Displacing difference, interrupting Indianness

Song sequences in digitally-released Indian-American films

Bibliographic Data

ID2179779
AuthorsDamini Kulkarni (0000-0002-4679-864X)
Year2024
Volume60
Issue2
Pages215-228
Publication date2024-03-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Postcolonial Writing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1744-9855 • E-ISSN: 1744-9863
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17449855.2024.2353088
OpenAlexW4399441813
LanguageEN
References cited18

In their capacity to directly address audiences of varied nationalities, American-Indian films are important sites of cinema's negotiations with the idea of Indianness. When released on digital platforms, such films have the capacity to turn the idea of a national identity and, by extension, hyphenated identities, into modular and scalable constructs; bracketing, scaling down and slipping in various blocks of Indianness into its song-and-dance sequences to alleviate the lived realities of cultural difference. Identification of these kinds of identity, narrowly defined as Indian, alongside the dominant Bollywood structures makes relevant the analysis of how cinemas transmit national identity. This examines the routes by which American-Indian films, especially those released on digital platforms, mobilize digital logics to modulate their connections with a hegemonic idea of Indianness, often via their association with Bollywood, by examining the song picturizations in the films Spin (2021) and Wedding Season (2022

Art · Literature · Music History and Culture · South Asian Cinema and Culture · Subtitles and Audiovisual Media · History

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