Sharing the Silver Screen: The Social Experience of Cinemagoing in the Indian Diaspora

Introduction

Recent discussions on participation of media audiences tend to focus on new media and pay less attention to radio, television, cinema, newspapers, and so on. Following critiques of this shift, we agree with authors, such as, Nico Carpentier (2011, pp. 206–207) that these old media still play a crucial role in everyday life and are not by definition less participatory in nature. In fact, film research has shown an increasing interest in cinemagoing as a social activity (see Meers & Biltereyst, 2012), developed out of an extensive canon of historical audience research (e.g., Corrigan, 1983; Fuller-Seeley, 2008) as well as inspired by studies on television audiences (e.g., Morley, 1992). By shifting the focus to cinema, film audience studies partly draw the site of consumption out of the living room and into the semipublic sphere of the cinema theater. Since “the experience of cinema in America and around the world involved groups of people converging upon particular places to experience together something understood to be cinema,” Robert C. Allen (2011, p. 44) has described “sociality” as “one of the most striking features of the experience of cinema for a hundred years,” that is, roughly from the 1890s till the 1990s. In contemporary contexts, the social importance of film viewing has gained special attention with regard to Indian film viewing. As Shakuntala Banaji notes,

the immediate context of the social act of viewing Hindi films in a group, along with members of an audience, in a quasi-public space such as a cinema hall or a crowded living room, can have a profound impact on the nature of spectatorship, inflecting and even coloring entirely the experience of film viewing and the interpretation of particular sequences in films. (2006, p. 176)

This centrality of the social experience for Indian film consumption is notorious and has been explored in the national Indian context, markedly in Lakshmi Srinivas’ phenomenology of Indian spectatorship. Indian cinemagoers are conceptualized as “social,” “active,” and “participatory” (L. Srinivas, 2002), all pointing to the same collectivity, intense viewing experiences, and expressive behavior (commenting loudly on the movie, laughing, clapping hands, throwing coins, and the like). While the differences from normative, disciplined Western, or “white” conventions (e.g., Staiger, 2000, pp. 32–35) are obvious, this sociability at the theater hall is not an exclusively Indian affair. Particularly in the context of migrated populations in the West, similar instances have been observed among black Americans (Stewart, 2005) or at the nickelodeons in the beginning of the twentieth century where Italian, Jewish, and other immigrants flocked together for big screen entertainment (Butsch, 2000). This has raised heated debates about audience control at the theaters as well as the broader integration of these groups in Western societies. Among white audiences too, especially in the context of the “participatory culture” (Jenkins, 2006) of (film) fans or cultists, deviant behavior has been pinpointed (e.g., McCulloch, 2011). This has been captured in Barbara Klinger’s (1989) “digressions,” such as, in-theater commentary and in Janet Staiger’s (2000, pp. 43–57) conceptualization of the “perverse spectator,” referring to talk in and beyond the theater, besides more reception centered deviations from the “ideal” spectator.

Taking into account the richness and importance of the social context for audiences in India and the distinctiveness from Western normative cinema behavior (with the notes above in mind) it becomes an intriguing question how this cinema culture interacts with Western contexts in diasporic settings. Often diasporic Indians land up in a setting where homeland film screenings are on offer, for which local Indian audiences gather, albeit in a predominantly “Western” context: sometimes taking place in Asian-run theaters (for instance, in the UK, see Dudrah, 2002), or otherwise as part of mainstream multiplexes (as is the case in Belgium, see Vandevelde, Smets, Meers, Vande Winkel, and Van Bauwel, 2011). The various manifestations of Indian cinema’s globalization have become popular objects of scholarly film research (e.g., Rajadhyaksha, 2004), mainly scrutinized through textual analysis concerning the diaspora as a thematic interest in Indian films (e.g., Brosius & Yazgi, 2007; Malhotra & Alagh, 2004), but also through reception studies of the diasporic consumers of this cinema. However, a few passing remarks aside (e.g., in Banaji, 2006; Brosius, 2005; Dudrah, 2006, pp. 96–116), the actual, shared cinemagoing practices for Indian audiences in diaspora have been broadly understudied. Does the importance of social practices at the theater increase in a context of “deterritorialization,” where “community” comes to play a more significant role? (Georgiou, 2006, pp. 50–57). In order to gain more insight in this issue, the present article first maps the size and nature of the companionship in which people attend screenings and their implications for the cinema experience and subsequently tackles two social aspects of diasporic Indian cinemagoing: (1) the community formation generated by the theater setting, including its limitations and (2) the “talking spaces” (inspired by Gillespie, 2002, see below) that precede and follow the actual cinemagoing act (see also Staiger, 2000). These topics are explored in the context of a case study in the Belgian city of Antwerp, ¹ where Indians have developed specific cinemagoing habits. Before diving into the core analysis, we explore theoretical concepts relevant for these topics, briefly outline our methodology, and contextualize the Indians of Antwerp as well as their film culture.

