Nostalgia, nation and bollywood: second-generation Indian-Americans and the consumption of movies

ABSTRACT

A study of Bombay Cinema, or the so-called Bollywood, will no longer be complete without looking at the consumption of Bollywood movies because this cinema is now global in a specifically diasporic sense. This paper is an attempt to unveil the nature of engagement between Bollywood movies and second-generation Indian diaspora. This study is based on the coming of age of the second generation of the Indian-American diaspora and their engagement with twenty-first century Bollywood movies. A group of young Indian Americans were interviewed over the telephone to find out the ways in which second-generation consume movies in comparison to that of the first-generation migrants. This article shows how their readings of Bollywood movies converge on themes of nostalgia, nation, and feminism, along with how their situational identities play out to resolve their sometimes contradictory cultural expectations.

KEYWORDS:

• Second-generation
• Indian diaspora
• authenticity
• nostalgia
• nation
• Bollywood and gender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pardhu Pinnamshetty

Pardhu Pinnamshetty is currently a PhD student at Centre for Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

Aparna Rayaprol

Aparna Rayaprol is a Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India.