Bollywood Research Articles

Emotional Tears and Racial Stigma in Orson Welles's Othello and Vishal Bhardwaj's Omkara

Abstract On the basis of two film adaptations of Shakespeare's Othello, Orson Welles's (1952/1955) Othello and Vishal Bhardwaj's Omkara (2006), this article focuses on Othello's emotional tears, and how they mitigate, or not, the effects of racial stigmatization. The “Othello dilemma,” as I call it, refers to how Othello continues to be understood as an example of his race, rather than as an individual. How do the two films deal with this dilemma? This article draws on current research in cognitive neuroscience to underscore the pro-social function of emotional tears. Both films avoid direct views of Othello's tears but evoke lachrymal emotion to produce broader interpretations of the play, which is relevant to contemporary concerns. In black and white, Orson Welles uses Soviet montage to depict Othello's loneliness, which authenticates his grief, while Vishal Bhardwaj's colorful Bollywood film shifts attention to stigmatization on account of gender bias, invoking an array of culture-specific norms and values.

Intersections and the becomings of disabled and queer subjectivities in Margarita with a Straw

This article aims to explore the affective capacities of the non-lesbian and lesbian, non-disabled and disabled, moving and fleeting bodies of Laila Kapoor, who suffers from cerebral palsy, in the 2014 Hindi film Margarita with a Straw. The study examines the ontology of Laila’s disabled and sexualized body that is entangled in an assemblage of relations of other human (characters Dhruv, Nima, Jared and Khanum) and non-human (architectural space, wheelchair, laptop, voice aggregator and music) bodies in the film. Drawing on the concept of assemblage, this article examines the affective flows, desire and becomings of disabled and queer bodies within Margarita with a Straw. It demonstrates how the discursive, material, post-human subjectivity of disabled and queer bodies in the film manifests the potential to destabilize the notion of what a body is by continuously negating the social disavowal of bodies through new emergent potentials, capacities and assemblages.

Female Fandom and the Anxieties of Agency: A Feminist Reading of the Indian Female Fan in <i>Guddi</i> (1971)

Academic research on fandom has sometimes stereotyped female fans, potentially influenced by the gendered dichotomy in fan studies. In the context of Indian fan discourses, there has been insufficient academic engagement with gender which poses a significant gap that requires attention. This article explores the intersection of gender, specifically focusing on women, in Indian fan studies. Through a feminist lens, the article undertakes a textual analysis of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s <i>Guddi</i> (‘The Doll’, 1971), possibly the first Hindi film to diegetically represent a female fan. The study examines how the film portrays female fandom and yet acknowledges that it falls short in successfully dismantling the pathologising stereotypes associated with femininity. Nevertheless, the film successfully initiates a dialogue on the presence and importance of female fan practices in India. It explores how the film acts as a catalyst for a narrative that highlights the agentic potential of fandom. Additionally, the article delves into the broader implications of the film within Indian fan studies, including its capacity to challenge gender norms and inspire further research on female fan practices in the context of Indian cinema.

Gender Politics and Stereotypes in Bollywood Films Dhrishyam 1 and 2<b></b>

Indian cinema is one of the most influential and powerful tools for addressing various social issues via the medium of a screenplay. The Indian film industry, commonly known as Bollywood, is one of the largest and most prolific film industries (Pillania 115) in the world. This article aims to explore Gender Roles and Stereotypes prevalent in Bollywood films, through an in-depth analysis of the popular films Dhrishyam 1 and 2, hereafter referred to as the Dhrishyam film series. By examining the portrayal of lead characters, the study aims to shed light on the ways in which Indian cinema perpetuates societal norms and biases. Through a combination of qualitative content analysis and audience reception analysis, the research provides empirical evidence to support the claim that Indian films, including the “Dhrishyam” film series, contribute to the diffusion of gender stereotyping, consolidating unreasonable societal expectations. With a focus on the intersectionality of gender, identity, and culture, this study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the complex relationships between Indian cinema and societal constructs, leading to critical insights into theneed for more diverse and inclusive portrayals in the film industry.

A Comparative Analysis of RK Narayan's "The Guide" and Bollywood's "Guide"

Literary adaptations have been predominant in cinema for decades, with stories being reconceptualized for the film to captivate audiences in new ways. Indian cinema is no exception to this and one such well known adaptation is RK Narayan's novel The Guide into a film. This paper delves into the transformation of R K Narayan's novel "The Guide" into the epochal Bollywood film "Guide" directed by Vijay Anand. Through a comparative analysis, this study explores the differences and similarities between the two, examining how the cinematic adaptation reshapes the narrative, characters, themes, and overall essence of Narayan's original work. By dissecting the creative choices made in bringing the novel to life on screen, this paper aims to highlight the nuances of adaptation in Indian cinema.

