> Bollywood isn't an imitation of Western forms. It is the creation of
> a new form that is completely unlike anything that's ever existed
> in American film.
Well, the Hollywood films did have their musical phase in the 1920s and 1930s, but the contradiction is that Bollywood is, or was, sort of India's CNN -- all the radical impulses which couldn't turn into video productions turned into film narratives. Nowadays, there are thriving TV cultures all across India, but blockbuster Bollywood bombshells like "Sholay" (1975) seethe with several varieties of local, national and international subversion.
> But what makes it mind boggling to think about is that the obstacle
> keeping the girl and boy apart is that she
> is Miss India and he is an anti-India terrorist. And he's not only the
> film's romantic hero, he's also an action hero-type superman mastermind.
> You see him kill Indian soldiers face to face while smiling and bragging.
> You hear about him blowing up iconic Indian buildings and killing
> hundreds. And yet he's the hero of the film, the guy you identify with
Sure, but mainstream Hollywood isn't necessarily the best yardstick. Don't forget, there's Gordon Freeman, PhD at large, whose claim to fame is... um... shooting US troops, in Valve's classic 1998 videogame "Half Life". Later, Freeman steps into the shoes of the Iraqi insurgents in "Half Life 2".
In terms of identity-politics, Bollywood is just as problematic as Hollywood, or any culture-industry, for that matter -- underneath the sentimentality of the mainstream films, usually encoded as some form of patriarchal benevolence, there's a fathomless abyss of neo-feudal violence. The thing is, Bollywood is so much less capitalized, so actors can act, sing, dance, etc. So even an otherwise execrable film will have terrific performances and songs. (One of those dialectical contradictions).
-- DRR