Skip to content
1981
Volume 21, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1474-2756
  • E-ISSN: 2040-0578

Abstract

This article examines the celebratory reception of the many videos of ’s ‘dancing-fans’ that circulated on social media during the film’s release. It argues that an un-nuanced celebration of this vocal fan obscures the inaccessibility of the cinema theatre as a public space of leisure in neo-liberal India. Shot on mobile phone cameras inside cinemas, these videos were heralded as evidence of the ‘return’ of the Hindi film audience. The celebratory discourse around this new dancing-fan is in sharp contrast to the anxieties that such vocal fandom has historically generated in cinema discourses in India, being associated instead with the ‘rowdy’ lower-class fan, pejoratively termed the ‘frontbencher’. The article suggests that the desirability of the contemporary dancing-fan reflects a professionalization of Hindi film fandom. It reads this as a new stage in what Tejaswini Ganti identifies as a process of gentrification that began with the emergence of Bollywood in post-liberalization India.

© 2023 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/ncin_00045_1
2024-09-14
2026-04-12

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Anand, Siddharth (2023), Pathaan.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Ashraf, Ajaz (2021), ‘I am Khan, I will be framed’, mid-day, 18 October, https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/i-am-khan-i-will-be-framed-23197042. Accessed 21 October 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Cinema Dhamaka (2023), ‘Pathaan के Crazy Fans थिएटर में | Housefull Show #pathaan #fans #srk #shorts #ytshorts #salmankhan’, 25 January, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWt42bv0k1Q. Accessed 21 October 2023.
  4. Farzeen, Sana (2023), ‘Devotion or new PR tool? Amid Pathaan’s success, diving into the vast pool of Shah Rukh Khan’s fandom’, Indian Express, 27 January, https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/diving-into-shah-rukh-khan-fan-clubs-pathaan-success-promotional-strategy-8404110. Accessed 21 October 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Ganti, Tejaswini (2012), Producing Bollywood: Inside the Contemporary Hindi Film Industry, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Kapur, Shekhar (1987), Mr India.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Mazumdar, Ranjani (2007), Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Nair, Mira (1988), Salaam Bombay!.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. News18 (2023), ‘Pathaan craze: Viral videos of SRK fans turn theatres to clubs in Twitter thread’, 26 January, https://www.news18.com/buzz/pathaan-craze-viral-videos-of-srk-fans-turning-theatres-to-clubs-in-twitter-thread-6919735.html. Accessed 20 October 2023.
  10. Panchal, Komal R. J. (2023), ‘As Shah Rukh Khan returns with Pathaan, fan clubs book theatres to celebrate “SRK festival”’, Indian Express, 26 January, https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/as-shah-rukh-khan-returns-to-the-big-screen-with-pathaan-fans-celebrate-srk-festival-trade-looks-forward-to-audiences-rebuilding-the-habit-to-go-to-cinema-halls-8401466. Accessed 21 October 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Pandey, Geeta and Mateen, Zoya (2023), ‘Pathaan: Why Shah Rukh Khan’s comeback film is a big deal’, BBC News, 20 January, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64245736. Accessed 20 October 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Pandian, M. S. S. (1996), ‘Tamil cultural elites and the cinema’, Economic and Political Weekly, 31:15, pp. 950–55.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Pathak, Sushmita (2021), ‘India’s single screen cinemas were struggling before COVID-19: Now they are dying out’, NPR, 17 July, https://www.npr.org/2021/07/17/1016114360/indias-single-screen-cinemas-were-struggling-before-covid-19-now-theyre-dying-ou. Accessed 17 April 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Rajadhyaksha, Ashish (2003), ‘The “Bollywoodization” of the Indian cinema: Cultural nationalism in the global arena’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 4:1, pp. 25–39.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Roy, Gitanjali (2023), ‘The Pathaan effect: Shah Rukh Khan tweets a list of 25 single screen cinemas reopening’, NDTV, 4 January, https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/the-pathaan-effect-shah-rukh-khan-tweets-list-of-25-single-screen-cinemas-re-opening-3721407#. Accessed 17 April 2024.
  16. Shashidhar, Ajita (2019),‘Single-screen cinemas are shutting down, but there are still not enough multiplexes’, Business Today, 3 October, https://www.businesstoday.in/opinion/perspective/story/india-will-continue-being-a-country-with-lowest-number-of-film-screens-232559-2019-10-03. Accessed 19 April 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Singh, Nisha (2023), ‘These videos of audience reactions to Pathaan in theatres are the “real dopamine boost”’, Scoopwhoop, 27 January, https://www.scoopwhoop.com/entertainment/audiences-reactions-pathaan-theatres. Accessed 21 October 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Srinivas, S. V. (2000), ‘Is there a public in the cinema hall?’, Framework, 42, https://8ba99043-46ef-443e-8e66-bc36ac01fd7b.filesusr.com/ugd/32cb69_95584ff57df547febaf04c3e0bafa3fc.pdf. Accessed 8 August 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Srinivas, S. V. (2013), ‘Whistling fans: Reflections on the sociology, politics and performativity of an excessively active audience’, in No Limits: Media Studies from India, edited by R. Sundaram, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 224–55.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Varma, Ram Gopal (1995), Rangeela.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/ncin_00045_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): audiences and reception; Bollywoodization; fandom; frontbencher; gentrification of Hindi cinema; single-screen theatres

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test