Networked Bollywood - Introduction

The chapter discusses the globalization of cinema, capitalizing on the term Bollywood as a technical reference to how cinema, based on a Hollywood paradigm, is globalized in Asia.

Journal of Macromarketing, 2012

Using the British Sikh community as its research context, this article explores the influence of the Bollywood film genre on what Vertovic refers to as the ''diasporic consciousness'' in relation to this community. Bollywood attempts to speak to the diaspora by conveying a new sense of ''Indian-ness,'' one that is less about citizenship and more about imagined identity and community. The authors investigate what they have termed the ''Indian imaginary'' and how the values embedded therein impact on the lives of young British Sikhs. The findings discuss three emergent core themes: (1) reaffirming pride in Indian heritage; (2) evoking romance and longing; and (3) reinforcing family values and a sense of kinship within the British Sikh diaspora. The overall contribution of the article is twofold. First, it illustrates how the globalization of Bollywood affects the Indian diaspora at a local level. Second, it shows how Bollywood provides an important space for negotiating and reconciling various tensions between family-based and more individualistic value systems. Ultimately, then, Bollywood offers young British Sikhs a particular, hybridized representation of courtship and marriage that is both romantic and familial, and that serves to reconcile Eastern and Western marital relationship ideals and oppositional cultural discourses.

In the context of an emerging economy, the paper analyzes indigenous growth and internationalization. Using novel and original data, the paper studies the Indian film cluster in Mumbai, Bollywood. It argues that as the world's biggest commercial film cluster and a conspicuous growth phenomenon in an emerging economy context, Bollywood can be seen as a paradigmatic case for adding to our understanding of the development of film clusters outside the USA, as well as suggesting more general insights into the growth and internationalization of industries in emerging economies. The empirical analysis of the paper points to the importance of home market, government regulation, and industry structure for Bollywood's recent export growth. The paper discusses how the existence of a well-defined and geographically centered social network among producers, directors and other key roles in filmmaking in Mumbai supports the development of a 'Bollywood model' of filmmaking with a industry structure remarkably different from Hollywood's.

2015

With American cinema facing intense technological and financial challenges both at home and abroad, and with Indian media looking to globalize, there have been numerous high-profile institutional connections between Hollywood and Bombay cinema in the past few years. Many accounts have proclaimed India’s transformation in a relatively short period from a Hollywood outpost to a frontier of opportunity. Orienting Hollywood moves beyond the conventional popular wisdom that Hollywood and Bombay cinema have only recently become intertwined because of economic priorities, instead uncovering a longer history of exchange. Through archival research, interviews, industry sources, policy documents, and cultural criticism, Nitin Govil not only documents encounters between Hollywood and India but also shows how connections were imagined over a century of screen exchange. Employing a comparative framework, Govil details the history of influence, traces the nature of interoperability, and textures the contact between Hollywood and Bombay cinema by exploring both the reality and imagination of encounter.

DRUID Working Papers, 2007

Abstract: In the context of an emerging economy, the paper analyzes indigenous growth and internationalization. Using novel and original data, the paper studies the Indian film cluster in Mumbai, Bollywood. It argues that as the world's biggest commercial film cluster and a conspicuous growth phenomenon in an emerging economy context, Bollywood can be seen as a paradigmatic case for adding to our understanding of the development of film clusters outside the USA, as well as suggesting more general insights into the growth and ...

This article focuses on the current phase in the Hindi Film Industry in Bombay which is characterized by a new corporate logic coming into play since 2000 that looks at a lm as a product, and then goes about packaging it, branding it and presenting it to a predetermined audience. This shift is characteristic of the processes of the mainstream lm industry with the onset of corporate-run Production Houses (It is a conscious decision on my part to use the term 'Production House' and not Studios.) that came about with the transition of the Hindi lm industry from an unorganized industry to that of a corporatized body after being accorded Industry status in 1998 ('Film Accorded Industry Status', Business Line, October 19, 2000 http://www.indiaserver.com/businessline/2000/10/19/stories/141918re.htm). I am using the term 'Production House/s' despite the fact that lm companies use the term Studio in their nomenclature, because unlike the Studios in the early Indian cinema landscape, these are multinational corporations that have an entirely dierent logic of lm production and labour. This logic is what I attempt to discuss in this article. The methodology I have used for arriving at my understanding of how this Production House culture works is informed by ethnographic techniques of qualitative interviews with people working in the Hindi Film Industry in dierent capacities, participant observation on locations and sets, and using the technique of observing a day-in-the-life of an industry professional at work. In this article, I have located my arguments within the area of Film Industry studies. Since Hollywood forms the best analogy for mainstream cinemas in India, I have looked at the work on the Hollywood industry, the best known of which is by Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (xvi–xvii) who describe classical Hollywood cinema as 'a distinct artistic and economic phenomenon' (xvi–xvii) and have attempted to show how 'the concept of a mode of lm practice can historicize textual analysis and connect the history of lm style to the history of the motion picture industry' (xvii). Here, I would like to draw the reader's attention to the commodity nature of Hindi lms by exploring the process that is involved in turning