Portrayal of blood and transfusion in Bollywood movies

Portrayal of blood and transfusion in Bollywood movies

Beyond good and evil: imagined nation in Hindi films

ABSTRACT The influence of Indian films on popular culture and the influence of dominant political ideology on Indian films are interspersed with dialectical variations. Although a binary representation of these subtleties remains elusive, while promoting ideological superstructures in society, ‘the relatively mixed, confused, incomplete, or inarticulate consciousness' is replaced with a ‘generalised system'. In practice, the tendencies governing public emotions during moments of crisis are employed as tropes in Bollywood films. However, the ontology of political underpinnings and subversive ideological possibilities that enmesh lived experiences remain smothered by an unproblematic representation of historical events. With this rationale, the paper analyses three Bollywood films Panipat (2019), Tanhaji (2020) and Samrat Prithviraj (2022). These films seem to auger the idea of Dharma and Ramrajya in the construction of a Nation catering to the populist notion of a safe and secure nation under just Hindu rule. The paper argues that these films cater to the framework of historiography promulgated by the colonial historians on one hand; and function as a contrapuntal response to the ideological moorings of the leaders of the All-India Muslim League. This objective is achieved by a stereotypical and binary projection of good and evil by glossing over the ‘mixed consciousness’.

Healing the Bloody Line: Suturing Indians and Pakistanis into Hindi Cinema and Pakistani Telesoaps

ABSTRACT The asymmetry of political with social, linguistic and cultural borders and the contradiction between national citizenship and cultural belonging is now an established trope in the discussion of borders in Partition Studies. Less examined is the dissolution of political boundaries through non state actors’ using informal or formal tactics like kinship and friendship relations, family visits and pilgrimage tours, cultural exchanges and collaborations, linguistic, regional and cultural associations and cinematic and televisual flows for inclusion exclusion of the “other.” Salter’s metaphor of the suture offers an analogous metaphor for the borders whose scars refuse to heal and continue to regulate intercommunal and international relations on the Indian subcontinent till now. But suture, in its extended meaning, also explains Indians and Pakistanis being stitched into the “other’s” cultural texts to be interpellated as cross-border cinematic or televisual subjects. Through examining the diverse ways that Indians and Pakistanis are sutured as viewers, audience and consumers of each other’s cultural products such as Hindi cinema or Pakistani telesoaps and form cross-border viewing publics, this paper illustrates the process of debordering.

Acid attacks and epistemic (in)justice: Violence, everyday resistance and hermeneutical responsibilities in the Indian Hindi film Chhapaak

AbstractBy taking into consideration films as a method of dissemination of knowledge, the article examines the relationship between epistemic change, an understanding of epistemic injustice, and the prior epistemic convictions of characters, as well as everyday resistance, in the film Chhapaak, translated as Splash, an Indian Hindi‐language biographical drama film that portrays the life of Laxmi Agarwal, a survivor of an acid attack. The first section of the article contextualizes the story of the film through the trajectories of acid attacks in India. This is followed by discussions on epistemic injustice and collective wrongdoing through the lived realities of acid attack victims and survivors as depicted in the film. The article also highlights how these individuals exhibit everyday resistance and strive to bring about transformation in society. The article concludes with discussions on the epistemic, socio‐cultural, and hermeneutical responsibilities of people that can make society a safe place for all, especially girls and women in India. The article concludes by examining the epistemic, socio‐cultural, and hermeneutical responsibilities that individuals must undertake in order to create a secure environment for all members of society, with a particular focus on girls and women in India.

Historicising the colonial past of India and Hindi cinema

ABSTRACT The idea of India as a nation has its seeds rooted in the political leadership for the struggle of independence in the colonial history. The pathway of such struggles stemmed from the social-cultural sphere of the society that imagined India free from the shackles of debt and slavery from the colonial British. Visual imagination and representation of political struggles that made, unmade, and remade the notion of India have been documented in the Hindi Cinema. However, analysing Hindi cinema from perspective of imagination of a nation has received less attention and needs a serious critical engagement. This article investigates Lagaan (2001), a Hindi film, based on anti-colonial struggle to understand how the nation is imagined in the cinematic text. It explores the peasants' role in the struggle and the relationship of the peasants with the nation, in a larger debate on colonialism and anti-colonial movements by using dialectics as a method.

