Performing ‘Soviet’ film classics: Tajik Jimmy and the aural remnants of Indian cinema

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Indian film Disco Dancer (Subhash, 1982), which was wildly popular in the Soviet Union in 1984, tells the success story of Anil, a destitute child who dreams of fame. Anil moves to the city, is discovered by an agent, and is branded as the disco star Jimmy. More than twenty years later, Baimurat Allaberiev, a guest worker from Tajikistan, has enacted this plot by performing film songs from Disco Dancer. Uploading his performances on media-streaming hosts under the name Tajik Jimmy, Allaberiev achieved notoriety, parlaying his online success into live concert performances in Moscow and St Petersburg. The reappearance of Disco Dancer songs is by no means a uniquely Russian phenomenon. However, these texts serve as an appropriate departure point to explore the role of amateur online media in contemporary post-Soviet culture. The reworking of Indian film songs more than twenty years after the film's original screenings recalls not only the popularity of the Indian film in the Soviet Union, but also conflates it with many other aspects of Soviet and post-Soviet life. An entangled web of meaning negotiates the divides between professional and amateur performance, the social plights of guest workers and their cinematic representations, and finally, the modes of circulation between old and new media formats.