Dissanayake, 1998, pp. 62, 70).
Gregory Booth, for one, defends Bollywood films from the charge that
they represent the encroachment of Western influence and depict only
meaningless fantasies, suggesting that such films actually “have their sources
in the oral and written epics and the popular dramatic genres of traditional
Indian culture” (1995, p. 169). Sumita Chakravarty echoes this observation,
commenting that “Hindi cinema has served to reinforce mythical stereotypes in
modern clothing” (1993, p. 57). Like Chatterji, she also takes note of the love
affair with consumption depicted in Hum
Aapke Hain Koun, but suggests that while the film uses such tactics in
deference to the reality of India’s new economy, it has also “reversed the
effects of the global invasion on our culture, implicitly asserting the
permanence and stability of all institutions of our traditional culture that
are now under severe threat—the joint family, patriarchy, the traditional
qualities of the image of the Indian woman, and also, the nation” (1993, p. 55).
Sheila Nayar argues that the borrowing of superficial symbols of Western life
does not necessarily augur the borrowing of supposedly Western values. She
suggests that the fear of those values, such as individualism and sexual
liberation, is countered in Indian films by their emphasis on family ties, and
the consistently “successful eradication
of all tension between oneself and one’s immediate family, and between one’s
immediate family and one’s future spouse” (1997, p. 86, italics in
original).
In any discussion of the significance of Indian film within
For cultural critics such as Homi Bhabha, modernity allows local and/or
minority populations to resist the pressures of a dominant culture while also
eluding the dangers of marginalization by creating an entirely new entity, a
hybrid culture that differentiates itself from the other traditions pulling at
it while still fulfilling the needs of the alienated (see Araeen, 2000, pp. 9-17;
Karim, 1998, p. 6; Khan, 2002; Kraidy, 1999). In terms of Indian cinema, these
alienated individuals can be easily found in an age that has scattered members
of the South Asian diaspora around the globe, attempting to reconcile the
values embedded in Indian culture with the practices seen in their new homes.
In a sense, then, these individuals come to inhabit an entirely new space
constructed to meet their layered needs, and as part of that process, the film
can be seen as creating a “new space of signification” (Dhareshwar &
Niranjana, 2000, p. 195), one which recognizes the importance of the local but
also acknowledges that the “MTV culture, as well as more generally the global
televisual culture, is here and we have to negotiate it” (Dhareshwar & Niranjana,
2000, p. 193).
In this formulation, then, the notion of displaying spirited resistance
to the imperialist culture by encouraging the development of untainted local
practices becomes an outdated paradigm. While resistance to cultural
imperialism is still widely discussed and promoted by some scholars, advocates
of hybridity and glocalization seem to suggest that it is almost naïve, and
restricting, to attempt to avoid altogether the dictates of a dominant culture.
Rather, it is more realistic to acknowledge that these widespread minority
communities will find a need for both their cultures of origin and for the
culture that saturates every aspect of their lives once they physically enter a
location where new norms prevail. “[T]he desire to work through existing
contradictions,” suggests Lipsitz, “rather than stand outside them
represents...a recognition of the impossibility of standing outside
totalitarian systems of domination” (1994, p. 35). As Nayar points out when
speaking of present-day Indian practices, “modern life, ‘western’ life, is very
much a part of Indian culture, of urban Indianness, and with it comes numerous
‘universal cultural trends’” (1997, p. 77). Javed Akhtar is similarly alert to
the conundrum of faithfully retaining only one culture when endlessly
confronted by the advantages of another:
This onslaught of consumerism, the existence of
multiple television and satellite channels, modernisation and industrialisation
have brought Indian society to a point where we are feeling slightly lost. We talk of cultural invasion, of an excess of
Westernisation, of a loss of family values....But on the other hand, what’s the
alternative? (quoted in Kabir, 1999, p. 95)
Kearney notes that in 1992, 100 million people were living outside of
the country of their birth, a displacement due to various factors such as military
conflict, employment or the lack thereof, or poverty (1995, p. 557). These
people, whose numbers are constantly on the rise, are considered transnational
migrants who “move into and indeed create transnational spaces that may have
the potential to liberate nationals within them who are able to escape in part
the totalizing hegemony that a strong state may have within its national
borders” (1995, p. 553). For Ananda Mitra, the potentially totalizing hegemony
is Western culture, and in order to escape its dominance, it is essential that
migrants “find an identity for themselves that maintains the connections with
their places of origin as well as develop[ing] a particular niche for
themselves in the West” (1999, p. 18).
