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Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan
Clare M. Wilkinson Editors
Stardom in
Contemporary
Hindi Cinema
Stardom in Contemporary Hindi Cinema
Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan Clare M. Wilkinson
•
Editors
Stardom in Contemporary
Hindi Cinema
123
Editors
Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan Clare M. Wilkinson
Department of Humanities Department of Anthropology
and Social Sciences Washington State University Vancouver
Indian Institute of Technology Madras Vancouver, WA, USA
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
ISBN 978-981-15-0190-6 ISBN 978-981-15-0191-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0191-3
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
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or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
Contents
1 Introduction: Charting Stars in New Skies: Celebrity

in Globalised Hindi Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan and Clare M. Wilkinson
Part I Masculinity, Celebrity, Stardom

2 Saif Ali Khan: Stardom and the Alchemy of Celebrity . . . . . . . . . . 15
Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan and Liza Tom
3 Shah Rukh Khan: Journey from Charisma to Celebrity . . . . . . . . . 31
Priya Kapoor
4 “Don’t Hold Back”: Ranveer Singh, Masculinity
and New Media Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Praseeda Gopinath
5 The Suave Anti-hero: Deconstructing the Subversive Stardom
of Emraan Hashmi in Globalized Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Sanchari Basu Chaudhuri
Part II Spectacular Bodies

6 The Cardboard Queen: Aishwarya Rai and the Rise
of the Lady Vamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Anwesha Arya
7 Having It Both Ways: The Janus-Like Career of Kareena
Kapoor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Ajay Gehlawat
v
vi Contents
8 Shahid Kapoor: Multi-Platform Mediations

of a Mid-Level Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Madhavi Biswas
9 Action, Sensation and the Kinetic Body: The Stardom
of Hrithik Roshan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Shohini Ghosh
10 The Body and Its Multimedia Sensations: Forging Starry
Identities Through Item Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Silpa Mukherjee
Part III The ‘Outsiders’

11 The Plough and the Star: The Improbable Celebrity
of Nawazuddin Siddiqui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Clare M. Wilkinson and Sreenidhi Krishnan
12 Indie, not Indian—Kalki Koechlin and the Representation
of the White Indian Star in Bollywood and Hatkē Cinema . . . . . . . 183
Midath Hayder
13 Akshay Kumar: The Khiladi of the Box Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Tutun Mukherjee
14 Waif to Warrior—Kangana Ranaut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Maithili Rao
Part IV Women on Top

15 Unstarry Stardom: The Making of Anushka Sharma . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Kanupriya Dhawan, Sreenidhi Krishnan, Arpita Sinha
and Clare M. Wilkinson
16 How Do You Solve a Problem Like Vidya?: Female Stardom
in the Times of Size Zero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Gopika Gurudas
17 Alia Bhatt: The New Female Subject and Stardom . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Divya Kalavala
Part V Transnational Stardom

18 Transnational Rites of Passage, National Stardom: Irrfan Khan’s
Presence in Hollywood Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Shreyosi Mukherjee
Contents vii
19 Tabu: Less Is More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Patricia Gruben
20 Priyanka Chopra’s Journey from Bollywood Stardom
to Transnational Iconicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Ruma Sen
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Contributors
Anwesha Arya School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of

London, London, UK
Sanchari Basu Chaudhuri Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New
Delhi, India
Madhavi Biswas University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA
Kanupriya Dhawan Department of Anthropology, Washington State University,
Pullman, WA, USA
Ajay Gehlawat Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA, USA
Shohini Ghosh AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia,
A Central University, New Delhi, India
Praseeda Gopinath Department of English, Binghamton University, SUNY,
Binghamton, USA
Patricia Gruben Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Gopika Gurudas Trivandrum, India
Midath Hayder University of Sussex, Falmer (Brighton), UK
Divya Kalavala GITAM (Deemed to be University), Hyderabad, India
Priya Kapoor Department of International and Global Studies, Portland State
University, Portland, OR, USA
Sreenidhi Krishnan Department of Anthropology, Washington State University
Vancouver, Vancouver, WA, USA
Shreyosi Mukherjee Leander, TX, USA
Silpa Mukherjee Film and Media Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
ix
x Contributors
Tutun Mukherjee Hyderabad, Telangana, India

Maithili Rao Mysore, India
Ruma Sen Ramapo College of New Jersey, Mahwah, USA
Arpita Sinha Department of Anthropology, Washington State University,
Pullman, WA, USA
Liza Tom Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill
University, Bangalore, India
Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian
Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Clare M. Wilkinson Department of Anthropology, Washington State University
Vancouver, Vancouver, WA, USA
Chapter 1
Introduction: Charting Stars in New
Skies: Celebrity in Globalised Hindi
Cinema
Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan and Clare M. Wilkinson
Abstract Celebrity studies have largely focused on media stars in America and
Europe. Stardom in contemporary Hindi cinema is an attempt to redress that bal-
ance with an examination of a variety of film stars in the present-day Mumbai-based
Hindi film industry. The reach and significance of the Hindi film industry extend
across the subcontinent into Africa, South America, Europe, Central Asia and now
China. For these reasons alone, the shape celebrity takes in the Hindi industry is
arguably as relevant for developing global models of stardom as any model elabo-
rated elsewhere. On the one hand, Hindi film stars confirm what has been argued
already about stardom; on the other, Indian stars seem to overflow the boundaries
of Western celebrity in part through the kinds of roles and personas they adopt, and
in part through the particular nature of their relationship to their audience. Other
particularities of stardom in the Hindi industry worth consideration include cultural
codes of concealment and exposure, as well as the stark contrast of industry insiders
and outsiders. This volume’s parts group together the studies of individual film stars
that draw out additional themes and concerns with the goal of inspiring continuing
studies of Hindi (and perhaps another industry’s) film celebrity.
Keywords Hindi film · Stardom · Film stars · Celebrity studies
So obsessed is our culture with the media star, that new terms like “superstar” and “mega-star”
have been coined in order to put in place a new and expanding hierarchy: those who are truly
and specially “gifted” (the super and mega) now exist on a plane above the semi-gifted….
(Ndalianis and Henry 2002: vii)
David Thomson, in his informative tome about select international films, Have
You Seen …A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films? (2010), includes a film God is
A. I. Viswamohan (B)
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai,
Tamil Nadu, India
e-mail: draysha@iitm.ac.in
C. M. Wilkinson
Department of Anthropology, Washington State University Vancouver, Vancouver, WA, USA
e-mail: cmweber@wsu.edu
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 1