Media, Community, and “Talking Spaces” in Diasporic Contexts

Since “sharing common media advances the sense of belonging in a common project” (Georgiou, 2006, p. 11), the role of diasporic communities, real or imagined, in relation to media has been a much debated issue, linked to identity formation, political activism, belonging, and nostalgia (e.g., Cunningham, 2001). In contemporary film theory, it has been recognized too that “[t]he relationship between specific social groups and how they identify themselves as participants in the public sphere of the cinema offers the opportunity to examine how cinema has played a crucial role in the very notion of community” (Mayne, 1998, p. 67). At the level of production and text, media produced in the homeland or by the diaspora have been conceptualized as vehicles of ethnic community confirmation, for example, where the marketing and address of these media target certain diasporic communities as niche groups (e.g., Tsagarousianou, 2002). Certain narratives and images in Hindi cinema are also known for their “attempts to reinforce transnational communities,” as they are “cementing ties across an internally heterogeneous diasporic population” (Brosius & Yazgi, 2007, p. 359). At the level of reception, media also forge transnational relationships between people who are physically separated through diasporic trajectories, and may affect these relationships in both positive (e.g., creating a favorable distance) and/or negative (e.g., amplifying conflictuous emotions) ways (Madianou & Miller, 2012). The significance of shared media content for the imagination and belonging of transnational communities has often been described in terms of “imagined communities.” Benedict Anderson’s (1991) concept has become a popular tool “to emphasize the diasporic connections facilitated by various media and the simultaneous consumption of the same media content by members of a transnational group” (Karim, 2003, p. 2). Following such lines of argument, the worldwide consumption of Indian cinema has been described in similar terms (e.g., Dudrah, 2006, p. 86). Others, however, have abandoned the popular concept, for instance because it is seen as part of a problematic framework that “seeks to understand transnational developments through what are essentially categories of the national imaginary” (e.g., Aksoy & Robins, 2003, pp. 89–90). Our interest in transnational communities concerns audience discourses about film rather than shared media images.

Instead of looking into those dimensions of community that emphasize that the media “continue to mediate images and narratives for communities, shaping images of Us and Them, of homelands and localities” as well as “designing outlooks for the future,” what interests us here is their mapping of “spaces of copresence” (Georgiou, 2006, p. 52). Community as copresence, Myria Georgiou explains, comes in three distinct forms: virtual, real, and tele-presence (2006, p. 51). Rather than constituted virtual or through shared television watching, community is looked into here as a “real” and physical copresence, materialized within the space of the theater as a context of shared cinema entertainment. The focus lies on concrete community dynamics within this space as well as on the transnational discursive practices surrounding the cinemagoing practice. Hence, we critically explore the observation that “going to the theater to see the latest Hindi film at the weekend has translated to a community space for gathering, reconnecting with other South Asians and reasserting Indian identity” (Malhotra & Alagh, 2004, p. 25, our emphasis). Is this community space an experienced reality for diasporas? To what extent do people conceptualize the cinema hall in this way?

According to Cunningham (2001), popular diasporic media, such as, “Bollywood cinema” partly constitute diasporic communities both as an audience and as a market, since they bring people together, hardly appeal to crossover audiences and function as a source of both entertainment and information. Here, the precarious dynamics between the “diasporic community” and the “audience community” surface (for more on community and cinema, see Staiger, 2000, pp. 125–160). Georgiou has claimed that audiences normally become communities by the very act of shared consumption, but that among diasporic audiences the idea of an “imagined community” is preexisting (2006, p. 35). By contrast, Athique warns that “a media audience is not likely to fit absolutely with any identified social group” (2008, p. 30). Therefore, he draws attention to a conceptualization of transnational media audiences as “culturally constructed collectives” that are “arising from media use” (2008, p. 27), disconnecting them from diasporic communities. We follow Georgiou’s point in starting from the diasporic community, but at the same time take Athique’s critique on board by asking whether the “community” is necessarily ethnically defined?

In the context of television viewing, ethnographic audience research has been dealing with talk among audiences since the 1990s. “Interaction with media content” (Carpentier, 2011, p. 193) counts as an important dimension of audience activity in participation theory. In addition, Helen Wood (e.g., 2007) has asked attention for the interaction of audiences with the “utterances” in television programs, which she calls “texts-in-action.” In her data, she included transcripts of audio files taped during the broadcast of television programs, analyzing the comments of the audience as they are watching and interacting with the broadcasted speech. More specifically concerning cinema, with Staiger, we want to highlight audience discourses beyond the cinema space (2000) and concentrate on talk before and after the actual cinema experience. While such discursive practices have been recognized as key to identity (Durham, 2004, p. 141) as well as community formation, less attention has been paid to their social reverberations. We borrow the term “talking spaces” from the work of Marie Gillespie, referring to the “TV talk” of South Asian youth in Southall on which she based her research. While she uses a broad definition of the term as “important arenas of debate” that are “created around media experiences” (2002, pp. 184–185), we narrow this down to the evaluative, speculative, and informative talk preceding and following cinemagoing activities, essentially shaping people’s film choices (Staiger, 2000, p. 53). This is a bottom-up approach, since people in our interviews referred frequently to this discursive practice, much more than to descriptive talks about the content, stars, music, or other characteristics of films. In the context of diasporic film cultures moving beyond the space of the theater also means a shift from a local significance toward a broader transnational idea of community. About the Chinese diaspora in the US, Yu Shi claims that “ethnic media provide them with common reference points to socialize either with people back home or with other Chinese diaspora members in the United States or all over the world” (2005, p. 66, our emphasis). The transnational connections forged by the social practices around media, presumably through talk, have been recognized more broadly for Indian diasporic film cultures as well (Shankar, 2004).

A Mixed Methods Approach

The materials used for this article are based on two methods of data gathering: qualitative in-depth interviews and a quantitative theater survey. Because “in quantitative methods we have a tool that can tell us a little about a lot of people, while qualitative methods enable us to say a lot about a few people” (Schrøtoder, Drotner, Kline, & Murray, 2003, p. 349), it is particularly fruitful to apply both to arrive at a fuller picture of Indian Antwerp film audiences. In this study, the survey was intended as a facilitation of research results, in which “a quantitative phase […] can facilitate subsequent in-depth analyses” (Jensen, 2003, p. 272).