It is interesting to note that while Bhabha’s use of hybridity seems to
signal elements of creativity and self-determination, the term hybrid culture
recurs frequently in discussions of Indian cinema as a pejorative. Anil Dharker
says dismissively that the “trouble with hybrids, especially when they are too
deliberately forced to adapt to another culture, is that they don’t work” (1997,
p. 400; also see Barnouw & Krishnaswamy, 1980, p. 157; Dickey 1993, p. 58).
Marwan Kraidy takes up the discussion of hybridity and postcolonialism, drawing
on work such as that of Stuart Hall and Nestor García-Canclini in his analysis
of the blurring of boundaries between the local and the global. He notes that
while there is a relatively recent body of work addressing the hybridization of
cultures, this has been occurring as an actual practice for many years, so that
any attempt to distinguish sharply between local and global spaces “glosses
over years of osmosis between different national and cultural entities. For
centuries immigration, trade relations, colonial expansion, political
alliances, wars, and invasions have contributed to blending heterogeneous
elements of different cultures” (1999, p. 459; also see Hasa, 2000; Lipsitz,
1994 for further discussion regarding postcolonial exile and hybridity). This
process is referred to by García-Canclini as cultural reconversion, in which
local cultures accommodate the influence(s) of the global “without being destroyed
because tradition is re-articulated in modern processes” (1999, p. 460). This
description is similar to that of Sheila Nayar’s, who counters the longstanding
argument that the seeping of Western habits into popular cinema signals the
erosion of Indian nationalism, suggesting instead that selective borrowing from
the West can palliate the problems caused by the many competing cultures within
India. According to Nayar,
[s]ince Hindi popular cinema’s intention was always to appeal broadly
across the subcontinent—a nation ceaselessly struggling to keep its commercial,
regional and linguistic factions from splintering—Bollywood came to rely,
ironically, on the uniformity of the West (or rather, what it chose from the West) to provide its
films with a generic coat of all-Indianness. (1997, p. 75, italics in original)
This, then, is an entirely self-conscious attempt at negotiation on the
part of those whose dislocation or exposure to external influences has affected
their ability “to exclusively belong to one or the other of what they saw as
two irreconcilable worldviews” (Kraidy, 1999, p. 464). Kraidy suggests that the
term globalization, in reference to the diluting of indigenous cultures, has
become so widely used that it has lost its relevance, whereas glocalization
addresses all aspects of the cultural exchange, including its national and
regional nature as well as further-reaching, global implications (1999, p. 472).
In his use of hybridity, it “entails re-formulating intercultural and
international communication beyond buoyant models of resistance and
inauspicious patterns of domination” (1999, p. 472).