A. I. Viswamohan and C. M. Wilkinson (eds.), Stardom in Contemporary
Hindi Cinema, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0191-3_1
2 A. I. Viswamohan and C. M. Wilkinson
My Witness, where the lead actor is described as “the vacuously pretty male star” and
the film is “an example of what the world laughingly calls “Bollywood”. (p. 329). The
film in question is Khuda Gawah (Anand 1992), and the star referred to is Amitabh
Bachchan. Thomson’s understanding of Bollywood and perhaps its greatest star/actor
is at best the “othering” of popular Hindi films by academia. That the “vacuously
pretty male star” has a respectable body of work is not a consideration, neither is
the fact that Khuda Gawah is not the best representation of Bachchan’s career. It
is obvious that the boost in academic celebrity studies has, to date, touched lightly
upon parts of the world outside North America and Europe. Stardom in Contemporary
Hindi Cinema is an attempt to redress that balance.
Focusing on the Hindi film industry based in the largest of India’s business and
financial hubs, Mumbai (the erstwhile Bombay), this anthology tackles stardom as
a system that sustains many different expressions of celebrity, from romantic lead
to respected thespian to action hero to convention-breaking heroine. The essays in
this volume offer a prismatic view of Hindi film celebrity, deriving from journalism
and fandom as well as academia. Restricting ourselves to the present-day system of
working actors rather than one stretched to include the many stars of earlier eras is in
part a concession to brevity; but it is also a means to draw attention to the existence
of forces that were either nascent or absent in the lives and work of past stars. We
refer here to new media, formal business models of celebrity management as well as
the proliferation of the star persona into parallel arenas of fashion and advertising.
All these have been triggered by the by-now well-known and documented rise of
neoliberal economic policy in India, generating an environment for film-making and
star-making that is vastly different from what existed just a few decades ago. Some of
the stars written about here have spanned the gap between old and new India, but even
more have arisen in a country awash not just in consumerism but in dramatically re-
positioned ideologies of Indian identity. It is, in addition, an opportunity to examine
the demands and opportunities of stardom in a consumerist, capitalist and globalized
economy. We focus, in other words, upon the components of film celebrity among
twenty-first century film actors (with a handful of those who are still relevant even
after having debuted in the nineties), recognizing that there are continuities as well
as fractures in the ecosystem of film celebrity over the past several decades.
The Indian cinema scene these days is breathtakingly dynamic, with ambitious
and innovative gems as well as unabashed crowd-pleasers being produced by a vari-
ety of Hindi and regional language industries. These films play not just nationally
to a dispersed, multilingual audience (sometimes dubbed, sometimes not) but also
to a diasporic South Asian audience whose enthusiasm for Indian-grown media is
nourished by the growth of multiplex cinemas capable of screening non-local fare,
as well as video streaming on the World Wide Web (e.g. Desai 2004; Gopal and
Moorti 2008; Mehta and Pandharipande 2011). Each of India’s regional industries
has its own collection of stars, all equally deserving of the kind of close scrutiny that
celebrity studies have to date mostly lavished on those familiar to western, white audi-
ences. Our choice of the Hindi industry as our focus emerges, in part, from our own
long-standing research interests in the Mumbai industry, long regarded, justifiably,
as the most prominent of India’s film industries from the point of view of its national
1 Introduction: Charting Stars in New Skies: Celebrity … 3
reach and global popularity. But, even as the study of celebrity must inevitably begin
to encompass a broader swathe of Indian movie stardom, renewed attention to its
Hindi language film forms is important precisely because it is here that film celebrity
has found its most expansive expression. Historically speaking, Amitabh Bachchan
is matched in regional and national (even international) prominence by Tamil star
Rajnikanth, for example; but, the variety and breadth of film celebrities in the Hindi
language industry are unparalleled. One may make a case for the phenomenal fan
following of regional stars both male and female, still Bollywood stars shine a bit
more brightly because of the tremendous outreach of popular films.
It is a bitter-sweet truism that while Hindi films and film actors remain obscure
to large swathes of the North American and European viewing public, there can be
no disputing the global reach and significance of the industry. The contemporary
popularity of film stars has been amplified by stage shows in which prominent stars
perform. Arguably, it was the Amitabh Bachchan’s 1982 stage show, with music com-
posers Kalyanji Virji Shah and Anandji Virji Shah, “Live Tonite: Amitabh Bachchan
with Kalyanji Anandji”, that was the earliest of the live performances on a big scale.
The show had Bachchan touring Trinidad with a group of fellow actors and perform-
ing on stage. The overwhelming reception of the event paved the way for a host of
big-ticket international stage shows, in which Bollywood stars entertained largely
diasporic audiences from South Asia. This though does not exhaust the appeal of
Hindi films globally. Long loved and celebrated by non-South Asians in parts of
Central Asia, East and West Africa and the Middle East, Hindi films are now mak-
ing inroads into the lucrative Chinese movie market (Cain 2017; Su 2019). Some
of the industry’s established stars have staggering international followings and have
received honours from around the world (BBC News 2006; Schwab 2018).
Certainly, the appeal of Hindi film as a global industry depends upon local readings
of stars and their vehicles that are culturally compelling; nevertheless, the path to
stardom for actors in the Hindi film industry draws on elements that are distinctly
Indian, whether this means the particular forms of visual and cinematic experience
that have been documented in South Asia (Lutgendorf 2006) that we touch on later
in this introduction, or the distinct ways in which the commoditization of celebrity
has unfolded in a profoundly transformed economy since the 1990s (Patra and Datta
2012). Every Hindi film fan knows that the past continues into the present through
its industry’s fertile and traditional intertextuality. Current stars reference old ones
and remake invite reflection on the repetition of star tropes. For example, both Shah
Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan have been known to channelize Dilip Kumar,
whereas Salman Khan has often mirrored the macho “son-of-the-soil” Dharmendra.
Meanwhile, Vidya Balan, Tabu and Priyanka Chopra, some of the finest female stars
today, can trace their inspiration to Meena Kumari, Rekha and Shabana Azmi, while
Katrina Kaif and Jacqueline Fernandez instantly remind us of Zeenat Aman and
Parveen Babi, known for their glamour and chic fashion.
What can the study of Indian film stardom add to existing celebrity studies? For
one thing, stars here act as test cases of the models of celebrity developed elsewhere.
Oftentimes, they seem to solidify these models, with the Indian film star in question
made more meaningful through reference to the existing paradigms of celebrity. This
is probably not much of a surprise, given the encompassing, universalising business

models and corporate organization to which Indian industries refer.
At the same time, Indian film stars seem to overflow the boundaries of Western
celebrity through the particular nature of their relationship to their audience. Several
scholars have pointed to the applicability of darśan to Indian film, the transposition,
in effect, of the experience of worship in devotional Hinduism from the temple to the
cinema hall. Darśan, as Eck (1998) explains, is the meritorious and enormously pow-
erful and profoundly tactile exchange of gazes between devotee and deity. Expanding
the notion of darśan into a philosophy of visual experience, Pinney (2002) argues
for the use of what he calls “corpothetics” to understand how seeing is not a strictly
ocular phenomenon in India, but one experienced in the body. Acknowledging that
not all audiences share the same ideological basis for a narrowly Hindu interpreta-
tion of “seeing”, Lutgendorf (2006) adds that Muslim Sufism/saint devotionalism
sustains a comparable response in Muslims. The result is a level of engagement with
stars that intersects with both religious life and concepts of the body that have little
or no parallel in Europe and North America.
Less well explicated but arguably as significant are the ways in which long-
standing signs and practices of élite status run through Indian film stardom. Stars are
to be seen as darśan dictates. However, the public sight of stars is circumscribed to
a much greater degree than in Europe or North America. Appearances are managed
carefully, from Amitabh Bachchan’s weekly literal “giving darśan” to crowds of
fans at the doors of his house in Juhu to Shah Rukh Khan’s birthday appearances
on the balcony of his home in Bandra’s Bandstand area, acidly referenced in his
unsettling film Fan (Sharma 2016). Stars are not pictured “getting coffee” or “doing
grocery shopping”—both routine components of US celebrity magazines like OK!
and PEOPLE. Paparazzi photographs of stars have only emerged recently, although
these cluster around a few specific places: airports in the arrival and departure lounges,
and the parking garages of housing societies. Handing off routine daily tasks to
household help makes it far less likely that ordinary citizens will encounter a star in the
course of shopping or running errands, unless those activities take stars into the retail
spaces of the élite. As if to add to the off-centred nature of paparazzi photography in
India, by far the most popular subject of contemporary ad hoc, informal snapshots
is not a starlet or a hero caught unawares, but rather a precocious little boy named
Taimur Ali Khan. That his massively famous parents Saif Ali Khan and Kareena
Kapoor Khan are photographed at the same time as him seems entirely secondary
to the goals of capturing Taimur in yet another “cute” situation, suggesting that
something hitherto unanalysed is going on here. To be sure, young Taimur embodies
a confluence of dynastic star power (from Mansoor Ali Khan “Tiger” Pataudi and
Sharmila Tagore on his paternal side and Babita and Randhir Kapoor (son of Raj
Kapoor) on his maternal side). But another factor is probably his insouciance at the
gaze of the camera and his indifference to whether he gives us something to look
at or not. With the possible exception of the much-photographed AbRam Khan, no
other star child manifests this kind of charismatic innocence.
Stars, in general, enjoy the protections customarily associated with prestige, in
which refusing the gaze is as important as, and indeed is intertwined with, occasions
on which it is given. The logic of parda (veiling) is conventionally applied to the