A total of 21 in-depth interviews, 17 individually and four of them with two people simultaneously, were conducted among Antwerp Indians in the course of 2011. Our respondents were picked through snowball sampling or through further cooperation after they had participated in the cinema survey (see below). ² The interviews were conducted in English or Dutch ³ and semi-structured, based on a topic list, but leaving room for elaboration on the topics of interest to the respondent. To create a familiar context, the interview setting was usually the home of the respondents, unless explicitly declined by the interviewees (then a public place was agreed on). Interviews lasted one to two hours approximately. Verbatim transcripts were analyzed through the qualitative data analysis software program NVivo. The citations from the interviews quoted in this article have been cleaned in favor of readability, but are staying as closely as possible to the original statements with due respect to their contents. Table 1 presents our 25 respondents, whose names have been changed to guarantee anonymity and whose regional backgrounds in India ranged from Gujarat (seven persons), over West Bengal (three), Tamil Nadu (two), Punjab (two), Kerala (two), Andhra Pradesh (two), and Goa (two), till Madhya Pradesh (one), Rajasthan (one), Delhi (one), and Bihar (one). Twelve women and 13 men were interviewed. All the respondents lived in Antwerp, Belgium, or its suburbs. Most people were aged between 20 and 29 (10 persons) and 30 and 39 (nine), although we met with three people between 40 and 49 and three between 50 and 59. Seven people were part of the diamond community (mostly women), 10 persons of the IT sector (mostly men, and if women these were their wives). The eight others belonged to neither of the two communities, and included students, a taxi driver, a cook, a retired shopkeeper, and two unemployed people. Since the communities are almost exclusively first generation, we met only two second-generation persons. Of the first-generation respondents, more than half migrated after 2005. ⁴

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Table 1.

Profile of Interview Respondents According to Work Sector, Gender, Age, and Time of Migration

Alias	Work Sector	Gender	Age Group	Migration
Apeksha	Diamond business	Female	50–59	1980s
Astha	Diamond business	Female	40–49	Born in Belgium
Bikram	Other	Male	20–29	1990s
Deepika	IT industry	Female	30–39	2006–2011
Giriraj	Other	Male	20–29	2006–2011
Hansi	IT industry	Female	30–39	2006–2011
Harjeet	Other	Male	20–29	2006–2011
Joy	IT industry	Male	30–39	2006–2011
Kamini	Diamond business	Female	30–39	1990s
Manish	Other	Male	30–39	2006–2011
Manoj	IT industry	Male	30–39	2000–2005
Manu	IT industry	Male	20–29	2006–2011
Payal	Diamond business	Female	50–59	1980s
Priya	IT industry	Female	20–29	2006–2011
Rahul	Other	Male	20–29	Born in Belgium
Reshma	Diamond business	Female	30–39	1990s
Sachin	IT industry	Male	20–29	2006–2011
Sandeep	Other	Male	20–29	2006–2011
Seetha	IT industry	Female	30–39	2006–2011
Shivani	Other	Female	50–59	1990s
Subir	IT industry	Male	20–29	2006–2011
Suchita	Diamond business	Female	30–39	2000–2005
Suresh	IT industry	Male	20–29	2006–2011
Vaishali	Other	Female	40–49	1980s
Vijay	Diamond business	Male	40–49	1980s

Source: Authors’ own.

Besides interviews, we conducted a survey at the Metropolis cinema theater ⁵ during a total of seven Hindi films (spread over 14 different screenings). Overall, 255 questionnaires were gathered, which corresponds to an average return rate of 31.6 percent. The questions were designed to get an insight in audience composition, personal profiles (gender, age, place of residence, etc.), film preferences (according to production center), patterns of information and decision, as well as cinemagoing companionship. They were usually close-ended, but also left room to add options and comments. ⁶ We want to emphasize the survey’s limited representativeness, since we depended on people’s willingness to participate and relied on a selection of films and screenings. We do not report fully on the results here, but employ them as an invaluable and large-scale complement to the in-depth insights from the interviews.

The audience composition revealed that 158 people out of 242 (valid N for this question) respondents were “Indian,” ⁷ which equals 65.3 percent. Taking into account only the difference according to nationality, our sample showed a broad variety, which is—except for the Dutch—consisting of other South Asians: Tibetans, Pakistani, Nepali, Sri Lankans, and Afghans. ⁸ Importantly, the numbers applied throughout our argument have only taken into consideration Indians as defined in footnote 7 (N = 158). The Indian audience was composed of 44.3 percent female and 55.7 percent male Indian respondents, living predominantly in Belgium (97.4 percent), usually in the city of Antwerp (66.5 percent), and was on average 34.2 years old (the actual mean is probably lower, as most Indian families bring their children who were often too small to fill the survey—our youngest participant was 16 years of age). The men have their own businesses or are managers or employees, while the women are mostly housewives. As is the case with most Indians in Belgium, they are mostly first-generation migrants, which we could conclude from the high number of people born in India (85.7 percent). Their migrations took place fairly recently: 60.9 percent migrated since 2000.

Scattered Communities: The Indian Diaspora of Antwerp

The port city of Antwerp is famous for its flourishing diamond market, traditionally linked to the local Jewish community. In the last few decades, however, this business has gradually become dominated by an affluent Indian community, which has started to settle down in the city since the 1970s and today still mainly consists of first-generation migrants. The majority of these Indian families is Jain, ⁹ has its origins in Palanpur, a city in the state of Gujarat, but has actually grown up in Mumbai. Nevertheless, the trade has also attracted Marwaris (from the state of Rajasthan) and Kathiawaris (also from Gujarat). ¹⁰ While men are into the trade, women are predominantly housewives. Two areas of the city have become popular as a place to live: the “Diamond Square Mile” close to the heart of the diamond market and central station in the center as well as the residential area of Wilrijk at the outskirts of the city. Of all Antwerp Indians, those active in the diamond sector can be best considered as a “community,” “a very tight community” according to our respondent Astha who is a member of this group. “And most of them need each other,” she added, since the trade is essentially based on (family) trust, generating a secluded lifestyle. “They are as Indian in values as somebody in India that has not moved,” said Joy—who is himself an information technology (IT) engineer—pointing at their conservatism. Moreover, the changeability of the diamond market urges them to be permanently ready to leave Antwerp, which informs much of their attitude toward Belgian society. In order to easily settle anywhere, children are sent to English-language international rather than Dutch-language schools. The second generation (especially the girls) has often left Antwerp already for studies, work, or marriage. However, respondents also emphasized recent social changes within the community: girls have started to practice professions, boys are leaving the diamond business, children increasingly appear in Dutch schools, and social differences matter less.