From domestic guardian to the national militia: the familial, the national and the middle class in 1980s popular Hindi films

ABSTRACT This essay analyzes the theme of domestic anxiety of the Indian middle class in the 1980s through two specific genres of the contemporary popular Hindi films – the family drama and the action adventure. Poised right before the 1990s neoliberal drive in the Indian economy, the 80s middle class – hitherto staid and hermetic – was rattled by an ‘invasive’ global culture, permissiveness, politics of representation, rights and reform. This paper shows that the cinematic resolution of this crisis is a grudgingly lenient orthodoxy negotiating with the limits of cultural inclusion, represented through the questions of agency, gender, class, caste and ethnicity abounding in the middle class domestic sphere. The essay analyzes the middle class problematization of the familial as well as the national in films like Arth (Bhatt, 1982), Agar Tum Na Hote (Tandon, 1983), Souten (Tak, 1983), Shaan (Sippy, 1980) and Mr. India (Kapur, 1987).

BOLLYWOOD CINEMA AND MENTAL ILLNESS: AN APPROACH TO BALANCE ENTERTAINMENT AND EXACTNESS

Cinema is a reflection of society. Viewers watch and learn so many things and make assumptions with the help of cinema. In this research, the researcher has done conceptual content analyses of three Bollywood films Taare Zameen Par, My Name is Khan and Barfi. All these films portray mental illness and fall under the same genre. The focus of the study is to find out the similarities between the portrayal of the symptoms of mental illness in Bollywood films and the diagnostic criteria of ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder- 5th edition’, often known as DSM-5. The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is used to know the diagnostic criteria for different mental disorders. The researcher has analysed the themes, behaviour of the family and society and diagnosis and treatment of the person with mental illness in the selected films.

Unveiling narratives: representation of same-sex love in bollywood films

The cultural history of India has been ignorant of various sexual orientations and gender identities leaving LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) community with a life of guilt and shame. Visual Media plays a key role in shaping society’s opinion of LGBTQIA+ people and individuals who come to terms with their gender and sexuality at a particular phase of their lives. The representation of homosexual characters is constantly diversified in Bollywood, and the change is evident from being caricatured and even scorned to being shown as prominent protagonists. The growing visibility and the positive portrayal of homosexual characters in Bollywood help to create a more inclusive society. This paper focuses on the select Bollywood films, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019) by Shelly Chopra Dhar and Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020) by Hitesh Kewalya. The paper analyses the visual elements in select films and their role in shaping the portrayal of homosexuality within the narrative. The paper also reads the chosen films through the lens of familial resistance to same-sex relationships. By analysing the select films, the paper concludes that, though prior Bollywood films have explored the theme of individuals disclosing their sexual identity to their families, the primary narrative focus is not on seeking acceptance from their family members. Thus, the unique emphasis on seeking acceptance and understanding between family members and homosexual individuals set the select films as exceptional narratives within the context of Bollywood’s portrayal of homosexuality.

The Shifting Terrains of Disability and Gender: Investigating the Delineation of Women with Disabilities in Hindi Films

The paper engages with the portrayal of women with disabilities in Hindi cinema, considering the diverse facets of representational strategies and structures of power. Addressed in the narratives as objects of derision, pity, and care, women with disabilities are drawn to the able-bodied gaze and patriarchal chauvinism. Films such as Black (2005), Barfi (2012), and Margarita with a Straw (2014) are incorporated into the study to foreground the interactions among the ableists and non-ableists orbs. Efforts are underway to reposition the counter-discourse on disability narratives in 21st-century films, addressing the misrepresentation of individuals with disabilities in the hegemonic portrayal. Manifestations of the social model of disability would culminate in exposing the cultural tensions and reductionist ableism reinforced by normativity. To address, assess, and critique disability spectrum in films, the article moves forward to the intersectionality of disability, gender, and social reality to accentuate the lived realities of women with disabilities. By building on critical disability studies along with feminist disability studies as the theoretical base, the endeavour serves to permeate the arcs of representation, identity, and cultural synergy. Hence, the article seeks to unearth the dominant ideologies of normalcy and ableism in Hindi films while quantifying the amount of discrimination, stereotypical dissimulation interpolated and thus, counting insights into actualities in filmic narratives.

Partition narratives in Hindi cinema, a critical examination of historical authenticity and cultural memory

Partition narratives in Hindi cinema, a critical examination of historical authenticity and cultural memory

Manipulated Childhood: The Representation of Children in Bollywood Films

Manipulated Childhood: The Representation of Children in Bollywood Films

The Aesthetics of Sound and Silence in Photograph, a Hindi Film

The Aesthetics of Sound and Silence in Photograph, a Hindi Film

Antecedents of Bollywood Movie Success: A Qualitative Approach

Antecedents of Bollywood Movie Success: A Qualitative Approach

Dalal Street Blues: The Socio-economic Environment and the Demand for Bollywood Movies

Dalal Street Blues: The Socio-economic Environment and the Demand for Bollywood Movies

The Construction and Reflection of Bollywood Movies on Indian Social and Cultural Identity

The Construction and Reflection of Bollywood Movies on Indian Social and Cultural Identity