Browsing by Subject "Bollywood"

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    Commodity, Citizen, Copy: Bollywood and the Aesthetics of Consumption
    (2018-12) Banerjee, Koel
    This dissertation seeks to provide a conceptual critique of the new horizon of Bollywood that comes into view in post-1990s filmic texts and their attendant discourses. I examine the penetration of a logic of consumption into Bollywood – its institutions, products, lifestyles, personalities, and above all, narratives. As India underwent neoliberal reforms that introduced ideals of wealth, leisure, and glamor into a society previously shaped by nationalist restraint and utilitarian thrift, Bollywood cinema emerged as the template for a new visual economy of excess and spectacle. Central to this inquiry is the problem of “commodity aesthetics” (Warenästhetik), a methodological perspective developed by the German philosopher of the interwar Frankfurt School, W. F. Haug. Taking my initial theoretical cue from Haug, I explore the ways that neoliberal ideas have not only been successful in transforming ideologies of the market into a new moral order, they have also made consumption into an ethical responsibility. Focusing on the representational strategies of popular Bollwood films, I show how they solicit a different kind of attention from spectators – one that is geared towards cultivating desire for newly available commodities. By tracing the evolution of the spectacular aesthetics of Bollywood, my dissertation takes up a threefold set of theoretical concerns. First, I elaborate how neoliberal imperatives have, since the 1990s, transformed the Hindi film industry and its cultural production. Second, I map the extent to which these transformations, in turn, enable Bollywood to symbolize the epicentre of a new visual and affective economy. And finally, I explore the ways that Bollywood, through various cinematic and extra-cinematic manoeuvres, engenders what I designate as “consumptive citizenship.” The resulting amalgam, I argue, expresses an ideal of the citizen based on conspicuous consumption of both newly available global commodities and a reified notion of Hindu identity.
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    Depictions of Empowerment? How Indian Woman are Represented in Vogue India and India Today Woman
    (2016-08) Singh, Monica
    Vogue India and India Today Woman have both taken strong positions on empowering women. However with only three percent of Indians having access to a computer with Internet and only 47 percent having access to a television, how are these magazines empowering women and spreading the word? This study analyzes depictions of empowerment through Vogue India and India Today Woman by breaking apart the covers into categories and defining whether these covers fall into spectrum 1, style and material, or spectrum 2, goals and achievements. Results indicate that Vogue India has the tendency to fall into one side of the spectrum and put emphasis in material goods and style; whereas, India Today Woman falls on the opposite spectrum and puts more emphasis on goals and achievements while touching upon all aspects of a woman's life. India Today Woman found a medium, which needs to be a format followed by other companies in developing nations like India.