Since the 1990s (but less since the recent economic recession), a second, but smaller group of Indians has appeared in Belgium, consisting of IT professionals outsourced to local companies. They are mostly single, male, and Hindu, although those who are married have brought along their families. While the diamond traders and their retinue have a common background in India, in the IT sector people come from all over India, though predominantly from south Indian states, such as, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh. Their assignments last for a few months or years, which makes them a floating population. Furthermore, “if a big shot comes, along with him come the subordinates” (Sachin). Indeed, the diamond community has brought along its domestic staff, but its presence in the city has equally resulted in the emergence of services offered by textile merchants, doctors, shopkeepers, and taxi drivers. Furthermore, a few students and refugees are also part of the Indians in the city.

Together, approximately 3,400 Indians live in Antwerp. ¹¹ Although both diamond traders and IT contractors can be considered fairly recent professional migrants and “the cultural values are the same” (Hansi), diamond traders belong to an elite class, while IT engineers are commonly from a middle-class background. It may seem artificial to split up the Antwerp Indian community between diamond and IT, but in practice “the willingness to actually interact is not there” (Sachin). Often, the shops forge the only link since they sell goods the whole diaspora needs and they spread news among everyone. However, also north and south Indians are in certain respects separately organized (e.g., for cultural events). Although not always shared, for all groups social and cultural life revolves around religion, cricket, and film.

A Glance at the Antwerp Indian Screen

Since our focus lies on the theater space, it is important to put the phenomenon of cinemagoing into perspective here. Going to the cinema turned out to be a very popular leisure activity, in accordance with Tejaswini Ganti’s observation that “in India the movie theater is the most significant site of film consumption” in contrast to an increasing home consumption of Hollywood in the West (2012, p. 9). Image and sound quality were considered as the theater’s advantages in comparison to watching film at home. Hansi emphasized: “they spend so much of money in creating [a Hindi] movie. There will all be special effects, and costumes and so on. And all of that is really lost when you watch on the laptop or on a TV screen.” In addition, the theater provided a more committed, concentrated engagement with the on-screen world. At home, Indian films served more as “background music.” “The movie plays like that and we eat and we drink and we just…it’s not like we are concentrating as we do in the theatres” (Giriraj). Moreover, the social experience of the theater played an important role in the appraisal of theater over the home setting. What is important is the “blast” experienced “for the blockbuster movies, to go to the theaters with friends and enjoy” (Suchita). Home entertainment was usually an unsocial activity, since watching alone is very common. People had no habit of watching films jointly with friends, except for singles: they occasionally shared a movie at home, although this happened last minute on the spot rather than as a preplanned get-together.

Although a cinema craze was obviously present, the Hindi cinemagoing culture from India could not be equaled in the diasporic context. People mentioned several reasons for their more frequent theater-going in India than in Belgium. The Hindi film supply at the theater is quite limited and did not always accord with personal tastes. What is on offer is also exclusively in Hindi, so that the south Indian population of Antwerp, very eager to watch its own films in Tamil, Telugu, or Malayalam, has to drive to the Netherlands where screenings in these languages are on offer. All in all, “now you cannot get all the Hindi movies. So you have to fill up that vacuum with some other things. So you […] start watching English movies” (Subir). When referring to “English movies,” respondents actually meant “English-language movies,” and more precisely those produced in the Hollywood industry (this will return in citations below as well). Indeed our interviews revealed that cinemagoing in Antwerp is mainly a question of Hollywood culture, and less one of Hindi film. This is not to say that Hollywood was lacking in their theatrical film consumption in India, but rather that the proportion Hollywood–Hindi film changed. Despite the abovementioned enthusiasm for the theater, many people have developed a committed “home film culture” (Klinger, 2006) in the diasporic situation, especially for homeland films, which in India is considered characteristic of higher classes (Ganti, 2012, p. 297). The “need” to watch at home increases abroad. “Like there [in India] I would go to the cinema also once a week or so, but at home I wouldn’t watch. There are more things to do or whatever, so…Here in the evenings we just tend to relax” (Suchita). By contrast, interest in watching films at home is rare in India, despite their availability. There, Seetha recalled, “even if it is on Internet, we don’t want to see it on Internet.” In sum, despite its popularity, theater-going happens less in Belgium than in India, especially for Hindi films. The lack of supply can be compensated for by a Hollywood film culture at the theater and a Hindi film culture at home. Still, due to its essentially public nature and its function as a social space, the theater figures prominently in the present study.

For Indian film screenings in Antwerp, everything culminates in one place: Hindi films at the Metropolis theater. Since 1995, Indian diamond traders saw the potential of local screenings of homeland films for the diaspora. They started using the Metropolis theater as a venue to organize private shows, to which their own community was invited. In contrast to a few short-lived initiatives (notably including separate Tamil screenings for the south Indian and Sri Lankan communities), these diamond community screenings ran for 12 years. In 2006, the rising visibility of distributors for Indian films in the continental European market prompted Metropolis to take over the private shows, opening up Hindi films to the general public, and screening commercial Hindi film on a largely monthly basis (Vandevelde et al., 2011). Despite the multicultural ambitions of the theater management, the majority of the audience is South Asian.

