Tuesday 10 June 2008

Bollywood and Kitsch

After more than a year of researching Indian Cinema (including commercial, art-house, diasporic, independent, and the unnameable kind), I have come to the conclusion that most mainstream and some academic writing about this 'exotic' industry still embraces an orientalist discourse. In other words, more often that not, the richly-coloured visuals and the dramatic chords that make up this cinema are often equated with 'kitsch', or low art, as opposed to the production techniques and content of Hollywood films that are naturally assumed to be superior. A case in point is this section on the website of the British Film Institute that lists a selection of works on South Asian Cinema, most of which use the graphic exoticism of commercial Bollywood on the book covers, probably for sales purposes. But who are these books being sold to? Certainly not 'native' Indians. The likely audience for such elaborations on South Asian cinematic techniques and aesthetics is those of us living in the west who may be fascinated by these films, drawn to them or to the originating culture for a wide variety of reasons. 

I am reminded of an animated conversation I had with a South African tourist during my last visit to India in December 2007. Although the flight from New Delhi to my hometown of Jammu was only an hour or so, we managed to discuss the intricacies of Indian cinema and why it appealed to a certain kind of western soul. This financial advisor, proceeding to Srinagar for a ski trip, reckoned that Bollywood was special in his eyes because it was 'spiritual'. He added that he rarely felt a similar soulful connection with the psychological thrillers churned out by Hollywood. I would like to think this well-travelled man had no need to be patronising towards India and Indians when talking to me, a self-confessed Bollywood researcher who is not a Bollywood devotee. Did he embrace a point of view that is simultaneously western and non-orientalist? Can Indian Cinema, then, be a beacon of spirituality as well as a symbol of kitsch? Perhaps it depends on where you are and how you feel.

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