Commodity, Citizen, Copy: Bollywood and the Aesthetics of Consumption

Abstract

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.