Rasheed Araeen, contrarily, disputes the idea that hybridity can
overcome the problem facing the postcolonial Other, whose exiled position is
one that he identifies as central to current cultural theory. The idea of
exile, as presented by scholars such as Bhabha, Edward Said and Stuart Hall, is
one that Araeen sees as a false construct, asserting that “[i]t is in fact a
fallacy to presume that migration in itself creates displacement, loss and
exile” (2000, p. 11). He critiques Bhabha’s hybrid Other, claiming that any
victory of this entity represents “a triumph of neo-liberal multiculturalism, a
part of the triumph of global capitalism” (2000, p. 15). He reaches this
conclusion partly due to Bhabha’s endorsement of the notion that this figure of
the Other continues, even amidst the ruins of colonialism, to exist on the
margins or in an altogether new space, rather than moving freely from the
periphery to the centre. For Araeen, it therefore follows that one who is
exiled from his or her original culture also develops a natural and regrettable
tendency to view that culture negatively, though his analysis does not provide
substantial support for this claim. Nonetheless, his critique is an important
one. It acknowledges that the entire concept of hybridity is still in flux, as
is, similarly, the struggle to overcome “the suffering of the exiled or those
who see themselves as diasporic, or the anguish of those who are concerned with
events in their own countries” (Araeen, 2000, p. 17; see Hasa, 2000; Lipsitz,
1994). For Araeen, the means that these individuals use to assert themselves
can be, to some extent, counterproductive, signalling a rejection both of
modernism and of their native identities.
This reproof occasionally veers towards oversimplification, denying the
Other’s attempt at “fighting his own battle for survival in his own way,
sometimes consciously, sometimes by default” (Nandy, 1983, p. xv). The methods
chosen may sometimes be imperfect, but they are not uniformly opposed to the
local culture, as Araeen apparently fears, and it can be argued that their
results to date contradict Araeen’s thesis that “we cannot build solidarity
only on the basis of race, culture, ethnicity or nation” (2000, p. 18).
The transnational lure of Bollywood cinema is an open secret to film
scholars, with Gokulsing and Dissanayake noting that people of South Asian ancestry,
who can be found in areas ranging from Sri Lanka to the Caribbean to Australia
to Canada, often find that their understanding of what is Indian is derived, in
large part, from Indian films. There is
certainly no shortage of films to choose from, with
Within
India itself, movies have often been seen as promoting nationalist or religious
beliefs, to the extent that British colonial powers saw fit to censor the film
industry rigorously, a practice that did not cease with the achievement of
independence. Indian film, then, despite its strength in centres such as
Madras, Calcutta and particularly Mumbai (previously Bombay), was profoundly
affected by the vestiges of colonial practice governing cinema, and reflects,
in some ways, the political turmoil that has characterized the nation at
different times in its history. One of the greatest sources of conflict within
the movie industry, which is companion to a flourishing music sector, is the
linguistic diversity that fails to be reflected in the majority of Bollywood
films. Bollywood movies, often—though
not always—filmed in Hindi, can be seen as imposing a cultural, or linguistic,
imperialism, neglecting the reality of the many languages that flourish within
Similarly,
filmmakers outside of Mumbai can often face greater challenges in terms of
financial resources and smaller potential markets, while nearly all Indian
filmmakers are alert to the potential competition presented by foreign films,
particularly American ones. Cultural imperialism, then, does not always impose
itself exclusively in one direction, nor is it necessarily characteristic only
of the American entertainment juggernaut. Indians who do not speak Hindi, the
primary language of Bollywood cinema, can and have made an argument that
Bollywood films tend to ignore local ethnic differences in favour of a
homogeneous portrayal of India. This portrayal is easier to produce given the financial
restraints on smaller film production centres in
This fragmenting at the linguistic level is ironic, given the crucial
role that sound, language and song have played in establishing
Regardless of any criticisms they incur, the fact is that these films
capture the imagination of the Indian people in a way that American cinema has
failed to accomplish. Popular
Major successes such as Kuch Kuch
Hota Hai (1998) and Kabhi Khushi
Kabhi Gham (2001) may pay frequent homage to the consumerist dream by
displaying American goods such as DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger and Gap clothing, but
they also ensure that family conflicts are avoided or resolved by the end of
each movie, that marital harmony prevails in a way that allows the male head of
the family to retain his authority, and that Indian culture is celebrated in
many ways, including the inevitable dances, various traditional costumes, and
scenes depicting religious festivals or ceremonial events such as weddings. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, which was notable
for the fact that its popularity with South Asian fans helped it enter top-ten
lists in the United Kingdom, is described as “a bubble-gum romance in which
clean-cut students sport American designer clothes and live by traditional
Indian values” (Lakshmanan, 1999, p. W3). Any cultural conflict presented by
this juxtaposition is one that viewers either do not find problematic, or have
come to accept as a reflection of their own composite existence.