seclusion of women from particular relatives (in high-caste households), from other
men in their husband’s locale (according to North Indian marriage and residence
rules) and from unrelated men (according to the expectations of many although not
all Muslims) (Papanek and Minault 1982). The disempowering impact of veiling on
women’s mobility and opportunity though acts in unison with collective assertions
of respect, mainly redounding to the benefit of men, but from which women benefit
indirectly, as a matter of social prestige. That women are the ones formally (if not
always actually) forced into selective acts of concealment only underscores how much
the ability to manage how and in what circumstances one is seen is fundamental
to certain routine practices of distinction. The most basic requirements of respect
demand that one can enforce at least some concealment; by extension, the greatest
respect comes from the power to conceal oneself entirely.
Film stars in India draw on these existing resources of practice and disposition
as much as any other celebrities and powerbrokers. But because stars must be seen
in order to function “as” stars, so they are tasked with balancing concealment with
visibility in ways that ordinary people do not have to worry about. Already, the
customary veiling paraphernalia of cars with darkened windows, sunglasses (rather
tellingly known by the Indian English word “glares”) and a phalanx of bodyguards
and aides overlay cityscapes that are built with the intrinsic codes of intrusive vision
and concealment in mind. Stars have never needed to copy the solutions of high
walls and gated enclaves to protect themselves since these already existed. Solicitous
watchmen patrol housing societies. Ostensibly there to prevent terrorism, security
guards and x-ray machines effectively barricade malls, five-star hotels and other
venues from invasion by the lower classes. In restaurants, it is not unknown for a
curtain to be hastily drawn around a table of celebrities, a literal embodiment of
the parda that we have in mind. The only gamut stars must run is in the lift of
their high-rise apartment buildings, between lift and car and between car and their
destination.
Even given the sparse opportunities provided, there may be limited interest in
seeing stars in their pyjamas or without make-up. To date, few images have seeped
out from spas or salons or gyms, or even candid shots of stars going about their
day in the very different public environs of a London or an L.A. Gossip about stars
though is, in the popular terminology of film journalism, evergreen, as is the real
and invented carping between stars that raises rivalries and recriminations to fever
pitch. Enmities in the industry are not a casual matter, since strong kin networks,
particularly among star actors, mean that collective ostracization has real bite. On the
other hand, there is a certain routineness of reportage about hatreds and feuds that
signal their vapidity; there is also a robust realism, even utilitarianism in the industry
that permits personal biases to be overridden with sufficient time and incentive. At
the same time, hierarchical relationships between seniors and juniors, and between
the powerful and the “strugglers” are reinforced in daily practices like addressing or
referring to stars with honorifics. Few industry insiders refer to Amitabh Bachchan
or Sanjay Leela Bhansali, say, as anything other than Mr. Bachchan or Mr. Bhansali,
in a professional context, even if the speaker is a social equal. Status inferiority is
still signalled by touching the feet of the superior, and at least publicly, deference is
both expected and valued towards figures ceded priority by age or repute.
That these gestures of respect need not necessarily reflect private views have never
caused much difficulty; however, the advent of social media with its strong tenden-
cies, even in a status-conscious society like India, towards cynicism and mockery has
had some disarming results. Older stars like Rishi Kapoor have responded poorly to
receiving torrents of criticism on Twitter (Bose 2017); superseding these instances
of discomfiture have been serious complaints about abuse aimed at stars that have
broken free from the constraints that decorum plus the power of established industry
insiders placed on both discourse and action. The #metoo movement has swept like
a tidal wave through the industry, facilitated by social media platforms like Twitter
and Facebook where accusers can combat the clout of industrial power with support
registered far and wide from among friends, acquaintances and interested bystanders
(Roy 2018). It remains to be seen whether these new social forces do much to disrupt
existing power structures; certainly, it has caused a great deal of scrambling in the
short term to rethink conventional avenues of support and alignment.
Insidership of any kind helps enormously in carving out a successful career, if not
necessarily stardom. Several stars described in the collection have married into film
families (Akshay Kumar married Rajesh Khanna’s daughter Twinkle, Aishwarya
Rai married Amitabh’s son Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan
married each other) but their stardom does not derive entirely from these relation-
ships. Instead, stardom seems, time and again, to arise out of the deft management
of contradictions: modernity and tradition; Indian and super-Indian; innovation and
conservativism. What family connections do is to ensure opportunity and the shelter
of the extended network of kin to buffer the way up as well as the way down in the
adventure of stardom. Outsiders risk more and have, often, scaled greater heights
than industry insiders. Still, so rare is the event that outsidership remains marked in
the industry and merits its own section in our volume.
For the ease of navigation and thematic coherence, this anthology has been divided
into five parts. Part 1, “Masculinity, Celebrity, Stardom” looks at the wide variety
of contemporary expressions of on-screen male agency represented by the adult-
boy Saif Ali Khan; the cool and cosmopolitan Shah Rukh Khan; the unpredictable
Ranveer Singh; and the “bad” boy Emraan Hashmi. The section starts with “Saif
Ali Khan: Stardom and the alchemy of celebrity” by Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan and
Liza Tom. Khan’s embodiment of masculinity has shifted in interesting ways in his
career, in no small part enabled by his preference for being a “character” rather than
a “hero”. Thus, Khan’s roles have ranged widely from happy-go-lucky sidekicks to
seedy villains to the upper middle-class, metrosexual “everyman”. The child of a
dynastic marriage between a princely sporting hero and a famous actress, Khan’s
aristocratic attachments are amply cited in his off-screen endorsements, even as he
has consistently and compellingly played “regular guy” roles on-screen.
Reading stars as a “brand” is a popular approach in star studies. In “Celebrity
as cultural formation: Shah Rukh Khan, the nation, and the world”, Priya Kapoor
decodes the charisma of the “SRK Brand” and locates the star’s superstardom in glob-
alized times. That there is no single, indisputable path to celebrity is no more surpris-
ing in India than it is anywhere else. However, there is greater scope for innovations
in an industry that, as yet, has only just begun to employ talent managers and agents.
In 2018, the steely grip of the three Khans over the box office seemed finally to be
waning (though Salman Khan was the least affected). The shadow of all these stars
hovers over the celebrities examined in this volume but only Shah Rukh Khan (known
variously as King Khan or SRK) is represented here. He is, at this moment of apparent
star fragility, the most interesting of the three; first because of the greater challenge
he faces transcending a youthful, lover-boy image into middle-aged stardom, and
second because his recent films are arguably more experimental than those of hatkē
performers, offering pungent meditations upon stardom. Kapoor investigates SRK’s
negotiation of his identity as both a Muslim and an Indian, one with an unusually
high international profile.
In Chapter 4, “Don’t Hold Back Jack’: Ranveer Singh, masculinity and new media
ecology”, Praseeda Gopinath argues that Ranveer Singh’s appeal comes from an
assertive “everyman” stance combined with a distinct quirkiness that is unusual in
stylistically conventional Bollywood. Among a new generation of stars with substan-
tial life experience outside of India, Singh charts a new course in the combination of
acting, advertising and self-promotion that stardom entails. In Chapter 5, “The rise
of the anti-hero: Deconstructing the subversive stardom of Emraan Hashmi in glob-
alized times”, Sancharita Basu investigates the actor’s brand of subversive stardom
and points out how Hashmi has served as an embodiment of the “incorrigible flirt”
in globalized times.
Part 2, “Spectacular Bodies”, concentrates on image-building projects of stars
whose spectacular physical presence often seems to overpower their acting prowess.
In Chapter 6, “The Cardboard Queen: Aishwarya Rai and the rise of the lady vamp”,
Anwesha Arya draws out the historical dimensions of Aishwarya Rai’s dual persona
as the quintessential idealized traditional woman and object of desire, pointing to the
resilience of upper-caste and upper-class gender norms. Meanwhile, Ajay Gehlawat
in Chapter 7, “Having it both ways: The Janus-like career of Kareena Kapoor”,
considers Kareena Kapoor as an embodiment of yet another set of contradictions;
this time organized around her formidable range as a film actor and her appeal as
a glamorous fashion icon who, unlike the majority of stars today, chooses not to
engage in the rituals of social media.
Brand endorsements and activities on social media have become two major param-
eters of measuring stardom. It may appear incredible today, but till the mid-nineties
most stars looked down upon plugging products. Apart from promoting Lux soap,
stars generally stayed away from the field of modelling. Anupama Chopra writes that
adman, writer and lyricist Prasoon Joshi famously recalls the time when Dilip Kumar
was approached with an offer, and the actor turned him down with a disdainful retort,
“Hum ishtiharon ke liye nahin bane hain” (I was not made for commercials) (2007,
158). The idea of stardom has witnessed a phenomenal shift since then. Then again,
how to deploy the new resource of social media has no one, easy answer, but there is
no question that visuality is exploited through this new avenue in ways unanticipated
by but co-extensive with the “darśan” of the screen. This is the thesis of Madhavi
Biswas’ Chapter 8, “Shahid Kapoor: Multiplatform mediations of a mid-level star”.
Biswas argues that Kapoor has made the choice of risky, convention-breaking roles
part of his own claim on a stardom that eschews the ready, albeit confining param-
eters of reigning megastars. It may be noted that the first “sculpted” heroes came
in the 1980s and 1990s but were, at that time, the exception and not the rule. At
the time of writing, the reverse is true. That said, some stars put physicality at the
centre of their appeal, notably Hrithik Roshan, whose body is not simply among the
most fetishized in the industry but is specifically associated with movement, pos-
sessing what Shohini Ghosh in Chapter 9, (“Action, sensation and the kinetic Body:
The stardom of Hrithik Roshan”), terms a “vitality” that is entwined with the visual
enjoyment of kinetic energy. His dancing though does not simply replicate the mas-
culinist tropes of action films but is “fluid, androgynous”. Shohini Ghosh analyses
the star’s sensational allure of kinetic and aerial mobility and argues that much of
the star’s success can be attributed to his body.
The last chapter in this part is Chapter 10, “The Body and its multimedia sen-
sations: Forging starry identities through item numbers”, by Silpa Mukherjee. This
chapter puts the spotlight on “item numbers” and discusses how such dance per-
formances position the star body within the discourse of film publicity, marketing
culture, branding and value creation across various media templates. Discussing the
work of both dedicated item number performers and the stars who make “guest
appearances” in films as item number dancers, Mukherjee’s chapter interconnects
with several other stand-alone chapters in the collection, including those on Aish-
warya Rai, Kareena Kapoor and Vidya Balan, drawing the reader’s attention to key
continuities, particularly in female stardom, in the industry.
Bollywood, as has been noted, has been accused of promoting nepotism, with
new entrants facing down the perception (and many would argue, the reality) of
scant chances of breaking down its barriers and gaining a foothold. So far, not so
different from the West perhaps; but where the difference truly lies is in the staying
power of film actor dynasties, where roles reference the acting careers not just of
predecessors but of ancestors. Newcomers too have repeatedly shaken up the film
scene, throwing unexpected and bracing elements into the mix so effectively that
this has itself become a part of the system’s routine functioning. In Mumbai, the
powerful forces that sustain the industry’s film acting and producing dynasties allow
for stardom to be predicted to at least some degree. The daughters and sons of stars are
almost obliged to make their debut in the industry, unashamedly gifted with co-stars,
directors and music directors that no outsider could hope to muster. Opportunity
does not guarantee success, however, as the many stalled careers of starry children
confirm. Part 3, The ‘Outsiders’ looks at those who have found a place in the sun
despite having little or no connections with established film families. In Chapter 11,
“The plough and the star: the improbable celebrity of Nawazuddin Siddiqui”, Clare
Wilkinson and Sreenidhi Krishnan examine the celebrity of an actor who is primarily
lauded as a local industry star whose counter-filmi origins are endlessly rehearsed.
If the majority of male stars can call upon at least some mainstream attributes for
their fame—good looks, chiselled body, action credentials and increasingly—an
English medium education, preferably abroad—Siddiqui has none of these. Still,

