British South Asian women's feminist aesthetics in 'Bombay1 cinema talk'1. (2nd January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jha, Meeta Rani
• Is Part Of: South Asian popular culture. Volume 16:Number 1(2018)
• Page Start: 71
• Page End: 87
• Publication Date: 2018-01-02
• Subjects: British South Asian women -- Bollywood -- Cinema talk -- Cultural representation -- Feminist film and cultural studies -- Popular culture -- Asian femininity; Popular culture -- South Asia -- Periodicals; 306.095405
• DOI: 10.1080/14746689.2018.1497758
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1474-6689

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Bollywood 1 popular culture creates a feeling and talking interpretive community 2 that produces a shared symbolic and cultural language for diasporic South Asians. Combining feminist cultural studies with empirical interviews and ethnographic observation, this article offers the analytical tool of Bombay cinema talk as a reflexive linguistic repertoire created by British South Asian women interviewees 3 as a site of comparison and making sense of one's own experiences in relation to Bollywood cinema's feminine representations. The interviewees criticize misogynistic representations, articulating an alternative understanding of the feminine symbol as a survivor of everyday patriarchy. In their engagement with diverse South Asian femininities, they remake their own cultural identities. For some, the adulation of female stars and characters reveals intimate homoerotic desires, which further deepens this engagement. I argue that feminist interpretations emerge as the interviewees appropriate specific scenes which reflect the pleasures and struggles in their own lives.