Bollywood Blog

I have been watching Bollywood films frequently for about five years, and while conducting fieldwork in Delhi, I saw all the latest releases, because my informants related to this media. My informants watch both Bollywood and American films, and during conversations Bollywood often came up as a topic. Referring to Anthropologist Jacobs-Huey’s concept, the native card, I call this competence the Bollywood card. Knowledge might be an entry to some fields, one entry point for me in my research was the Bollywood knowledge. The Bollywood card functioned as an icebreaker, as an entry point to societal debate, and serves as a common topic of discussion.

In India, Bollywood film is a large part of the entertainment sector. “Every day about 15 million people throng the 13,000 movie halls in the country” (Varma 2004:154). Bollywoodfilms are frequently debated in the media, and the controversial films are often banned in certain states according to the local state government which has a major influence in the entertainment. New Bollywood films tend to challenge conventions by portraying unconventional relationships like extra-marital affairs, inter-caste relationships, divorce, pre-marital sex, as well as portraying people who challenge the heteronormative sexuality or climb the social ladder from poverty to wealth, in its own collective fantasy (Kakar 1996:25).

The film Dostana (Hindi = friendship), for example is challenging the heterosexual norm. Another film that premiered during my stay in Delhi was Rab Ban Na Di Jodi (Hindi=A match made in heaven), about a good girl who conforms to her father’s wishes to get married, when the father lies on his death bed. The fathers last wish is to know that his daughter is in good hands when he passes away, and she is united with a man of her father’s choice. The girl in the film challenges the conventional norm of a good wife with telling her husband that she will never love him, and then eventually falls in love outside of her marriage.