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- Volume 2, Issue 2, 2010
Studies in South Asian Film & Media - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2010
Volume 2, Issue 2, 2010
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Imagining women and diaspora in the 1990s Bollywood film: A ‘close-up’ look at the visual politics in Pardes
More LessThis article highlights the manner in which Bollywood cinema functions as an effective visual public space for disseminating hegemonic forms of gendered nationalism in the troubled times of neo-liberalization and increased migration to the West in the 1990s. The visual strategies employed in the Bollywood blockbuster Pardes/Overseas (Ghai 1997) reveal such problematic intersections of the discourses of nation, culture and gender. Moreover, the iconic construction of the Hindu woman as nation in the film is also underpinned by the anxiety of patriarchal transformations resulting from the multiple economic and cultural shifts that characterized this Indian diaspora at the time.
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The masala of globalism: Repositioning ‘dis/placement’ in the films of Mira Nair
More LessThe displacement of cultures and re-imagination of place-bound identities is a common thread that binds most of the films of Mira Nair. Nair is an Indian-born, US-based director whose cinematic and documentary creations are both processes and products of a globalized culture. Her films operate on multiple levels of crossover cinematic philosophies, comprise cosmopolitan visual displays and grow out of transnational socio-political contexts, making her repertoire an ideal case study for the processes of modern globalism. In this article, my purpose is to critically analyse how Nair reconceptualizes the notions of ‘place’ and ‘displacement’ in her films, particularly in Mississippi Masala (1991) and The Namesake (2006). By tracing the transnational migration of two Indian families, Nair tries to cinematically capture their struggle to culturally reconfigure their identities within constantly mutating spatial contexts. The purpose of this article is to investigate the global–local implications of these two films, primarily from the theoretical perspective of deterritorialization, which can be understood as ‘the loss of the “natural” relation of culture to geographical and social territories’. I argue that Nair’s complex film narratives put forth an alternative visual framework for shifting notions of place and identity within the current context of ‘globalization [which] fundamentally transforms the relationship between the places we inhabit and our cultural practices, experiences and identities’.
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Jaisa Desh, Waisa Vesh? Explorations on the representations of Adivasis in popular Hindi cinema
More LessThis article seeks to discuss specific examples of Adivasi representation in Indian cinema, particularly popular Hindi cinema (as opposed to ‘art’ or ‘parallel’ cinema), and the ways in which it has distilled and codified the representations of ‘other’ groups for a mass audience. Mainstream Hindi cinema, even in its postcolonial phase, has not provided images of Adivasis that reflect their reality. This ‘constructed reality’ of the cinema in which Adivasis exist remains the widespread (mis)understanding of their cultures. It is this cinematic marginalization and cultural stereotyping that will be explored further. This article is a preliminary exploration and will look at particular examples of representation in Hindi films, including Naagin [Female Cobra] (Nandlal Jaswantlal, 1954), Madhumati (Bimal Roy, 1958), Yeh Gulistan Hamara [This Flower Garden of Ours] (Atma Ram, 1972), Lal Salaam [Red Salute] (Gaganvihari Boratte, 2002) and Chak De! [Come On! India] (Shimit Amin, 2007). The aim is for this exploration to provide a foundation for further research into Adivasi representation and the wider discourses of power, politics and inequality in Indian society.
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REVIEWS
Authors: Suzanne L. Schulz, Priyanjali Sen, Aparna Frank, Mantra Roy and Rebecca J. ManringCLASS, POWER AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN INDIAN CINEMA AND TELEVISION, ANIRUDH DESHPANDE (2009) Delhi: Primus Books, 169 pp., ISBN 978-81-908918-2-0, Hardback (1st ed.), Rs 595 MOURNING THE NATION: INDIAN CINEMA IN THE WAKE OF PARTITION, BHASKAR SARKAR (2009) Durham: Duke University Press, 384 pp., ISBN- 10 0822343932, Hardback, $94.25, ISBN – 13 978-0822344117, Paperback, $24.95 INDIAN CINEMA IN THE TIME OF CELLULOID: FROM BOLLYWOOD TO THE EMERGENCY, ASHISH RAJADHYAKSHA (2009) New Delhi: Tulika Books, 441 pp., ISBN: 978-81-89487-52-2, Hardback, $75.00 EMOTION PICTURES: CINEMATIC JOURNEYS INTO THE INDIAN SELF, NARENDRA PANJWANI (2006) Ahmedabad: Rainbow Publishers. 296 pp., ISBN: 81-86962-72-7, Hardback, $40/Rs. 1200 FROM RAJAHS AND YOGIS TO GANDHI AND BEYOND: IMAGES OF INDIA IN INTERNATIONAL FILMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, VIJAYA MULAY (2010) Calcutta: Seagull Books, 554 pp., ISBN 978-1905422951, $109.95
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