Cinemagoing as a Social Practice

Elaborating on the social dimension of Indian cinemagoing, Lakshmi Srinivas writes (2002, p. 160): “Public places such as cinema theatres are centers of group experience in contrast to many Western societies, where it is now an acceptable practice to see a movie, or even eat at a restaurant by oneself.” Allen (2011) describes this trend in the West as a development of the last 20 years, since the theater and hence the social experience is no longer central to film experience. However, cinemagoing remains an essentially social act, even in the West (Meers & Biltereyst, 2012). Although Srinivas’ account is about India, it largely applies to Indians in the diaspora as well. In our case study, both the survey and the interviews provided ample evidence for the essentially social nature of the cinemagoing experience. In the survey, people (N = 50) indicated that they went to the cinema in groups of 2–10 people, but most commonly in smaller groups of 3–5 (72 percent). Less common were groups of 6–10 people, which we considered big (28 percent), as were dating couples (24 percent). ¹² No one answered that they would go alone to the theater, as indeed “a solitary movie experience is considered an anti-social and unnatural act” (L. Srinivas, 2002, p. 161). Our interviews with Antwerp Indians revealed similar trends, but enriched the data with more nuance and detail. Part of the pleasure of viewing is actually constituted by the shared viewing experience. When visiting the cinema hall people “need company” and “come to enjoy” (often mentioned in one breath). The social effect is powerful indeed, even to the extent that the films themselves, their narratives, and their aesthetics fade into the background. “Even if the movie is not good, we’d enjoy.” explains Seetha, as long as “my friends circle is joined together.” This situation typically occurs for Indian films and in the Antwerp context where supplies are limited, since “especially going to theaters, we get a chance only once in a while” (Seetha). Furthermore, among IT professionals watching films as a group was more important for Indian films than for Hollywood. Theater-going with a couple of friends or even on one’s own was a common thing only for mainstream Hollywood films. “Hindi movies? Yes, we go in a group. English movies? Whoever, you know, I find. Just like, you enter a hall and you’re like, ‘hey, you’re also there, OK!’” (Sachin).

Interestingly, even for those who rarely or never went to the cinema hall in Antwerp, cinemagoing was considered a group experience. More precisely, the lack of social community of the type commonly available in India generated a context in which cinemagoing as social event is felt to be absent. Manoj explains the radical change from his avid cinemagoing habits in India to a complete abstinence of theater-going in his current life in Belgium: “The social aspect does play a big role, I think. […] probably I’m not interested in a film or so, but if I would have friends who are interested in Indian films, yes, I would go.” Again, the films themselves become less significant in comparison to the social experience of watching them together, a phenomenon also described by Lakshmi Srinivas (2002, p. 160). “Even if I didn’t like them, I had to go because of my friends. They are big fans,” Subir explained. Although he has a group of Indian colleagues that constitutes much of his friend circle in Antwerp, the “social pressure” he had felt in India has vanished. Only once, he recalled, his friends convinced him of accompanying them to watch a Hindi film at the theater in Antwerp. In sum, abstaining from (shared) cinemagoing in the diasporic context is also an indicator of the relevance of its social practices. Another important reason for staying at home instead of going to the theater occurred among south Indians, who showed little interest in the mainstream Bollywood films supplied by the Antwerp theaters, sticking to films in their own languages only available on digital video discs (DVDs) or online.

Having noted the value of the group experience during film-watching, we were interested in the social relations (basically family or friends) between the members of these groups and if these affected the engagement with films. The results of our survey taught us that cinemagoing companions normally are made up of a group of friends, for both Indian (62.6 percent, N = 131) and other films ¹³ (58 percent, N = 131). Friends here in fact mean Indian friends, since the number of non-Indian acquaintances is often limited but also since the latter show little interest in Hindi film. This resonates with Banaji’s observations that Bombay/Mumbai youth prefer to go to the cinema with their peers (2006, p. 48). Taking along one friend, partner, or family (partners and children; other relatives) is less popular. The preference for friends in favor of family, however, did not appear in our interviews, where people mentioned both in one breath. “We have a group of friends; we purchase the tickets…all of us, so that we are seated together. We enjoy it more this way. Family and friends, all of them together” (Reshma).

Furthermore, theater-going as a family outing was seen as a specifically Indian habit, which was not the case in relation to friends. Although her (adult) children, who have grown up in a Belgian environment, have completely lost interest in Indian films, Vaishali pointed out that her husband habitually takes the children to the theater, on their own request, “because we kept that system that children have to go outside together with the parents.” While the taste for Indian cultural products has faded in the second generation, the “system” of theater-going as a family-centered activity has been preserved. According to the survey taking along “other relatives” is much more popular for Indian (23.7 percent) than for other films (10.7 percent)—although this does not show with regard to partner and children. Also, the fact that very small children, including babies, are taken along to the theater, was repeatedly emphasized as a typically Indian phenomenon. The “Indian” feel of sharing cinemagoing with family, serving as “a cultural bonding ritual” (Banaji, 2006, p. 53) may not surprise, since Indian filmmakers have consciously targeted the “family audience” (Rajadhyaksha, 2004, p. 32). IT professional Manu makes a distinction between India—where you go with your family and that way you are obliged to choose “a good movie which we all can see, sitting together”—and the diaspora—where you go with your friends, with whom “you can watch any movie”—since he moved to Belgium on his own, without bringing his kin. This is a crucial point in the family–friends divide, because “in India, […] if you want to be social, the first thing you should have, is your family” (Manu), but here “you don’t have your own family, so then [friends and colleagues] become family” (Apeksha). This may partly explain the numbers in our survey who marked friends as the most frequent companionship for watching film. Due to the changed social circumstances, the centrality of the family as core companionship cannot always be put into practice in the diaspora.

Borders of Unity: Audiences and Socioeconomic Communities

Having explored the shared cinemagoing experience at a grassroots level by looking into the actual group compositions attending the film screenings, we now shift to a broader level of community formation. The diasporic context provides a particularly intriguing case for the study of such community dynamics for a couple of reasons. First of all, in contrast to several other locations with more elaborate diasporic communities, notably in the UK and the US, in smaller markets, such as, Antwerp the public Hindi film culture is confined to one hall in one multiplex. In combination with the small size of the community, this increases the degree of familiarity among the audience. An even more restricted supply was provided by the private screenings, which were not accessible to the general public (not even to all Indians). Second, the diasporic audience in the cinema hall is composed of a diversity of nationalities and Indian communities. Again, the private screenings provide an interesting point of comparison, since these were limited to one (the biggest) Indian community of the city. Indeed people from the diamond sector figure most prominently in this section, since issues of community surfaced only during interviews with these Antwerp Indians. We detect feelings of solidarity, unity, and community during screenings of Hindi films, but also explore the limits of such conceptualizations. These limits are not just prompted by the restricted supply (bringing about issues of (in)convenience) and by the audience diversity but also by a partial conformism with Western cinema conventions.