In studying these possible conflicts, observers of Bollywood have
differing opinions as to its distinctive Indian character. For Rajadhyaksha,
the fervour Bollywood patrons display for their favourite films and for the
whole practice of filmgoing itself is enough to set the Indian film industry
apart from others (1996, p. 30). Gokulsing and Dissanayake also note the
intensity of fan adoration, but they locate Bollywood’s uniqueness in some of
the same features discussed by Booth; namely, they suggest that “Indian popular
cinema has evolved into a distinctively Indian mode of entertainment by imaginatively
amalgamating music and dance” (1998, p. 10). They also agree that mainstream
Indian films are often based on one or both of two great epic stories, Ramayana and Mahabharata, but in addition, they locate other traditions that can
be seen in the development of Bollywood.
Hollywood, viewed here as a factor in Bollywood’s evolution, is not a
sole, overwhelming influence so much as an example selectively adopted by
filmmakers who wanted to fuse the best of both cultures in a way that would
appeal to the greatest number: “filmmakers very quickly succeeded in adapting
the ethos, resources and inventiveness of Hollywood to suit indigenous tastes,
sensibilities and outlooks” (Gokulsing & Dissanayake, 1998, p. 20; Nayar,
2003). In naming the sources of the “ten master plots” underpinning Bollywood
storylines, screenplay writer Javed Akhtar refers to Roman, Greek and Hindu
mythology, but not to Hollywood, suggesting that the classic narratives found
in these myths, such as stories of lost and found items, vendettas and, of
course, romances, are the source of most Indian film tales (cited in Kabir,
1999, p. 34). Akhtar does suggest that there are some commonalities in the way
Hollywood has created a mythical story of its past, embodied in the genre of
the western, and the way that Hindi cinema has formulated its own myths,
describing the latter as a type of “contemporary folklore” (quoted in Kabir,
1999, pp. 35, 72). He also discusses the universal nature of the romance,
suggesting that “in
As
Dickey notes, such types of popular or folk culture can often provide means of
resistance that may be less ostensible but more effective than open revolution
(1993, p. 11; also see Clarke 1990; Virdi, 2003). In particular, there is an
argument to be made for Indian cinema demonstrating its cultural roots through
a melding, however opportunistic, of a time-honoured marketing formula with
ideas extracted from more traditional forms of drama (Booth, 1995; Dickey,
1993; Vasudevan, 2000). Under this argument, it is possible to view the
popularity of films such as Hum Aapke
Hain Koun through the glocalized lens: “Western culture and glitter are
very attractive. So Maine Pyar Kiya and Hum Aapke
Hain Koun offer the solution: a happy marriage between the two worlds. I can have everything offered by
modernisation, and still hold on to family values and tradition at the same
time” (Kabir, 1999, p. 95). Nandy seems to see a more clearly defined
resistance than a marriage of the two elements, but his vision of the oppressor
is much darker and more menacing:
when
much of the oppression and violence in society is inflicted in the name of
categories such as development, science, progress, and national security, there
has grown a tacit demand for a different kind of political attitude towards
cultural traditions. However much we may
bemoan the encroachment of mass culture through the commercial cinema, the fact
remains that it is commercial cinema which, if only by default, has been more
responsive to such demands and more protective towards nonmodern categories.
(1995, p. 235)
The features of Indian drama that Western critics sometimes find most
frustrating or incomprehensible, such as “endless digressions, detours, plots
within plots,” are the very ones that have been identified as “unmistakably
Indian,” derived from the similarly circuitous nature of classical Indian drama
(Gokulsing & Dissanayake, 1998, p. 17).