he has created for himself a stardom that brings him the lead as well as supporting
roles, founded on an astute and repeated narration of himself as the one-in-a-million
struggler.
Kalki Koechlin is another actor whose celebrity is attuned to the zeitgeist of glob-
alized Hindi films. Chapter 12 well encapsulates the free-spiritedness of Koechlin in
“Indie not Indian: Kalki Koechlin and the representation of the white Indian star in
Bollywood and hatkē cinema”, where Midath Hayder focuses on ethnicity, femininity
and celebrity feminism through the star text of one of the most interesting star/actors
of our times. The rise of the multiplex cinema has allowed for an interconnection
between art house films and popular ones that is comparatively novel. It’s not that
stars didn’t move between the two in the past (Shashi Kapoor being among one of
the most striking stars with an art film and commercial film career going simultane-
ously), or that crew didn’t know how to or don’t know today. Now though, shuttling
between a small budget film and a more ambitious project is far from uncommon. In
this kind of environment, a star like Kalki Koechlin, who is white but Indian-born,
can find roles that encompass a far wider range than was extended to white actors in
the past. Fearless Nadia (Mary Ann Williams) appeared almost exclusively in action
films, while Bob Christo was the prototypical western heavy. Tom Alter was fluent
in Urdu (to the point of demanding his dialogues be written in Urdu) (Haham 2007)
but even he had no starring vehicles to his name, in contrast to Koechlin, who starred
in 2017 in Margarita with a Straw (Bose 2014).
An actor with one of the most astonishing cinematic journeys is Akshay Kumar. In
Chapter 13, “Akshay Kumar, the Khiladi of Box-Office”, Tutun Mukherjee traces the
trajectory of the multidimensional star and considers the actor’s several avatars down
the years. The section ends with the star who has galvanized the discourse on nepotism
in current times. Maithili Rao’s “Kangana Ranaut: Wispy waif to uncrowned queen”
sets out the way a rank outsider has gained agency through her distinct choice of
roles and an uncompromising public persona.
Women have a particularly tricky path towards lasting stardom, a point that
emerges time and again in the essays on the industry’s female stars. Arguably, the
success they achieve is always predicated on the management of contradictions. Part
4, “Women on Top” celebrates the image-building projects of select female stars,
whose body of work is layered with multiple meanings. In Chapter 15, “Unstarry
stardom: the making of Anushka Sharma”, Kanupriya Dhawan, Sreenidhi Krishnan,
Arpita Sinha and Clare Wilkinson explore Anushka Sharma’s solution to the problem
of “how to be modern”, which entails incorporation of roles and activities that were
inconceivable in the early years of a star like Aishwarya’s career. There was a time
when Vidya Balan was referred as the “Fourth Khan”, as she was considered a major
box-office draw in the time of the Big Three Khans. Despite some non-starters in
recent years, Balan has constantly reinvented her stardom. Gopika Gurudas posits,
“How do you Solve a Problem Called Vidya?” in Chapter 16 and positions the star
as the quintessential face of India and a good mix of traditional yet modern subjec-
tivity. Divya Kalavala, in the last chapter of this part, “Alia Bhatt: The New Female
Subject and Stardom” traces Bhatt’s stardom as engaged with the modern, digital
developments in the field of new media.
Part 5 of this book explores the construct of “Transnational Stardom”, with front-
liners like Irrfan Khan, Tabu and Priyanka Chopra. Irrfan Khan, we learn, has solidi-
fied his Indian stardom through tacking between high profile roles in American films
and Hindi fare, without ever immersing himself in one to the detriment of the other.
Shreyosi Mukherjee examines Irrfan Khan’s case in Chapter 18, “Transnational rites
of passage, national stardom: Irrfan Khan’s Presence in Hollywood Cinema”. The
theme of transnational stardom is taken forward in Chapter 19, “Tabu: Growing into
gravitas”, where Patricia Gruben examines the mystique of this non-conventional
actor in a long career of both offbeat films and crowd-pleasing mainstream produc-
tions. In the final chapter, “Priyanka Chopra’s journey from Bollywood Stardom to
transnational iconicity”, Ruma Sen examines the complex network of global signi-
fication that produces a star that is Priyanka Chopra. Sen situates the star in contem-
porary times and assesses Chopra’s construction of her identity, among other things,
through the lens of the American Dream.
As editors, our endeavour has been to provide in-depth analyses of Bollywood’s
major contemporary stars. Still, we are acutely conscious of the absence of figures
such as Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgan, Ayushman Khurana, Deepika Padukone, Kajol,
Katrina Kaif, Manoj Bajpai, Ranbir Kapoor, Rani Mukherjee, Rajkumar Rao and
Salman Khan. Our hope though is that the chapters here outline some core themes of
contemporary Hindi film celebrity against which additional studies of stars currently
on the scene—and those to come—can be assessed. And of course, there is always
scope for further research on more star texts.
As we conclude, we cannot help remember the medley from the underrated anthol-
ogy Bombay Talkies (Johar et al. 2013), a film that commemorates a hundred years of
Indian cinema. The song that appears at the end of the film celebrates Bollywood as
well as the contribution of those stars who have shown up on the celluloid firmament
down the years. While providing a critique of the phenomenon of stardom, this book
also recognizes the profound appeal of stars, and acknowledges their cultural impact
in our society.
Acknowledgements No work exists in a vacuum. Both of us acknowledge the contributions of

several people who have given us their unstinting support. Acknowledgements are due to all the
contributors and also to:
For Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan: Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthy, Director, IIT Madras and colleagues
from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. Also, family, friends and students: Dr.
Vimal Mohan John, Sayanty Chatterjee and Jyoti Mishra.
For Clare Wilkinson: Andrew Duff in the Department of Anthropology at WSU and Amy
Wharton in the College of Arts and Sciences at Washington State University Vancouver; my long-
term research assistant, Monalisa Sata; Veena Poonacha for many years of support during my
research in India; Rinki Bhattacharya along with other friends and colleagues in India and elsewhere,
my students and family.
We also thank our publishers, the team at Springer: Karthik Selvaraj, Priya Vyas and Satvinder
Kaur.
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Part I
Masculinity, Celebrity, Stardom
Chapter 2
Saif Ali Khan: Stardom and the Alchemy
of Celebrity
Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan and Liza Tom
Abstract In this chapter, we examine the underpinnings of Khan’s career trajectory

