The Magic of Bollywood
At Home and Abroad
- Anjali Gera Roy - Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, West Bengal
Film and TV
Few would deny that the most significant weapon in India's cultural and artistic armory is its avowedly commercial cinema, now known as Bollywood. This anthology aims to portray the "soft" power of Bollywood, which makes it a unique and powerful disseminator of Indian culture and values abroad. The essays in the book examine Bollywood's popularity within and outside South Asia, focusing on its role in international relations and diplomacy.
In addition to contributions that directly engage with the notion of soft power, a number of essays in the volume testify to the attractiveness of Bollywood cinema for ethnically diverse groups across the world, probe the reasons for its appeal, and explore its audiences' identification with cinematic narratives.
Established and emerging scholars in literature, theater, film, dance, music, media, cultural studies, and sociology from different parts of the world present their views from multidisciplinary perspectives based on case studies from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Germany, Russia, the US, Senegal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Canada, in addition to India.
A joy to read...brings together a collection of very insightful and authoritative essays probing the multifarious research and impact of bollywood movies within and outside India, also sets the stage for scholarly appreciation of the relationship between culture, Politics, International relations and the power games that such relationships entail.... It is fascinating to see such rigorous research being expended on something that we, in our country, consume as given...even a skim- through is rewarding.
The book includes some very good individual articles. I especially like the book's broad range of themes and that it includes the important diaspora aspect. For my course on Indian Film(s) it's a perfect book.
It's an important source to understand Bollywood. The book examines the Hindi film industry's power within and outside of South Asia.
A quick fun read compared to the other dense books on Bollywood out there.
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