[Book Review] Bollywood theory revisited

Review of Reframing Bollywood: theories of popular Hindi cinema by Ajay Gehlawat, Sage, 2010 At the outset, it would perhaps be apt to say that in order to locate the origin of a theory in the larger universe of an existing, living, dynamic realm of identification, construction, and production of culture in the form of moving images, film in other words, it becomes increasingly necessary to substantively define or describe the nomenclature ascribed to the industry that produces mainstream, popular films in Hindi. The popular Hindi film industry, or Bollywood, a moniker that brings together the place of production—Bombay or Mumbai—and the nature of cinema produced—often described as formula-based or masala productions—that depend on straight-jacketed storylines and characterizations. Reframing Bollywood: theories of popular Hindi cinema by Ajay Gehlawat attempts, from the introductory chapter itself, to put forth a comprehensive and susbstantive definition of the term Bollywood and its production. The fact that the Bombay film industry is now being viewed as an important site for the production of cultural artifacts with worldwide influence, especially on the Hindi-Urdu-Hindustani-speaking communities, not only located in South Asia, but across the world, places the focal lens squarely on the existing theories that govern the modes of production as well as the nature, conscience, and the impact of the product, which in this case are films. Gehlawat in his book refers to the almost two dozen theories that have emerged over the last few decades and their corresponding theorists who attempt to categorically deconstruct the term Bollywood and provide a standard definition of this relatively newly constituted field of cultural production. While theorists, such as Ranjani Mazumdar and Wimal Dissanayake resist the temptation of designating Bollywood cinema as ‘India’s national cinema’ (Mazumdar 2007; Dissanayake 2003), it does emerge from the writings of others such as S Gopal and S Moorti that the Hindi film industry is unquestionably nationally dominant. Some see it as a trivializing, pejorative, and dismissive term, exemplified by the fact that till recently, scholarship on Bollywood was considered an academic non-entity as Bollywood itself was relegated to a B-grade sphere. In the course of the book, Gehlawat notes and rightly so that the Bollywood film is a particularly hybrid art form, blending theatrical and cinematic elements as well as First World and Third World cinema methodologies, plus an assortment of Western and indigenous genres, such as the musical, dance drama, and melodrama, to name a few. This mix, known in Bollywoodian terms as masala, has been critiqued by film-makers and theorists alike, including Satyajit Ray who described the viewership of this genre as ‘tired untutored minds with undeveloped tastes’ (Ray 1976). Sudhir Kakar, in the 1980s termed popular films as ‘infantile’ and ‘escapist’ (Kakar 1989). In order to liberate the study of Bollywood from these theoretical constraints, the author attempts to take a first step towards situating it in a filmic paradigm. He takes recourse to Christian Metz and his contention of cinematic voyeurism (Metz 1982) as well as Sumita Chakravarty’s metaphor of ‘impersonation’ (Chakravarty 1993) to locate Bollywood films in the sphere of film theory. He attempts to develop the concept of ‘impersonation’ as applied by Chakravarty as a method of constructing a narrative of Indian popular cinema and national identity, and take it further and use it in a way of problematizing the concept of national identity and indeed Bollywood as a national discourse. Gehlawat considers it more effective to see Bollywood as engaging in what Baudrillard (1987) terms ‘ecstacy’, that is, the simultaneous transcendence and dissolution of a form, through the trope of spicy mixing of genres, or masala, that the typical Bollywood film indulges in. Reframing Bollywood within such a postmodern frame produces a conception of ‘Indianness’ rooted in a dialectics that undermine the polarizing oppositions that critics continue to associate with its internal and external structures. Such an exposition embraces the hybrid nature of Bollywood cinema and celebrates what critics and theorists have been designating as ‘contamination’ of the genre. The author, furthermore, in the process of reframing Bollywood in such a manner, develops a new relationship between popular Hindi cinema and theories of post-coloniality. Each chapter of the book addresses a specific theme, whereby controversial and problematic theorization is revoked and analysed in depth. In exploring how theatrical and religious paradigms are utilized by theorists of Bollywood, Gehlawat, in the first chapter, concerns himself with the way in which Bollywood films create private spaces in which erotic encounters frequently occur, thus contradicting the logic of the devotional paradigm, which considers such depictions taboo. Further, he presents the Bollywood song and dance sequence as a more radical form of narrative interruption than its Hollywood counterpart in the second chapter titled ‘The Bollywood Song and Dance, or Making a Culinary Theatre from Dung-cakes and Dust’. This chapter closely compares Hollywood musicals with Bollywood films, taking examples, such as Dil Se (1998) and Aa Ab Laut Chalein (1999), examining how Bollywood song and dance sequences differ in crucial ways in their structuring than Hollywood musicals. Moving ahead from the previous two chapters, but at the same time building on them, Gehlawat analyses the alleged oral nature of Bollywood cinema and states that these films perform a crucial role in promoting rural literacy, often viewed by large masses of Indian subalterns living in rural and semi-rural conglomerations. In doing so, this chapter applies key concepts from postcolonial theory to the study of Bollywood, challenging several key premises underlying the discourse of subaltern studies, through a close reading of sequences from the classical 1965 film, Guide. The emergence of a homosexual subtext in contemporary Bollywood cinema, with Kal Ho Na Ho (2003) and Dostana (2008) as case studies, is the key point of reference in the chapter ‘Ho Naa Ho: the emergence of a homosexual subtext in Bollywood’. In the process, this chapter reconsiders recent scholarship on this subject, particularly Gayatri Gopinath’s book Impossible Desires (2005), by questioning the implied repudiation of homosexuality in popular Indian culture, arguing instead that recent Bollywood films engage in such homosexual subtexts both knowingly and playfully. The chapter also draws upon Judith Butler’s concept of ‘gender parody’ to reveal and simultaneously destabilize the larger ambivalence existing within Bollywood cinema, which on the one hand recognizes homosexual elements, but at the same time on the other hand, stresses upon its heteronormativity. The book concludes with a chapter focussing on the recent phenomenon of ‘crossover Bollywood’ cinema and reformulates notions of Indianness and Bollywood itself in an era of the non-resident Indian. It avoids invoking classical nationalist paradigms and argues that Bollywood has been instrumental in creating more fluid and transnational forms of cultural identity in the 21st century. Even as Gehlawat considers and studies specific paradigms in each of the chapters, one single underlying thread that runs through the book is a close focus on the song and dance sequence in the Bollywood film, whether as a private realm, as a form of narrative interruption, as a method of reorienting both film and viewer, as a queer moment in an otherwise straight narrative, or as a supra-space which enables characters to traverse the globe. The book designates the song and dance sequence as a reframing device, which allows the films and their characters to rearticulate their visions and desires, and enables the viewer to indulge in a bit of both. Gehlawat, therefore, argues the Hindi films without the song and dance sequences would not be considered Bollywood films. Reframing Bollywood opens up Bollywood to a multiplicity of meanings that challenge hegemonic claims regarding its composition and implied modes of spectatorship, and in this way repudiating any one fixed, essentialized meaning. It offers a series of oppositional views of Bollywood films and its implied audiences and of the latter’s interaction with the former. A hyperkinetic cinema, such as Bollywood requires the process of reframing, which in cinema parlance means being mobile, stands opposed to static or the frame. This study successfully draws attention to all those elements that have been overlooked by previous and continuing theorizations and provides an understated methodology that looks to transcend and dissolve the very notion of essential otherness. Of immense use to scholars of cinema and students of media studies, this book is an intervention that will greatly and definitely benefit the ever-expanding universe of scholarship on popular Hindi cinema.