while tracing his dualities on- and off-screen. These contradictions have allowed him
to move seamlessly from commercial successes to more offbeat roles in such films as
Being Cyrus (Adjania 2005), Ek Hasina Thi (Raghavan 2004), Omkara (Bhardwaj
2006), along with his Netflix series Sacred Games (Kashyap and Motwane 2018).
The chapter explores how a star’s identity is often cultivated over the years and how a
star’s image exists in terms of “multiplicity of its meanings” (Dyer 1998: 63). Outside
his films, he has sustained his celebrity via public interest in his famous parents,
aristocratic lineage, romantic relationships, expensive lifestyle, endorsements, and
his marriage (Khan’s second) to actor Kareena Kapoor. This prompts us to examine
Saif’s always engrossing life, a narrative in its own right, adding to our reading of
his stardom. We also outline the representation of masculinity in Hindi cinema by
following Khan’s select works. In particular, we note the dawn of the metrosexual
urban male on-screen, and Khan’s portrayal of this figure in post-globalization India.
By placing Saif Ali Khan in the context of the Bollywood star system and considering
that the star’s persona has many overlaps with that of other mainstream stars, the work
also addresses Saif as a very twenty-first-century transmedia celebrity.
Keywords Stardom · Globalization · Masculinity · Metrosexuality · Celebrity
Introduction
In Salaam Namaste (2005), the song “My Dil Goes Hmmm” (“My Heart Goes
Hmmm”) is often cited to explain Saif Ali Khan’s particular cultural appeal (Gehlawat
2015, 97). As he walks down a bridge in Melbourne, the camera zooms in on a
A. I. Viswamohan
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai,
Tamil Nadu, India
L. Tom (B)
Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University, No. 16, 2 ‘B’ Cross,
7th Main, KSRTC Layout, JP Nagar 2nd Phase, Bangalore 550078, India
e-mail: liza.tom@mail.mcgill.ca

16 A. I. Viswamohan and L. Tom
charming, smiling, Khan striding confidently through the city. In a now-famous pink
sleeveless shirt, Khan was the epitome of the suave, “metrosexual” male, and a
potent cultural symbol for a newly upwardly mobile and youthful professional class.
By metrosexual, we refer to the idea of both well-groomed and wellness-conscious
masculinity, a figure embedded in the neoliberal practices of consumption and leisure,
and the cultural opposite of earlier cinematic favourites—the conscientious “five-
year-plan hero” (Srivastava 2006), or the “angry young man” (Mazumdar 2007,
1). Salaam Namaste was an interesting film for several reasons—its hero Nikhil
“Nick” Arora was a laid-back “cool dude”, scrupulously neat, afraid of blood, and
a professional chef. In the commitment-shy and boyish Nick, Khan introduced a
new kind of Bollywood hero. This was demonstrative of a significant shift in the
portrayal of desirable masculinities in commercial Hindi films. In moving away from
earlier protagonists who were either businessmen, law enforcers or engineers, Salaam
Namaste envisioned a new male lead for its audience, whose mobility was achieved
through career-oriented individualism and assimilation, rather than adherence to the
Nehruvian ideal of technological progress and the approval of the natal patriarchal
family. Indeed, both Nick and Ambar (Preity Zinta as the film’s female lead) are
estranged from their families, the former because he chose to become a chef instead
of an architect, and the latter because she rejected an arranged marriage and chose
to remain in Australia to become a surgeon. In a distinct departure from films of the
previous decades, Nick and Ambar do not attempt reconciliation with their families
and instead pursue happiness on their own. Salaam Namaste explores questions of
compatibility and romance through the premise of a live-in relationship, which was
then a comparatively rare narrative in mainstream cinema. Although Nick proposes
to Ambar towards the end of the film, Ambar gets pregnant and delivers their baby
well before their marriage. Crucially, the pregnancy, while not initially welcome, is
not accorded the moral stigma and shame that characterized a similar occurrence in
Kya Kehna (Shah 2000), a family drama also starring Zinta and Khan. In the film,
Zinta’s character Priya is initially ostracized for her pregnancy outside wedding,
and is briefly estranged from her family. Her partner, the wealthy Rahul (played
by Khan) tells her that he is not ready for marriage. His rejection of her, coupled
with his wealth and playboy persona is contrasted unfavourably throughout against
Priya’s best friend Ajay’s (Chandrachur Singh) uprightness and genuine love for
her. Although Nick is not unlike Rahul in his reluctance to commit to Ambar, or
his refusal to undertake the responsibilities of raising a child, Salaam Namaste is
much more sympathetic towards both leads, allowing them the space to address the
problems in their relationship, focussing not on the moral necessity of marriage, but
on the mutual understanding and compassion necessary for a relationship to work.
Salaam Namaste, coming on the heels of Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Kal Ho Na Ho
(Advani 2003), and Hum Tum (Kohli 2004), consolidated Khan’s arrival as a viable
male lead in Bollywood and also established him as a celebrity who personified
that modern advertising dream—aspiration. All these films also relied heavily on
visuals of Western cities that afforded its leads work, leisure, and the possibility
of a life away from their natal families. The dominant aesthetic of these films was
different too, in that the “panoramic” and ostentatious interiors of the family drama
2 Saif Ali Khan: Stardom and the Alchemy of Celebrity 17
(Mazumdar 2007, 110) were giving way to glamorized depictions of the cityscapes
and streets of the urban West. The roles Khan essayed in these films were a departure
from heroes of the last decade—these new leads were unassuming, irreverent, and
sometimes vulnerable, unlike the good sons or romantic heroes popular in Hindi
cinema (Gopinath 2018). These new men accorded their romantic partners neither
chivalrous respect nor adoration, preferring rather to treat them as equals. Khan was
an ideal candidate for such characters, infusing them with a natural urbanity and
ease, and anticipating the performative cheek of current actors like Ranveer Singh
and Varun Dhawan. In the following sections, we examine the particular appeal of
such a masculine presentation, Khan’s diverse cinematic choices, and the changes in
his on-screen personas in the last decade.
The Youthful Casanova and Ensemble Actor: Initial Films

