Towards a Trans-National Indian Identity? Versions of Hybridity in Bollywood Film and Film Music
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Gabriele Linke
Abstract
Although Indian film has drawn on several different cultural sources from its beginnings, the rise of a global Indian diaspora has had a special impact on its topics and styles. Not only have Non-Resident Indians and their relationship to Indian and Western culture become central issues in many Hindi films since the 1990s, the trans-national aspect of Indian identity is also reflected in the visual and musical features of many films. In an attempt to grasp how this trans-national identity is represented in film, this study combines an analysis of narrative and visual elements with a close inspection of the musical idiom. Selected scenes from English Babu, Desi Mem and Pardes are analysed in detail. They show that India itself is not portrayed as a purely traditional but rather as a hybrid culture, i.e. one that is partly Westernised around a core of traditional Indian values. NRIs are also often constructed in ambiguous ways varying from the parody of a romanticising love of India to a celebration of the truly Indian moral core of otherwise Westernised protagonists. Hybridity appears to be a main feature of characters, visual culture and film music, thus representing the new trans-national Indian identity
© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Editorial
- Introduction: Globalisation, the National-Popular, and Contemporary Indian Cinema
- Religious and Nationalist Trends in Modern Bollywood Cinema
- Feminist Interpretations of Reality: Documentary Cinema and the Women’s Movement in India
- Towards a Trans-National Indian Identity? Versions of Hybridity in Bollywood Film and Film Music
- Spicing up the Austen Cult: Negotiating Bollywood, Hollywood, and Heritage Aesthetics in Bride and Prejudice
- Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Commodified Hybrid Utopia’: The Programmatic Transculturalism and Culture-Specific Audience Address of Bride and Prejudice
- Their Own Game: Cricket as a Symbolic Postcolonial Battlefield in Film
- Currying the Victorian Novel: Mira Nair’s ‘Indianised’ Version of Vanity Fair
- Buchbesprechungen
- Bucheingänge
- Die Autoren dieses Heftes
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Editorial
- Introduction: Globalisation, the National-Popular, and Contemporary Indian Cinema
- Religious and Nationalist Trends in Modern Bollywood Cinema
- Feminist Interpretations of Reality: Documentary Cinema and the Women’s Movement in India
- Towards a Trans-National Indian Identity? Versions of Hybridity in Bollywood Film and Film Music
- Spicing up the Austen Cult: Negotiating Bollywood, Hollywood, and Heritage Aesthetics in Bride and Prejudice
- Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Commodified Hybrid Utopia’: The Programmatic Transculturalism and Culture-Specific Audience Address of Bride and Prejudice
- Their Own Game: Cricket as a Symbolic Postcolonial Battlefield in Film
- Currying the Victorian Novel: Mira Nair’s ‘Indianised’ Version of Vanity Fair
- Buchbesprechungen
- Bucheingänge
- Die Autoren dieses Heftes
