Bollywood Goes to the Stadium: Gender, National Identity, and Sport Film in Hindi

Abstract

Bollywood gives cinematic substance, form, and historical context to dream of nation ...-Grant Farred (72)THE LAST TEN YEARS HAVE WITNESSED phenomenal expansion of India's unique, Mumbai-based Hindi-language film industry, commonly referred to as Bollywood, Into hitherto-untapped world movie markets. Though popular throughout Asia and even in Eastern bloc since 1950s, only recently has Indian film achieved mass popularity in West. Its recent hegemonic Internationalization can be attributed to a mutually beneficial feedback loop between changing strategies within Bombay's film industry to appeal to Indian diasporic communities abroad, coupled with Bollywood's increased exposure to non-diasporic audiences in Europe and North America (Bhaumik 191; Ganti 3-6; Gehlawat 139; Joshi 41). As Kaushik Bhaumik observes, the recent twin successes of Lagaan (Ashutosh Gowarikar, 2002) and Devdas (Sanjay Lee la Bhansali, 2001) amongst a relatively substantial crossover audience in West ensured that presence of Bombay films has begun to get felt more palpably in mainstream (192). In addition to an increased presence on cinema screens, television broadcasts of Bollywood films on specialized channels in United Kingdom and Canada, as well as DVD market and Internet streaming services such as Netflix, have allowed access not only to South Asian diasporic audiences but also to Anglo-American viewers who have come to appreciate sheer entertainment value of an inherently hybrid film genre that combines vibrant rhythmic and melodic music with lavishly choreographed dance numbers, filmed on a variety of studio and location sets, and that depicts exotic urban and rural locations, featuring romance, adventure, history, and laughter of stunningly attractive and charismatic stars and an array of familiar character actors.Often dismissed precisely because of Its popular entertainment value, Bollywood film can simply no longer be ignored by Western critics; although body of film scholarship published in English on Bollywood phenomenon has grown exponentially in past decade, It remains largely-as Bhaumik observes (192) and Ajay Gehlawat's review of literature demonstrates (xi-xix, 1-26)-in hands of Indian or diasporic Indian scholars working in United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. Mihir Bose argues in his history of Bollywood that whereas Hollywood has stopped growing, Bollywood will only continue to expand Into Western and world markets (26-27). Not only because of sheer numbers-the industry produces over a thousand films per year, for fourteen million spectators per day (Bose 26)-Western critics and scholars can no longer dismiss It as childish fantasy for a third world audience or as a throwback derivative of 1930s Flollywood musicals (see Bhaumik 188, 192; Gehlawat 6, 10, 30). The best of contemporary Bollywood, what Tejaswini Ganti calls Its A-list (27-28), offers a cultural product that couples visual artistry with self-conscious exploration of generic conventions, dealing with themes essential to an understanding of postcolonial world.Although a rapidly growing and increasingly diverse audience has overcome potential linguistic and cultural barriers to acknowledge pleasures of this postmodern global film genre, film critics and scholars outside Indian diaspora have only just begun to acknowledge-and analyze-its meanings. This article takes a step in that direction, focusing on a recently snowballing intersection between a genre largely identified with Hollywood-namely, sport film-and Bollywood. In following analysis, I examine how sport has been appropriated by filmmakers in Bombay and adapted to conventions of Hindi film. After an overview documenting its growing presence in Bollywood, I offer a closer analysis of two sport films that feature female, rather than usual male, sports heroes: ChakDe! …