and Appearances
In 1994, nearly a decade before Dil Chahta Hai, a young Khan received the Filmfare
Best Male Debut award for his role in Umesh Mehra’s Aashik Aawara (1993). His
on-screen mother was Sharmila Tagore herself, in an unmistakable reminder of his
celebrity antecedents. As a poor young man who makes his fortune (and an alliance
with a wealthy and beautiful girl), Khan’s role was reminiscent of many rags-to-
riches narratives from previous decades. Aashik Aawara, however, was a box office
failure. Khan had also been dropped from what was supposed to have been his official
launch—Bekhudi (1992) opposite Kajol. It was with Yash Raj Films’ Yeh Dillagi
(Malhotra 1994) that Khan tasted real stardom. With Akshay Kumar and Kajol in
lead roles, Yeh Dillagi, a remake of the Hollywood movie Sabrina (1954), was a
commercial success. As Vicky Saigal, Khan is introduced through the chartbuster
song “Ole Ole”. Yeh Dillagi set the tone for Khan’s career for almost a decade. As
the flirtatious, irresponsible and carefree younger brother, he was very convincing
and was typecast in similar roles in many films from that decade.
He continued to play similar roles for a while, vacillating between various versions
of the unrequited lover and ensemble films where he played second fiddle to more
dominant male characters. This latter list includes Main Khiladi Tu Anari (Malkan
1994), Kacche Dhaage (Luthria 1999) and Hum Saath Saath Hain (Barjatya 1999).
In Main Khiladi Tu Anari (a Bollywoodized version of John Badham’s The Hard
Way 1991), Khan played Deepak Kumar, a jaded actor, and was paired alongside
Akshay Kumar. When he announces his disillusionment with his films, Deepak
Kumar oddly seems to mirror Khan himself. “…(A)apka yeh Deepak Kumar, saala
baar baar lagatar ek hi type ki acting karta hai. Ek hi kism ke filmon mein kaam
karta hai” (“Your Deepak Kumar does the same kind of roles every time/He works
in the same type of films always”). He longs for a film about “mardon wali baat”
(“with a macho angle”) and is disgusted to be always playing the “chhokra” (Hindi
colloquialism for “boy” or “very young man”). The subtext is ironic. Khan does
play “chhokra” roles in real life. The “mard” in many of his films from that decade
was Akshay Kumar, who essayed the role of a tough, upright police officer in Main
Khiladi Tu Anari.
To understand this portrayal, we must also look to Khan’s real life persona. His
parents, cricketer Mansoor “Tiger” Ali Khan Pataudi and actress Sharmila Tagore,
were an “It” couple through the seventies. Moreover, the Pataudis are descendants
of the Nawabs of Pataudi, formerly rulers of the princely state of Pataudi. In 2011,
following the death of his father, Khan was given the title of the tenth Nawab of
Pataudi. Couched in the privilege conferred by being part of both the social and cul-
tural elite, Khan was raised very much like a prince. Much of his schooling happened
in England, and he returned with an obvious Western inflection to his accent. Popular
film critics have suggested that Khan’s background of privilege and swashbuckling
lifestyle might have worked against him initially and negatively affected his ability
to secure conventional “hero” roles (Kalla 2004; Bose 2008).
The string of flops, undistinguished roles and reported unprofessional behaviour
that enlivened his first decade in films, would have spelled doom for any other career.
Khan survived, however, with versatile films, numerous endorsements and a strong
public presence insured by his elite connections. Although he has not attained the
commercial stardom of the three big Khans (Shahrukh, Aamir and Salman), Khan
has stayed relevant and visible. He made several unconventional cinematic choices
in his three-decade long stint in Bollywood and ventured into production with his
label Illuminati; he also recently joined Netflix’s first original Indian series Sacred
Games (2018). He was among the first of a small number of mainstream Bollywood
actors coming aboard Internet-based streaming platforms like Netflix. Outside his
films, he has sustained his celebrity via public interest in his famous parents and
aristocratic lineage, romantic relationships, lifestyle, endorsements and marriage
(Khan’s second) to fellow star offspring Kareena Kapoor.
As discussed in other chapters of this book, it is useful here to refer to Richard
Dyer’s idea of “structured polysemy” (1998). Dyer argues for a comprehensive tex-
tual reading of the modern star text, which is powered not just by cinema, but by
several extra-filmic events, like film journalism, talk shows, award ceremonies and
public appearances. Dyer suggests that despite the multiple strands of information,
gossip and filmic presence that contribute towards the star text, the product is always
more coherent and stable. Khan’s star text, beginning as it did with the social and
economic shifts of economic liberalization, is rife with incongruities, which Dyer
argues are necessary in the formation of the star text. The celebrity of Saif Ali Khan
is a discursive formation that goes beyond Khan as a person, a dynamic assemblage
of signifiers and signified, marked by more coherent phases of performative identi-
ties. In the following sections, we unpack some dominant aspects of his on-screen
and off-screen image and trace the simultaneous shifts in the political and economic
rationale of Bollywood.
Saif Redux: Shifting Cultural Paradigms of Bollywood

in the New Millennium
Much of the turnaround in Saif Ali Khan’s career at the start of the new millen-
nium pivots on actor/director/producer/rockstar Farhan Akhtar’s directorial debut
Dil Chahta Hai (DCH 2001). DCH was a sleek urban drama about the lives of
three upper-middle class youth from Mumbai and is now recognized as a definitive
film that signalled the shift from pre to post-globalization Hindi cinema. The film
garnered both critical and popular acclaim for its realistic representation of contem-
porary metropolitan life, particularly the attitudes, fashions and lifestyle of youth
from a specific urban milieu. DCH effectively reoriented Hindi cinema away from
the melodramatic family unit and was one of the first films to depict the West (here
Sydney, Australia) without the attendant conflict of tradition and modernity that
adopting its lifestyle meant. Khan, as the endearing dreamer Sameer, was the brand
of romantic described as “hopeless”, the eternal peacemaker and the uncomplicated
friend of the trio. It was the beginning of a new brand Khan. In the following years, he
would star in Kal Ho Na Ho (2003), Hum Tum (2004) and Salaam Namaste, movies
in which he essayed similar roles. Mazumdar writes that “(a)udiences recognize star
personas and expect their circulation across a whole range of films. The resultant
bond between the audience and the cinema determines the choices made by stars in
the selection of the roles they play. The high degree of familiarity between the star
and his/her potential audience is the site where modern publicity methods come into
play, to make the star familiar and endearing for a wide public”. (Mazumdar 2012,
833) Khan’s most popular characters from this time have been boyish Casanovas,
and these characters reproduced his presentation as a suave metrosexual lead. Khan
is a free and hearty participant of the new consumer markets, is brave with career
choices, and unperturbed about leaving the space of the nation state in pursuit of
personal goals. Khan embodied a cultural ideal and was welcomed by audiences
comprising a growing professional class of young Indians for whom diaspora spots
like the USA and UK denoted success and upward mobility. This glowing media
piece expresses the dominant sentiment at the time—“He (Khan) has come to be
regarded as the most visible face of a resurgent Bollywood, a cinema that is at once
bold, exuberant and bursting with raw energy. For a young and restless generation,
he is the ultimate dude—cool and sexy” (Bose 2008).
Khan arrived at a time when Bollywood had begun a tremendously significant
transition—largely credited to 1991 national economic reforms—from a primarily
nationalistic cinema to the experimental and NRI-oriented films that became popular
in the 90s. By liberalization of the economy, we refer to the process of economic
deregulation, foreign investment and increasing privatization of the Indian economy
that happened in the 90s. The term is also used to refer to corresponding cultural
changes, which included the rise of a new middle-class consumerist base, rapid
urbanization and the formation of a large service-sector class of workers. The new
Bollywood thus had to accommodate the shifting cultural expectations with respect
to depictions of gender and family on-screen (Kaur and Mazzarella 2009).
A defining feature of post-liberalization cinema was the increasing orientation of

