In films, heroines reveal cultural values, gender roles, and social challenges experienced by their culture. Therefore, viewers may use Bollywood heroines as a lens through which to view the experience of the Indian woman and Indian culture. Recently, with the growth in size and influence of the Indian diaspora, a new strand of Bollywood films has emerged concerning the topic of first or second generation Indians living abroad. These non-resident Indians (NRI) face a reality very different from that
In the pre 1990s in India, the injustice of the nation state caused directors and producers to release movies like Sholay where the hero gets introduced to fight the injustice that are shown towards the lower class. The hero uses vulgarity and uncleanness to fight he system. However, in the post 1990s, Bollywood movies were introduced and Karan Johar films (KJo) attracted many social classes and members of the diaspora creating emotions and memories of the homeland. He introduced Shah Rukh Khan using
The Hindi Cinema has a long distance to cover when it comes to the poignant or nuanced portrayal of sexual minorities. Sexual minorities have always been at the margins in terms of their representation in the Hindi film industry. The issue of homosexuality has always been mocked upon or treated in the most insensitive way one can imagine in Hindi films. Ruth Vanita argues that though there is history of same sex male bonding in Hindi films but issue related to homosexuality have not been treated
Swades After the international success (including an Academy Award nomination) of Lagaan (2001), writer-producer-director Ashutosh Gowariker’s follow-up is at first glance a very different film: whereas Lagaan gave new life to the Hindi “historical” film by being located entirely in 1893 and in Champaner, an imaginary Indian village, Swades opens with a shot of the globe that zooms down into contemporary Washington DC, where its hero, so unlike the earlier film’s simple villager Bhuvan, is