It has become clear by now that being at the movies together featured as an important motivation for theatrical film watching in our interviews, for both private and public screenings. Since they were exclusively organized by and for the diamond community, the private events of the 1990s and early 2000s played an important role in the community-enhancing dynamics of the theater for this section of the Antwerp Indians. Respondents enthusiastically recalled the success these events used to have, emphasizing that the house was always full. “It was also a social gathering, because one day a movie [was] shown and all of the Indians would go,” Payal remembered, in accordance with the other women from the diamond group we interviewed. Switching to the context of the contemporary regular screenings at Metropolis, open to everyone, going to Hindi films becomes something that brings viewers “very close to other Indian people” (Giriraj), also for people from outside the diamond community. The fact that a considerable part of the audience is Indian contributes to an atmosphere of solidarity. “People bring their own food [chuckling], which is not allowed [laughing]. Well, that’s part of it. And they share it, really. They are very generous” (Astha). This is particularly the case for release evenings, which can be extremely popular for certain films. The socioeconomic community of diamond families also conceptualized the theater as a romanticized space of communal unity. While Palanpuris, Marwaris, and Kathiawaris remain separate in other cultural contexts, for instance, for certain religious festivals, “everyone would get together at Metropolis to see the latest Bollywood films” (Astha). The same goes for different classes: “people working with us, working in our houses, the cooks or…they are as well there for the movies,” Kamini revealed. This was contrasted to theaters in India, described to be categorizing people according to class by having the lower classes seated on a separate (pit) floor (also described by S.V. Srinivas, 2000). Besides the diamond community, people from the IT industry or other sectors are equally part of the local diaspora and are present at the screenings. This audience, however, was hardly recognized and strikingly absent from the accounts of the diamond dealers and their wives. Hence, in the conception of the Antwerp Indian screenings constructed by people from the diamond milieu, the differentiations within the own community fade while other (smaller) groups are neglected.

However, the community and solidarity feelings surfacing during film watching has clear limits, detectable at different levels. First, although very successful and more community-specific than the current Metropolis Hindi film program, the erstwhile private shows were not nostalgically looked back on or preferred above the contemporary regular system. “Thank god that’s over now,” Reshma sighed. This came as a relief, since the glorification of the community experience had been overshadowed by an experience of discomfort. Indeed, the lack of convenience these screenings offered drove people to discontent. The working system of the private shows caused frictions within the community, because those who were well acquainted with the organizers of the shows would get better conditions, while those who did not belong to the happy influential few ended up fighting for tickets and seats. In short, “it was a chaos” (Payal) and there was “no choosing” (Apeksha) involved. This added up to a more extensive list of annoyances, including limited supply, an expensive ticket policy, and difficult screening timings (Sunday morning 10 am until 1 pm). All this made the later regular screenings much more attractive, as they were comfortable and regulated. Why then did the private screenings meet with such an overwhelming success? Payal explains: “In the private screening we didn’t have a choice to make, we just went, because it was there and we had no choice, we had to go” and also since “we just [got] one movie in six months.” Hence, in contrast to what could be expected from a close community, such as, the diamond one, the convenience of more flexible supplies was equally important as the community event.

A second limit to community feelings is the response to the national diversity of the audience that has occurred since Metropolis replaced the private initiative with a regular Hindi film listing. Although we have shown that only about 65 percent of the audience is “Indian,” the difference between private or public screening as regards audience composition was met with indifference by our respondents. “If it’s a movie and there is no Indian sitting there, it’s OK. We’re not uncomfortable, because we enjoy movies anyway,” Kamini argued. Actually, being avid consumers of Hollywood (often even more than Hindi films), people are used to mixed audiences, because “when you watch an English movie also there are other people” (Payal). It was even considered an advantage if familiarity among people was less prominent, because during the private screenings, “if one person is finding it boring, then he’ll find somebody to chat with and start chatting, which gets in fact quite annoying.” By contrast, with the regular screenings now, “we go sit along with the general public, we sit and watch, which is much better” (Reshma). Others even minimized the variety within the audience, reminding of the romanticizing idea of unity mentioned earlier. According to Kamini, “in the Indian movies it’s mostly…it’s our own community.”

A third and final limitation is related to audience behavior as an essential part of community formation. Returning to Srinivas, we start from the idea that “a community atmosphere emerges in the theatre” when the audience is participatory and interactive, in Srinivas’ description exemplified by repeat viewers who are anticipating the scenes that will appear on-screen (2002, p. 168). Similarly, Richard McCulloch has drawn attention to the “temporary community, one that exists only in that place and until the cinema has emptied” (2011, p. 203) describing British audiences who were chanting, laughing, and throwing plastic spoons while watching the film The Room (Wiseau, 2003). In our interviews, people enthusiastically recounted the movie craze in India and what would happen in the theater over there, but at the same time contrasted that to the viewing conventions in the diasporic context. The “enthusiasm gap” (Giriraj) was pinpointed as one of the most eye-catching differences between going to watch a Hindi film in India or Belgium. “The atmosphere is entirely different” in the sense that Indians “are very quiet and calm here” whereas in India “we would really shout in theatres and we would dance, we would be out of what we are. And here we have to sit in a decent manner, when we watch a movie, that’s the difference” (Seetha). When asked about the reasons for this code-switching, that is, why people curbed their enthusiasm in a non-Indian context, respondents referred to a conformism with Belgian cinemagoing conventions. Manu suggested that “maybe they want to show they are decent, in front of the Belgians,” because otherwise “if you shout, then everyone is looking at you. It is embarrassing.” Payal on the other hand, implicitly disconnected the participatory audience from the high-class Antwerp Indians, saying that “the lower class people have more of that interaction,” which she judged to be “terrible.” This echoes the perspective of middle-class viewers in India (L. Srinivas, 2002, p. 163; S.V. Srinivas, 2000). Still others denied any clear-cut differences between Indian and Belgian theaters, except for the crowd and the concessions.