middle-class life around the modes and activities of consumerism. The shift from the
saving class to the actively consuming one was as much culturally motivated as it
was economic (Mazzarella 2003; Brosius 2012). In particular, Mazzarella notes the
affective thrust of consumerism that promised “a good life”. The aspirational surge
that consumerism afforded and the sense of individualist agency one gained were
crucial for the substitution of an austere, post-colonial state with a bright, emerging,
globalized one in the national imaginary. A global citizen then, became not someone
you can be, but a performative construct, only something you are constantly becom-
ing. And, as Brosius notes, nowhere is this performance more foregrounded than in
Hindi cinema and its celebrity networks, the tangible and peopled representation of
the good life (2012, 263).
Critical commentary on Bollywood has previously noted that its cinema is often a
vehicle for national allegory (Prasad 2000; Vasudevan 2010). “Focused particularly
on the relations of the sexes, relations within the family, and the relations between
social classes, popular cinema constructs an “ideal moral universe” that is intrinsi-
cally—if not always explicitly—connected with ideas about tradition and nation”
(Uberoi 2006, 306). The Indian family is often the microcosm used to channel the
rhetoric of the nation and its cultural norms—duty to the family, the preservation of
the couple unit, and duty to the nation and its citizens. However, as Uberoi notes,
the cinema of the 90s used family conflict to also discuss the conflict between West-
ernization and tradition, moving away from one-sided representations of the West
as wicked and corrupt, and to a more nuanced reconciliation of family values with
non-traditional ideals of individualized success and romance. This was the dawn of
what became known as “NRI cinema”, featuring young protagonists who were of
Indian origin, but had lived abroad for most of their lives, and who had to negotiate
the conflicting cultural universes of their various “homes”.
Anjaria and Anjaria (2008) note that even though the imaginary of the West
had shifted to accommodate realistic depictions of life abroad, the family/nation-
individual/West was the organizing political conflict of the film. However, with Dil
Chahta Hai, Bollywood arrived at a critical juncture where the cinematic valorization
of the family unit subsided, and the narrative instead focussed on the protagonists’
personal problems and decisions. Khan’s Sameer is initially hostile towards his par-
ents’ attempts to arrange his marriage, but ends up falling in love with one of the
women they introduce him to, achieving a comically perfect “arranged love mar-
riage”. His friend Akash (Aamir Khan) moves to Australia to work in his father’s
company, but what he learns along the way is to become a more responsible adult
and take charge of his professional and personal life, and not to dramatically reject
the lifestyle he encounters abroad. In fact, for the upper-middle class characters
who inhabited narratives like that of Dil Chahta Hai, the transition from an Indian
metropole to a Western one is not fraught with high levels of cultural anxiety, because
they could afford the same practices of consumption and leisure at home too. In the
films he appeared in after Dil Chahta Hai, Khan’s characters reflect the sentiments
of the same upwardly mobile consumer base that Bollywood has accumulated since
the economic reforms. They very qualities that made Khan unsuitable for the family-
oriented dramas of the 90s, i.e., his Anglicized accent and boyish charm, appealed
to contemporary audiences. As Nick in Salaam Namaste, Kabir in Hum Tum, and
especially as Rohit in Kal Ho Na Ho, Khan’s confident yuppie persona drove the
narrative forward.
A considerable part of Sameer, Nick, Rohit or Kabir’s appeal (in DCH, Salaam
Namaste, Kal Ho Na Ho and Hum Tum) was their polished metrosexuality. Apart
from his flamboyant collection of shorts, Nick also sports sleeveless vests and pink
shirts, some with floral patterns on them. He wears low-waist jeans, and his Calvin
Klein underwear is visible above his waistline. Rohit gets manicures in a salon. For
a brief while, Kabir in Hum Tum wants the “Tom Cruise” look, which he interprets
as longish hair and a beard. Increasingly though, male actors in Bollywood were
under pressure to be fit and look in a certain way, and Khan sports a well-developed
physique in these movies. As Christiane Brosius notes, “the beautiful and the fit body
have moved to the centre stage in the feel-good ideology promoted in neoliberal urban
India” (2010, 307).
Here, we consider briefly the filmic personas of previous Bollywood men, in order
to place Khan’s oeuvre in context. Srivastava (2006) refers to post-independence
men on-screen as FYP heroes. The Five-Year Plan (FYP) hero embodied a particular
mode of masculinity—one that favoured not aggression but scientific temper and
rationality, the Nehruvian markers of modernity. The FYP hero’s careers—doctor,
engineer or bureaucrat—were closely aligned with the desire for national service and
simultaneously connoted a rational, scientific and Westernized temper. The FYP hero
was the ideal national masculine construct, combining patriotism with progress. The
FYP hero and the narrative of the feudal family romance he inhabits (Prasad 2000,
55) was succeeded by the anti-establishment and dashing figure of the “angry young
man”, a trope made popular by actor Amitabh Bachchan. Thomas (1995) refers to this
as a kind of self-made “tough masculinity” that challenged authority aggressively and
was decidedly unlike the romantic or family-oriented FYP lead. Post-liberalization
cinema increasingly featured two other popular heroic tropes—the lovable “tapori”
(Mazumdar 2007) and the more normative figure of the metropolitan family/NRI/US
return hero.
However, despite a background built by feudal privilege, the on-screen Khan per-
sonified a masculine identity that presented a playful challenge to the more rigid
heroes of post-independence cinema. If Shah Rukh Khan made popular a romantic
and vulnerable male lead (Gopinath 2018), Khan, in essaying the boy-man NRI, pro-
vided considerable screen-space for his equally individualistic and career-oriented
female leads (as much as is possible within a typical Bollywood narrative at least).
We do not suggest that Khan was revolutionary, but within the classed and gendered
environs of the Bollywood film, Khan negotiated a space for a more relatable het-
eronormative romance. “I wanted to play a character that would be urban and new. I
wanted to play someone who is more of a character than a hero. I wanted to play this
guy who is not western but is just a normal guy living in Melbourne or Amsterdam”,
Khan said in an interview with Rajeev Masand.1 Khan’s Nick, in Salaam Namaste
is embarrassed by his Indian heritage, insisting he be called the Anglicized “Nick”
instead of Nikhil. Similarly, Rohit from Kal Ho Na Ho tries hard to escape identifica-
tion with his Gujarati family, rejecting what he views as their cultural excess in favour
of his own Americanized way of living. The metrosexual male Khan embodied was
not a duty-oriented paragon, and he juggled the demands of a demanding career,
cosmopolitan lifestyle and the perfect modern romance with ease, while living apart
from his natal family. Khan could take on such roles partly because he was not as
big a star as Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan, whose films, at the start of the new
millennium, were events. He also did not possess the boy-next-door appeal Hrithik
Roshan had, or the utter reliability of an Akshay Kumar or Ajay Devgan. He had
more room to experiment, and he did so, surprising his audiences with edgy thriller
Ek Hasina Thi, dark comedy Being Cyrus, and finally with Omkara.
The New Saif: The Late 2000s and Shift in Masculine

