The Politics Of Hindi Cinema In The New Millennium: Bollywood And The Anglophone Indian Nation

Popular Hindi cinema metamorphosed unrecognizably in the new millennium. An expanding urban middle-class viewer base ever growing in its Anglophone cultural absorption fuelled the multiplex boom at home. A slew of popular movies in tune with the sensitivities of the diasporic Indians came to define ‘Bollywood’ as a powerful global brand and a lifestyle banner. Another kind of mainstream cinema emerged in opposition to the dominant ‘elitist’ presence a cinema meant less for multiplexes but still not ‘traditional’ in the old way. The Hindi film industry itself changed radically post 1990s and so did the meanings mores and ideologies embedded in Hindi cinema.Going beyond the conventional theory-laden mode of analysing the political moorings of mainstream cinema M.K. Raghavendra accords primacy to their ‘text’ treating them as rich reflections of the goings on in contemporary society. Taking cinema and cinema-viewing as a conjoined site of enquiry he brings together a revealing and enlightening analysis of 28 Hindi blockbusters from the 2000s. With a close reading of films such as Rang De Basanti Veer-Zaara Bunty Aur Babli 3 Idiots Dabangg Rajneeti and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara Raghavendra untangles the threads of myriad new imaginaries of contemporary India and Indian-ness embedded in a transformed Bollywood.Preface Introduction The Global and the Pre-Modern Raaz (2002) The Adulterous Woman Jism (2003) to Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (2006) Undivided India Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001) and Veer-Zara (2004) The Youth Film as Dissent Rang de Basanti (2006) and the Political Class The Agony Aunt and the Small Illegality Munna Bhai MBBS (2003) and Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006) Thieves like Us Enterprise in Bunty Aur Babli (2005) Dhoom 2 (2006) and Guru (2007) The Hyperreal and the Narrowing Nation Om Shanti Om (2007) The Reservations of Middle-Class Concern Page 3 (2005) Corporate (2006) Traffic Signal (2007) and Fashion (2008) Dystopia or Entrepreneurial Fantasy Kaminey (2009) The Exemplary Citizen Education Taare Zamin Par (2007) and Three Idiots (2009) Politics and Enterprise Raajneeti (2010) The Anthropological Gaze Agrarian Issues and Peepli (Live) (2010) Resisting the Anglophone Nation Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008) and Dabangg (2010) Transactions Friendships in Dil Chahta Hai (2001) and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) Sport and the Nation Iqbal (2005) Chak De India (2007) and Paan Singh Tomar (2012) Conclusion: Collapsing State Dissolving Nation Index About the AuthorKey FeaturesOffers new direction in scholarship on Hindi cinema and Bollywood M.K. Raghavendra eminent film-critic researcher and scholar Interpretation of 28 films Detailed introduction by the author