Global Media Journal

Bollywood, the most commercially successful form of Indian cinema, presents an interesting contradiction in terms. It consciously mimics some American norms but mines Indian culture for the success it enjoys among diasporic networks of South Asians. In its avowal of nationalism and cultural tradition, it presents a significant challenge to American domination of international film and culture. However, it is too simple to say that Bollywood represents an assertion of cultural independence in the face of an imperialist challenge, as Bollywood films themselves replicate patterns of cultural domination, primarily marketing Hindi-language films to an enormous community characterized by a high level of linguistic diversity. In order to move beyond the complex question of whether or not Bollywood can be seen as a symbol of resistance, this paper investigates how hybridity may explain Bollywood films' widespread and enduring popularity, allowing viewers to accommodate the reality of exposure to different cultures. India is home to a varied and thriving film industry, spread across various regions, catering to different tastes and languages. In commercial terms, however, the most successful segment of the Indian film industry is the one referred to as Bollywood. While the name itself implies a self-conscious attempt to mimic American norms, the reality of Bollywood cinema is that its continued success within India and among diasporic networks of South Asians presents a significant challenge to American domination of international film, and more broadly, international culture. Rather than representing cultural independence in the face of an imperialist challenge, however, Bollywood demonstrates that hegemony can operate at more than one level. Bollywood films not only ape selected Hollywood tendencies in terms of production, writing and marketing, they also reproduce patterns of cultural domination, primarily marketing Hindilanguage films to a diverse community whose languages include Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil, among others. It becomes difficult to reconcile this image of a monolithic entertainment industry with the notion of an indigenous culture that successfully demonstrates resistance in the face of hegemonic oppression. This paper examines whether the idea of hybridity may explain the ongoing popularity of mainstream Indian cinema with people of South Asian origin, allowing them to maintain a commitment to traditional values while acknowledging the importance of an Americanized global culture in their lives. Preserving or Destroying? Approaching the Theoretical Debates on Global Culture Rather than attempting to evaluate the artistic merit of Bollywood cinema, this paper focusses on the question of cultural needs and identity politics that may be shaped by the themes apparent in mainstream Indian cinema at a time when globalization can be seen as presenting a threat to local, marginalized and diasporic cultures. In order to discuss this issue, it is useful to examine questions of cultural imperialism, hybridity, globalization and glocalization, with the word glocalization used to address the cultural debates surrounding globalization, rather than economic or political issues. One debate over Bollywood itself is whether its films have any discernible meaning or influence beyond escapism.

International Sociology, 2017

Inter-Asia cultural studies, 2003

GAP GYANhttp://www.gapjournals.org An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal of Social Sciences, 2018

‘Art does not go global because its creator is consciously working towards a worldwide impact.’ It ought to be straightforward to present a description of the ‘world’s biggest film industry’, but Indian film scholars find it difficult to come to terms with its diversity and seeming contradictions. The biggest single mistake that non-Indian commentators make is to assume that ‘Indian Film Industry ’ is the same thing as Indian Cinema. It is not. The Indian film industry is always changing and as traditional cinemas close in the South and more multiplexes open, there may be a shift towards main stream Hindi films. But the South is building multiplexes too and it is worth noting that Hollywood distributors have started to release films in India dubbed into several languages. India's various popular cinemas are not all alike, and the differences among them are not restricted to language. They address different identities; the language communities sometimes transcend national boundaries, as when Tamil cinema is followed avidly in Malaysia. "Bollywood" is a recent, global appellation, but mainstream Hindi cinema tried to address national concerns even under colonial rule. When the English-spoken media in India clamour for a better quality of cinema, what they desire is a cinema that is forged in the Western tradition of storytelling and narrative. Key words: Globalization, Indian Films, economy, social impact, global themes, audience in transition.