Bollywood as a Cultural Industry - By Pradip Kapse

 

Regarding the seminal work around Cultural Industry, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, addressed the growing uniformity in art and cultural forms as the result of what they called the mechanizations of the ‘culture industry’ in contemporary Western societies, that is, the penetration of industrial mass-production methods into the realms of culture and art.

The basic core of Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis of the cultural industries lies in the art and culture’s systematic fabrication of modes of behavior whereby the profit-seeking, technology-driven Western capitalist ethic extends beyond material mass consumption to include cultural items and even people’s perceptions of what is ‘good’ and what is ‘smart’.

Bollywood cinema has become crucial to the Indian way of living is the way it has come to permeate the daily life and culture of the Indian society. The growing abundance of cinematic images across the landscape of the country, on posters and hoardings, magazines, on the television and the Internet, has rendered Hindi commercial cinema almost an integral part of the Indian popular culture and imagination.

Indian society is heavily influenced by Bollywood films, songs, and stars. For example, Bollywood movies set new fashion trends, and people look at Bollywood for inspiration in terms of what they should wear. If an actress dawns a new style of wedding dress in a movie, it becomes the latest trend for brides in India the following wedding season.

Cultural industry operated in Bollywood in more than one ways like, stereotyping or glorifying identities and practices, consumptions of various kinds, setting trends for cultural practices, perceptional and mobilizational ability, mass formula oriented production, so on and so forth.

It is precisely in this context that the thesis of the culture industry becomes relevant. Popular Hindi cinema over the past two decades has continually used Hindu wedding rituals to represent the ideal of a traditional Hindu social and cultural life. It was Hum Apke Hain Kaun...! that set the trend for the so-called ‘Great Indian Wedding’—the stereotypical Hindu wedding ceremony accompanied by all the spectacle and grandeur.

But the point to be noted here is that whereas wedding rituals in a vastly diverse country like India vary distinctly from region to region, the films essentially portrayed a form of wedding the rituals of which have been traditionally followed by the ‘Punjabi’ and Northern states of India. And with the widespread promotion of this ‘North Indian’ wedding in popular Bollywood cinema, wedding rituals across the country began to undergo a noticeable transformation, as different states, for example those of Bengal and Southern India, started emulating the ‘filmi’ weddings by including amongst their own rituals what were customarily North Indian traditions of ‘sagai’ or the exchange of rings, ‘sangeet’ or the song and dance marking the festivity surrounding the wedding, and the ‘mehndi’.

We can also associate the debate to NRI cult after DDLJ released after adoption of policy of globalization.

In movies, generally, heroes are shown to be physically strong and to indulge in fights and violence resulting in the promotion of violence and rude behavior. Movies have the power to shape behavior, thoughts and feelings. Over the years, there has been slow transformation in how the hero of the movie is projected. Many actions films based on this themes are Sholay, Rowdy Rathore, Dabangg, Singham, and so forth. It is essential to realize that movies as passion for people promote violence similar to any other aspect of lifestyle: Fashion, hairstyles, and so forth. . Thus, violence after becoming a part of behavior is harder to get rid of and affects all the spheres of lives.

Bollywood promoted this by depicting them in a separate manner. As in Dostana (2008), Student of the year (2012), Humpty Sharma ki Dulhania (2014) displayed homosexuality as a comic element. It is hard to find any Bollywood movie which has a homosexual protagonist. Bollywood has always played a vital role in construction of stereotypical images of homosexuals. Example: Fashion Designers in Bollywood movie are shown as homosexuals as done in movies like Partner (2007) and Fashion (2008).

Bollywood has not only promoted the stereotypical image of LGBTQ community but also has made negative views in association with it as in movies like Welcome (2007) and Heyy Baby (2007). Few Movies in Bollywood like Fire (1996), Girlfriend (2004) and Aligarh (2016) have tried to bend rules but have rather become a subject of controversy.

Major successes such as Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001) may pay frequent homage to the consumerist dream by displaying American goods such as DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger and Gap clothing, but they also ensure that family conflicts are avoided or resolved by the end of each movie, that marital harmony prevails in a way that allows the male head of the family to retain his authority, and that Indian culture is celebrated in many

ways, including the inevitable dances, various traditional costumes, and scenes depicting religious festivals or ceremonial events such as weddings.

Bollywood is an enormous industry, at the heart of which lie numerous issues of culture, identity and values. Hence, its study as a cultural industry has a lot of things to say.