At the same time, though less prominently, respondents recognized their code-switching between Hindi and Hollywood film screenings at the Antwerp multiplex. Besides picking up phones, bringing their own snacks, having children run around or taking along (wailing) babies, making noise, and starting “meta-talking”—that is “discussing with a co-spectator what is occurring” (Staiger, 2000, p. 52)—Astha shared that “you can laugh real loud without being ashamed, which I think you wouldn’t really do in a hall where no Indians are sitting. Or passing comments. Not coarse, but….” As Astha indicates, the difference in behavior has nothing to do with the difference between the films, but everything with the audience: it is “just because everyone knows each other.” From our observations at the theater, it turned out that full houses (often at release evenings) tend to create such a familiar setting that stimulates more activity among the audience, and therefore creates a sense of community. To that, Sandeep added the role of accompanying people: “normally if we go with a group, we create noise.” Interestingly, such code-switches between watching a Hollywood and a Hindi film do not occur in India (L. Srinivas, 2002, p. 170), which confirms that the nature of the audience rather than the film determines behavior. All in all, the Antwerp Indian audience developed a double attitude toward behavior, indicating restraint in comparison to India as well as code-switching depending on co-spectators. Generally speaking, though, extensive interactivity and hence an increased feeling of community is not a regular habit, even for Hindi screenings.

Talking Spaces

In her exploration of reception activities after the actual film screening, Staiger lists three examples of fan involvement occurring in the discussions among film viewers: “commentary,” “speculation,” and “request for and diffusion of information” (2000, pp. 51–55). Concerning Indian audiences, the role of “talking spaces” (Gillespie, 2002, pp. 184–185) has also been noticed by various scholars (e.g., Dudrah, 2002; Shankar, 2004). Central in these analyses are thematic engagements rather than the three discursive practices pinpointed by Staiger. These, however, aptly cover the most eye-catching film discussions people mentioned in our case study. First, Antwerp Indian audiences produced a lot of evaluative commentary on films, feeling a strong inner urge to ventilate their opinions. After each film he watched, Manish emphasized, he “wanted to put [his] value.” For those who are subscribed, Facebook functions as a suitable outlet. On Facebook walls “everybody becomes a movie critic. ‘I give it three out of five stars.’ Things like that” (Subir). Second, speculations about films are going around, creating much expectation about upcoming releases. People for instance try to assess the success of one film against the other, “so we have to discuss which is going to be a blockbuster” (Giriraj).

Still, what appeared most strikingly from our interviews was the reliance on recommendations given by others as well as recommending films to others, which Staiger has called the “request for and diffusion of information.” Consulting reviews from film critics in magazines as well as from friends and family appeared as the most common way to decide on film choices or to remain up-to-date with developments in the Indian film industry. “Most of the time, if someone says there’s this new movie which is very good, then we go for it,” Suchita stated. For both Hindi and Hollywood films, advice from others is sought, sometimes even more for Hollywood, since people have fewer benchmarks to fall back upon. While Manu picks only those Hollywood movies that have been recommended, due to his general lack of interest in them, Subir has become a reference himself guiding new IT arrivals through their first Hollywood film experiences. Interestingly, advice against particular films is not generally heeded. Payal noted that her husband does not like reviews because they include the risk of missing a good film if being advised against, while others announced they planned to watch a movie despite its bad reviews. Seetha attributed this to the restricted supply of Indian films in theaters, not providing the luxury to be picky, which reveals the limits of recommendations as a decisive guideline. In our survey, we asked for factors that play a role in choosing a film. Here, for Indian screenings, film reviews and family/friends came only in fourth and fifth place (51.4 percent and 47.7 percent, respectively), after famous actors and actresses (92.5 percent), genre (67.3 percent), and famous directors (58.9 percent). They were ranked higher for non-Indian films (though not in absolute numbers): film reviews and friends/family ended on a third (47.7 percent) and fourth (43 percent) place, again surpassed by famous actors and actresses (75.7 percent) as well as genre (50.5 percent).

In his description of the talking spaces on film in which he takes part, Manu explained that “you get the feedback from your friends in India. Or the best way is Facebook. Someone will comment definitely if the movie is good, so you’ll ask and if the response is good, then definitely I will check if it is available in Metropolis.” In these few sentences, Manu touches upon three recurrent characteristics of the different discourses we outlined above (commentary, speculation, and recommendations): the transnational nature of talking spaces, their realization within social networks, and the role they play in the promotion of a film. First, Manu refers to friends in India. Including subjects not only from the Antwerp diaspora but also from the UK, US, and of course, India, the talking spaces are essentially transnational. Our respondents indicated that they were referred to particular productions by their transnational networks. While several IT professionals emphasized their daily chats with cooperating teams located in India, others depended on family ties in the Netherlands or on friendships with people in India. Moreover, sharing a discourse on Hindi films provided a topic to build transcultural bridges with women of Moroccan descent in the Belgian context. Therefore, cinema talking spaces are working not only across borders but also across cultures. Second, discourses on film develop within existing social networks, both real and virtual. Manu referred to social network site Facebook, which was described as an important forum to post opinions but also to check if friends and family had applauded or criticized recent releases. Being informed about films is considered “through and through […] very good networking” (Reshma). Third, after advice is sought about the films, the Kinepolis website is checked for availability. This turns talking spaces in actual channels of promotion for a film. In the results of our survey, we noticed that a variety of media is used to obtain information on films. Word-of-mouth advertising is the most important information source (43.2 percent), more so than posters, trailers, television, flyers, the Internet, or magazines, respectively (on a scale from 27.7 percent to 0.6 percent). All in all, it remains “a mix and match” (Sachin). The Kinepolis website got the highest percentage (87.1 percent), but the interviews showed that knowledge about the film is already there before the website is checked, for availability and screening schedules. Hence, the “advertisement” for a film happens through word of mouth rather than through the promotion channels employed by distributors or exhibitors. Talking spaces about film are but a mere part of a more general importance of transnational talks.

