Abstract
There are several anthologies that address the globalization of ‘Bollywood’ and volumes written on Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), Bollywood’s reigning superstar, including a couple of fascinating biographies. But this is the first collection to examine the phenomenon of SRK’s megastardom within the broader context of the global presence and experience of Bombay cinema. Indeed, the argument made is that SRK the star, entrepreneur, and ‘icon for India and Indianness is strongly connected with the accelerated globalization of Bollywood’ (p. xii).
The Los Angeles Times described SRK as possibly the biggest movie star in the world. In 2016 his net worth, estimated at US$600 million, far surpasses that of most Hollywood stars and entertainers. How can we understand the appeal and significance of SRK’s stardom, one that transcends nations, borders, and cultures? What are the larger implications of his celebrity for his career and for ‘Bollywood’ as a culture industry? Fourteen wide-ranging chapters address these and related questions drawing attention to SRK’s ‘celebrity ecology’ (p. xiii), comprised not only of his films but his on- and off-screen images, interviews, commercials, his performance as a public persona, and his hypervisibility on the internet – all seen to actively shape his stardom.
A contribution of the volume is that it examines SRK as a media assemblage with a view to highlighting the significance of intertextuality and interconnection. ‘Globalized polysemy’ and ‘media assemblage theory’ capture the range of meanings and the transience and fluidity of representations and constructions of the star. Globalization, transnationalism, and transcultural exchange provide a unifying thread in the analysis of SRK’s international celebrity. Although many of the chapters revisit well-mined themes of nation, gender, and identity, they offer some new insights.
Employing media assemblage analysis and star studies in a close reading of two popular Bollywood films, Dudrah identifies SRK’s ‘ideal Indian Muslimness,’ and his ‘secular and anti-sectarian’ views as key to his being ‘an effective mediator across religious and cultural differences and an appealing figure to millions of Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and other religious groups’ (p. 12). Gill, in her chapter, also comments on SRK’s portrayal of a new type of Muslim hero, which she sees as evidence of his global stardom that engages larger concerns of the representations of Muslims internationally in a post-9/11 world. In these and other chapters, there is a sense that the blurring of the lines between SRK’s film roles and his real-life persona forms a significant part of his appeal and star power.
Dwyer, for example, argues that part of SRK’s appeal to diasporic audiences is that his film roles and film texts represent the modern Indian, a ‘cosmopolitan’ or ‘global citizen’ (p. 63), who is ‘admired for his uncompromising Indianness,’ yet is ‘comfortable with non-Indians’ (p. 63). SRK’s characters negotiate the aspirations of middle- and upper-middle-class Indians even as the star in his public persona has an international image. His modern style is coded in a new emotionality; he appears classless and is highly articulate and multilingual. In their critical analysis of selective ‘family films’ that play well in India and internationally, Ganesh and Mahadevan further substantiate this perspective when they observe that SRK portrays a new kind of ‘soft’ masculinity and characters who are urban and sensitive.
SRK’s fame has been described as ‘hyperstardom.’ The image is that of a star uncontained by his films, bursting out into brands, commercials, public appearances, and social media. Drawing attention to the anxieties attached to superstardom, Rajadhyaksha asks: is SRK’s stardom too big for cinema? He questions the ‘sustainability’ (p. 29) of the cinematic hyperstar and the kind of vehicles and technologies that SRK needs to survive in this stage of his career while observing that the star’s preoccupation with technology, action, and superheroes has also to do with larger anxieties about keeping Indian cinema ‘relevant’ (p. 27).
As a hero of modern, globalized India, SRK embodies fantasies of consumerism. That he is a brand, associated with a global consumer culture, is seen in the visual style and material culture of the film Don, the 2006 remake of the 1978 film that starred the iconic Amitabh Bachchan. Seth and Fuchs offer fascinating insights on the film’s style, with Seth bringing her experience as production designer for the film and a behind-the-scenes perspective. The authors identify ‘a rhetoric of augmentation’ (p. 75) in both style and narrative where everything is exaggerated in scale and value. Technology and special effects provide spectacle and local contexts become global. Locations, colors, costumes, and props are used to convey cosmopolitanism and global interconnectivity. The new Don as a ‘global player’ reflects changes in the film industry following ‘economic liberalization and the spread of consumerist aspirations in the society’ (p. xix).
Transnational celebrity these days cannot be separated from industry practices and economics and Vajdovich addresses the economic and creative activities that boost SRK’s stardom for a more complete understanding of the star as an entrepreneur, businessman, and marketer. Fuchs’s study of transcultural exchange and material culture also speaks to the cultural economy that is influenced by SRK’s stardom. Examining the creative practices that developed around the SRK doll, Fuchs notes that it is the product of ancillary industry outside India. The doll circulates in an international network of fans, bringing together 21st-century entrepreneurship, affective fandom, and Indian folk traditions of puppetry.
SRK as part of a globalized mediascape is seen as nothing less than a gateway for Indian films and culture, and the aesthetic and embodied experience is no small part of his appeal and the appeal of Bollywood. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and close reading of Bollywood song and dance, David comments on the aesthetic of engagement that film song and dance encourages, and observes that SRK’s charisma and audiences’ desire for him are rooted in images of his dancing. Meanwhile, Hirzer examines SRK’s popularity with fans in Peru and the role of dance in creating a participatory culture for Bollywood films. In Trinidad, SRK becomes a symbol of global Indianness, and Hindi cinema helps define what it means to be East Indian in the West Indies. Klein describes how elements of SRK’s star text have been incorporated into identity formations and performative practices in Trinidad’s popular culture through local remix traditions, yet another example of SRK’s local embeddedness and the translation practices that make his stardom international.
Celebrity today is further complicated by transnational media and global popular culture that is amplified and transformed on the Internet. Through study of SRK’s internet presence and use of social media, along with fan participation online, Mader describes the ‘hypervisibility’ of this ‘exceedingly mediated’ (p. xxv) star, that allows him to be omnipresent and to be ‘at the same time content and agent’ (p. 201). Just as fans in Peru connect with SRK’s star persona through dance performances, lookalike contexts, and theatrical plays, the internet offers European fans a multitude of representations and the means to co-create and negotiate his star persona. Fan art and intertextual play are some of the ways this is achieved. Unfortunately, sample illustrations of the artwork and images that so meaningfully shape the star–audience relationship are not reproduced.
The volume brings together semiotic analysis of films, star studies, ethnographic approaches to fandom, and studies of globalization of a non-Western culture industry to unpack the multidimensionality of SRK’s megastardom. As with any collection, some chapters are more accessibly written and engaging than others. However, the book demonstrates the importance of understanding SRK’s international stardom as part of the increasing role of Bollywood globally and in the world film market.
Given the book’s objective of analyzing SRK as a media assemblage and of looking beyond the films to celebrity ecology, it is surprising that there is no chapter devoted to analyzing the star’s interviews and public appearances. Although some chapters reference the distinctiveness of SRK’s stardom or conversely identify what it shares with global celebrity in the 21st century, the book also raises broader questions regarding the nature and possible distinctiveness of global superstardom that is rooted in Bollywood and its relationship to institutional and other practices identified with a particular culture industry, questions that are relevant to the cultural economy in which such stardom is situated and that it influences.
On the whole, the book makes a welcome contribution to the academic study of Bollywood stardom, to star studies more broadly and global popular culture. Its contribution will also raise questions about the phenomenon and open the door to new ways of thinking about superstardom in the 21st century. It will be useful for courses on Indian cinema, the globalization of Bollywood, and the sociology of celebrity.