Likewise, the extraordinary degree of glamour and artifice, the
melodramatic rejection of any pretence at realism, are all puzzling by Western
standards, but fairly typical by Bollywood ones (Gokulsing & Dissanayake,
1998, p. 33). The word masala, signifying
a mixture of spices, is sometimes used to describe the typical Hindi film,
because of the occasionally illogical elements thrown together. While the
apparent randomness of this mix might not strike the avid viewer of Indian film
as bizarre, it is only one of several factors that has prevented Bollywood
cinema from attracting a widespread audience outside of the worldwide South
Asian community. The answer, however, is not to conform to the Western style of
filmmaking, but to recognize the strengths of both forms of production.
Esteemed parallel cinema director Shyam Bengal, suggests that a dialectical
relationship needs to be established: “I cannot see
While it is surely too dismissive of Hindi film’s complexities to
suggest that the most popular Bollywood films are the ones that assert national
identity, it is certainly possible to find a strong strain of national pride in
some of the more successful films. The
film Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001)
serves as an interesting example because of its layering of identities, its
strong bias towards Indian culture and its suggestion of the sense of exile
that can afflict diasporic communities. In this case, the exile is almost
literal, since the main characters, portrayed by popular actors Shah Rukh Khan
and Kajol, have left
While the Indian movie can be seen as the conduit through which unity
occurs or is strengthened, it does not always follow that cultural or familial
unity is the natural counterpart of anti-Americanism, or resistance to
modernization. Mira Reym Binford suggests that the Hindi film provides a means
for passing down traditional beliefs and values, but does not appear to imply
that this entails a denial of modern norms so much as a way to accommodate them.
In this case, accommodation remains possible without a concurrent sacrifice of
the self (cited in Gokulsing & Dissanayake, 1998, p. 11). Mitra makes a
similar suggestion regarding the fusion of disparate identities, addressing the
modern dilemma of the diasporic South Asian who recognizes the limited
possibilities for assimilating completely into the new culture or for wholly
retaining the old: “It is finding that critical mix that becomes the crusade of
many Indians as they increasingly feel marginalized in the Western public
sphere precisely because they still retain many of the Indian attributes which
they find very difficult to jettison” (1999, p. 204).
Bollywood is an enormous industry, at the heart of which lie numerous
issues of culture, identity and values. This paper has attempted to tackle only
one of these in depth, that being the question of whether popular Indian films
tend to replicate the norms of a hegemonic, Westernized culture (often equated
with global culture), or whether they instead strengthen existing cultural
norms across the South Asian diaspora. The answer lies somewhere in between.
However imperfect it may be in terms of representing regional and linguistic
diversity, or in posing challenges to difficult societal issues revolving
around gender, class or religion, Bollywood has managed to arrive at a
compromise that allows it to assert and affirm traditional values for fans
within India and across the diasporic community without becoming mired in what
seems like an increasingly fruitless attempt to deny the significance of
all-pervasive symbols of Westernization. Such a concession may seem the moral
equivalent of defeat to critics of cultural imperialism, but it may also signal
the only opportunity to “display a culturally grounded engagement with
modernity” (Gokulsing & Dissanayake, 1998, p. 24).
While a new wave of non-Bollywood films such as American Desi (2001), Monsoon
Wedding (2001) and East is East
(1999) undertake a more detailed, insightful exploration of the type of issues
that diasporic South Asians struggle with, such as the inability to reconcile
longstanding conservative values surrounding love, religion and behavioural
norms with so-called modern standards (see Desai, 2004), these films do not
necessarily displace the crucial role played by Bollywood cinema. Ultimately,
Nandy sees Bollywood as exhibiting not India’s faults but its overall strength:
“the uniqueness of Indian culture,” he hypothesizes, “lies not so much in a
unique ideology as in the society’s traditional ability to live with cultural
ambiguities and to use them to build psychological and even metaphysical
defences against cultural invasions” (1983, p. 108). If the local must
increasingly fathom the existence of an all-encompassing culture that crosses
all national and social boundaries, then the Indian example, however tawdry it
may appear to some cultural critics, may serve as a model worth following.
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