Conclusion

By way of conclusion, we first return to the methods we used for this study and subsequently reconnect the results to the theoretical background given above. As regards our methodological approach, a cinema survey was conducted during theatrical screenings of Indian films at a local multiplex, to get a broad idea of the audience composition as well as a few basic insights in Indian film tastes and uses. It gave us general background data to support the subsequently conducted qualitative, in-depth interviews. Where the questions in the survey dealt with the same topics as those in the interviews, or covered behaviors that had (not) been observed, this allowed for methodological triangulation. At the same time, a triangulation of data was entailed: surveys and interviews occurred at different moments, at different places and were only partly based on the same sample of people (Flick, 2011). In some instances, the results were converging, in others diverging, which pushed the arguments further. Therefore, we advocate additional and facilitating use of quantitative methods to contextualize qualitative data and put them into perspective.

Research has exposed the role of media and film in community dynamics as well as the importance of the social context for the ways in which films are interpreted. At the same time, our study has shown that these dynamics are complex and interwoven with other issues, which partly make the importance of community fade into the background. While the connectivity and feelings of belonging within diasporic communities tend to intensify in comparison to the community culture in the country of origin, cinemagoing as a community-forming activity is bound by issues of convenience, national diversity, and conformism, resulting in a moderate enthusiasm and behavior. This means that social practices at the theater do not always increase in a context of “deterritorialization.” On the contrary, whereas sociality and family-as-company were conceptualized as typically Indian features of cinemagoing, the diasporic situation created a context in which these habits were difficult to sustain, especially beyond the Hindi film screenings. Limited supplies of Indian cinema and the confrontation with Western conventions in the theater hall brought about a general decrease in the centrality of the social practice of cinemagoing. Although the idea of an audience-generated community was relatively absent, beyond the cinema hall a transnational community was created in the shape of “talking spaces,” informing people’s film choices and part of a general way to connect to the homeland. It is interesting to see how features of fan involvement as described by Staiger (2000) reoccur among diasporic film audiences and adopt different characteristics in such a context. They intersect with more general transnational communication patterns (e.g., social websites) that are particular for diasporic networks (including people in the homeland and similar diasporas based in different locations). In this way, these “talking spaces” can be situated at the crossroads of fan involvement and transnational communication networks. This shifts the traditional focus on the link films forge with the homeland from nostalgia engendered by watching the contents of the films to transnational audience discourses.

We started from the idea of a diasporic community, which turns into an audience at the cinema theater. This does not necessarily entail an equation of a social with an audience group. In accordance with Athique’s point mentioned earlier—our case challenged this equation by a narrower formation of community at a socioeconomic rather than diasporic or ethnic level. This raises broader questions as to the centrality of ethnic identity for diasporic communities. Media cultures in diaspora are often described as gatekeepers to the maintenance of the distant homeland “culture” (e.g., language) and as important markers and transformers of cultural or ethnic identities. In line with other scholars, such as, Banaji (2006), we downplay the importance of ethnicity in diasporic film consumption. In Antwerp, variations in Indian cinema culture exist between the diamond and IT sector and between north and south Indians. For instance, issues of community only occurred within the most extensive group, that of the diamond business, which revealed that a socioeconomic community gained ascendancy over the ethnic diaspora. While north Indians find their film culture—though marginally—embedded in the city’s mainstream film life, south Indians are impelled to travel to the Netherlands to enjoy cinema from their own region. Generational differences constitute another important layer in the description of Indian diasporic identities. Moreover, the type of films (Hollywood versus Bollywood), the presence or absence of co-viewers (joint versus solitary watching, with family versus friends) as well as the locations (theater versus home entertainment, India versus diaspora) further complexify social dynamics.

Furthermore, we have revealed the importance of historical transformations in audience research. Such a historical perspective underlined the existence of the private screenings that preceded the contemporary regular Hindi film program at Metropolis. Members of the Indian diamond community suddenly had to share the experience with others. Private screenings in this way shed new light on the limits to shared film viewing in a theatrical environment and importance of this sharing for the community. In contrast to the glamorized picture that emerged from the perspective of their organizers, the audiences were pleased that these uncomfortable events were over, despite their higher potential for sociability. Additionally, we showed that the essentially social nature of cinemagoing transformed through another important “historical” issue: the process of migration. Change deserves attention in the context of people’s personal or common past of migration, since this frames their lives and media consumption. Being predominantly of the first generation, Antwerp Indians personally experienced cinemagoing “back home” and after a deterritorialization landed up willy-nilly in a new cinematic environment in the diaspora, with its own social conventions.

Finally, Antwerp Indians share the silver screen in a double sense, not only in their passion for the social activity cinemagoing essentially is (e.g., the focus on the group experience, talking spaces) but also in the sense that they share the theater hall and screen with other, non-Indian audiences, creating a conformist attitude that is expressed in terms of behavior. Code-switching did occur between Hindi and Hollywood film as well as between Indian and diasporic settings, which was deeply connected to the composition of the audience. The reduced theater enthusiasm in Belgium has been counterbalanced by more committed theater visits for Hollywood films, travels to cinemas in the Netherlands (with a more elaborate supply), as well as by a more intensive home watching culture. How the latter develops is an interesting topic of research that deserves more attention in the future, especially since our case study indicates that social film watching plays a less prominent role in the context of the living room.