Presentation
Around the mid-2000s, Khan’s rising profile as a serious actor received a boost
with Sriram Raghavan’s Ek Hasina Thi, which was loosely based on the Australian
mini series Bangkok Hilton (Cameron 1989), and Sidney Sheldon’s pulp thriller If
Tomorrow Comes (1985). It was a neo-noir thriller featuring Urmila Matondkar and
Khan. Khan played a smooth-talking, drug-trafficking hustler (Karan Singh Rathod)
who frames Matondkar’s character to cover his tracks. After she escapes from jail,
she eventually locates Rathod, traps him and leaves him to die a horrible death in
a cavern full of rats. Not many male leads chose to do such negative roles, and
Khan’s choice was both unconventional and successful. This was followed by Homi
Adjania’s directorial debut, Being Cyrus, a dark comedy that showed a surprising
facet to Khan’s talent. As Cyrus, the young, enigmatic protagonist and narrator, Khan
revealed a depth and seriousness previously absent in his work. But it was in Vishal
Bharadwaj’s Omkara, a retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello, that Khan established
himself as a serious actor. In the film, he assumes the personality of the khaini-
chewing and pierced Langda Tyagi (Omkara’s Iago). In a scene that is especially
riveting, Tyagi carefully applies dark pink nail polish on his long pinky fingernail
as he instructs Keshu (Vivek Oberoi as Cassio) on how best to appease Omi (Devgn
as Othello). Khan’s performance as a scheming small-town villain was superb and
astonished audiences used to a very different Saif Ali Khan on-screen. These choices
are illustrative of Khan’s tensile celebrity presentation, which refuses the grandeur
that characterizes the careers of established actors like Shah Rukh Khan or Salman
1 In
Masand, Rajeev (interview). “I am no Superstar: Saif Ali Khan”. rajeevmasand.com. https://
www.rajeevmasand.com/uncategorized/i-am-no-superstar-saif-ali-khan/.
Khan and plays instead on an ebullience that he has sustained well into the present
decade. This latter part of his cinematic portfolio increasingly favours characters
with grey shades and moves away somewhat from his previous oeuvre.
Race and the Ambiguous Male Lead
The Abbas–Mustan duo’s film Race (2008) was an instant hit, and signalled a dif-
ferent phase in Khan’s career. Fast-paced and glamorous, Race had sibling rivalry,
suspense, beautiful women and gleaming automobiles. Khan’s Ranvir Singh was a
hypermasculine and spectacular on-screen presence, radiating enigma. Ranvir Singh
was calculating, attractively avaricious and a man with a taste for luxury, where he
breeds race horses, dated supermodels and owned a fleet of expensive cars. Khan’s
portrayal of the cynical and often unscrupulous Singh was very well-received. Race
initiated a decided turn in Khan’s career and was followed by films in which he plays
older and morally ambiguous characters. In Kurbaan (D’Silva 2009), Race 2 (Abbas–
Mustan 2013), Agent Vinod (Raghavan 2012) Rangoon (Bhardwaj 2017) and Bazaar
(Chawla 2018), Khan’s characters are dominant, even aggressive masculine figures,
reflecting a shift in Bollywood films towards hegemonic masculine and hypersex-
ualized feminine figures. Even in the rollicking and entertaining Agent Vinod, the
gendering is obvious. Khan’s Vinod is a Bollywoodized James Bond figure. Despite
being a former Pakistani intelligence agent, Iram (Kareena Kapoor) is reduced to
playing bait or the damsel in distress in the movie. Race 2 and Bazaar replicate this
dynamic between the leads, capitalizing on Khan’s brooding and jaded masculine
persona to emphasize the beauty and relative naïveté of its female leads.
In this context, Kurbaan makes for an interesting study. The story is a standard
mishmash of love amidst terrorism. Ehsaan Khan (Saif in his first on-screen Muslim
character) and Avantika Ahuja (Kareena) have a meet-cute in a cab. Both of them
are professors at a college in Delhi, and after a series of predictable events, fall in
love and decide to get married. Some implausible plot points later, the newly weds
are transplanted in New York, where Ehsaan turns out to be a member of a dreaded
Islamic terrorist group.
One of early posters of Kurbaan (channelling Vin Diesel’s XXX, Rob Cohen, 2002)
had a barechested Saif looking straight at the onlooker/audience, with a trickle of
blood on the left side of his torso. A very sensuous and barebacked Kareena enigmati-
cally faced the viewers in a profile shot. The tagline declared, “Some love stories have
Blood on Them”. In keeping with its theme, the poster had plenty of shades of red
as well as interplay of lights and shadows, nodding at film noir traditions. What was
most exciting was the blatant display of the most talked-of star couple of our times.
The coming together of the bronzed, hard body of Saif and the uber sexy body of
Kareena (the actor who had ushered in the concept of the much debated “Size Zero”
in Bollywood and made it a part of popular lexicon in India) was a cause celebre
for an entire generation. Also unmissable was the stark contrast between the svelte
Kareena and Saif’s ex-wife Amrita Singh. Singh, even at the height of her stardom
was referred to as “Mard” (Macho) Singh because of her lack of conventional sex
appeal and tomboyishness, on- and off-screen.
The significance of the celebration of these eroticised bodies almost sharing a
bodily fluid (here, the blood on Saif’s wound) was provocative enough for a certain
political party to demand an instant “cover up” of Kareena’s “naked” back (Shri-
vastava 2015). The hysteria for Saifeena, manifested negatively or positively, had
begun.
Khan’s characters in these films (Race series, Kurbaan, Agent Vinod, Bazaar) are
dominant and aggressive men who are in positions of wealth and authority. There is
a simultaneous fetishization of the male body in these films, and generally in Bolly-
wood cinema in the last two decades, a thematic almost entirely absent in the varie-
gated cinema of the previous century. As Murali Balaji notes (2012), recent Bolly-
wood films favour muscled, hypermasculine male leads with a Westernized physique,
and toned bodies, shaved chests and six-packs are de rigueur. While the metrosexual
lead was as well-groomed as his female counterpart, the alpha males in these films
and Bullet Raja (Dhulia 2013) are solitary and heroic, display highly sculpted and
disciplined bodies and dominate the filmic narratives and screens with larger-than-
life personalities (Sinha 2013). Khan’s personal appearance in more recent times
also mimics his on-screen presentation; he sports thick beards, styled moustaches
and longer, slicked back hair more often now, in a departure from the clean-shaven
face, and short haircuts from the early 2000s.
In the poster for Bullett Raja, Khan’s Raja Mishra is captured mid-stride; his left
hand clenched in a fist, and his right holding a gun. His shirt is partially open to reveal
his muscled chest, and rudraksha beads hang around his neck. The bright colours
emphasize its similarity to movie posters before the digital era, in an homage to action
thrillers from the 70s and 80s. Mishra’s stylization foregrounds his aggressive (and
upper-caste Hindu) masculinity. Similar postures are adopted by leads in posters for
the films Dabangg (Kashyap 2010) and Rowdy Rathore (Prabhudeva 2012), both
of which again favour hypermasculine, older male leads who do not hesitate to use
violence often, and whose female leads have comparatively little on-screen presence.
This brand of cinema announced a contemporary version of the action hero of classic
Hindi cinema, and blended the latter’s anger and desire for justice with hegemonic
physical and emotional displays of aggressive masculinity. These new films often
adopt an ironic tone, along with the performance of exaggerated gender roles, and
favour a problematic postfeminist aesthetic. Here we refer to Gill’s (2007) critique
of contemporary media cultures that endorse individualist and retrogressive gender
presentation, while belying its sexism with comic subtexts or irony. The obvious
preference in the above genre of cinema for highly disciplined and conventionally
gendered bodies, and the display of aggressive masculinity opposite a subdued and
innocent femininity indicates the era of neoliberal Bollywood—high-budget films,
powerful marketing, digitized celebrity, a “resexualization” of female actors (Gill
and Scharff 2013, 4), and the equal fetishization of dominant masculine presentation.
New Media, Celebrity and Brand Bollywood
Bollywood has come to stand for much more than just film production, representing
instead glitz, celebrity and an aesthetic of excess (Kaur and Mazzarella 2009; Dwyer
2014). For Hindi-speaking India, and especially for a pan-Indian urban audience,
Bollywood is a familiar cultural imaginary. Its film stars dominate celebrity maga-
zines, and endorse the country’s biggest products. In a popular cultural framework
where cinema stars comprise the entirety of the entertainment elite (unlike the West,
where pop stars dominate popular visual culture), Bollywood stars are highly visibi-
lized through the apparatus of celebrity and stardom that sustain the industry beyond
its films. This comprises mega-cinematic events like award nights, television-based
programs like chat and reality shows, and social media networking and presenta-
tion, which together constitute and produce star images. We also refer to the idea
of Bollywood itself as a lavish hyperreal spectacle. Bollywood cinema is a visually
powerful field of readily available images, music and affective components (aspi-
ration, patriotism, familial love and romance in particular) that have dominated the
Hindi-speaking imaginary since its pre-war inception (Uberoi 2006; Gabriel 2010;
Vasudevan 2010).
Economic liberalization also ushered in a new cultural era, as Western televi-
sion and film permeated Indian popular media outlets. Bollywood visual culture
rapidly changed to accommodate new imaginaries, and the demands of a young
consuming middle-class (Brosius 2012). By the 2000s, the glitzy multiplex, with
its air-conditioned halls, snack counters and multiple screens, would replace the
local movie hall experience. “The multiplex is a hermetic space that is radically
discontinuous with the environment outside. Clean, shiny, climate-controlled, and
technologically state of the art, it is a world apart from the heat, dust, and crowds of
urban India. The mall-multiplex as an urban form is a city unto itself…” (Gopal 2011,
133). Gopal also notes that all multiplex halls are alike—the audience is promised
the same experience regardless of the location. Multiplex halls also have enabled
tie-ins between producers, publicity teams and actors, and often actors are brought
to the site of the multiplex to discuss and promote their films.
Gehlawat (2015, 92) notes the concomitant rise of the Indian advertising industry
in the years following economic liberalization, and the increasing preference for Bol-
lywood celebrities as spokespersons for various products inundating Indian markets.
Advertising revenues continue to be one of the biggest sources of income for Bolly-
wood celebrities, and play an important role in cementing their star persona. In an
equal fashion, the celebrity reinforces desirable cultural associations with the brand
they endorse. A-list male stars as Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Ranbir Kapoor,
Ranveer Singh and Hrithik Roshan have endorsed largely elite consumer products
such as high-end cars, cold drinks, chocolates, mobile phones, laptops, e-commerce
platforms, watches, and clothes (Ganesh and Mahadevan 2015). At the same time,
despite their string of successes and popularity, stars such as Akshay Kumar, Ajay
Devgn and Salman Khan endorse brands that appeal to a wider, middle-class/lower
middle-class consumer base (Hajmola, Kajaria tiles, Anmol Biscuits, Paragon slip-
pers, VKC flip-flops, Revital tablets, Harpic, etc.), thus capitalizing on their “relata-
bility” and mass appeal.
It may be noted here that Khan’s choice of endorsements act as signifiers of
wealth, mobility, and success, and complement the consumer choices of his upwardly
mobile spectator base. Over a period of nearly three decades, Khan has endorsed the
popular beverage Pepsi (known for its high-profile celebrity spokesperson roster),
Asian Paints, Gwalior Suits (in which he appeared with his father), clothing brand
Provogue, Lenovo laptops, Carlsberg beer and the potato crisp brand Lays. There
is often a “royal” theme to Saif’s appearances, as with his endorsement of Pan
Bahar, Taj Mahal Tea and the Royale range of Asian Paints. These advertisements
capitalize on his princely heritage, thus reproducing the associations of Brand Saif
with an elite consuming India. Sometimes these endorsements are supplemented by
appearances of family members (sister and actor Soha Ali Khan, and mother Sharmila
Tagore). More recently, Khan has appeared in advertisements with his wife Kareena
Kapoor Khan. In a recent advertisement for Airbnb, an immensely popular online
hospitality service, the couple are shown vacationing in Windsor, England, relaxing
on well-manicured lawns while picnicking, playing Jenga and enjoying the British
countryside, in an implicit contrast to harried, more “touristy” holiday interludes. The
casual intimacy in the video film, and the new vision of hospitality it promotes are
ably supported by the star presence of one of the most visible and popular celebrity
couples in Bollywood.
Apart from an active advertising profile, Khan is also a popular public performer—
he has appeared several times as a host for the Filmfare awards and IIFA (International
Indian Film Academy Awards), and performed several times with the rock band
Parikrama. Mazumdar notes that stage shows provide a recurring platform for stars
to gather together and renew their own celebrity (Mazumdar 2012). These events are
streamed live for public consumption, and ticketed as well, drawing in huge crowds
both physically and virtually. Khan also appears often on Karan Johar’s talk show
Koffee with Karan, and similar platforms. Khan’s star persona is thus easily available
for repeated viewing, snipping and recycling, powered as these appearances are by
digital media platforms like the television, YouTube and streaming sites. The age of
digitized celebrity has proven to be both a blessing and a curse to Bollywood actors, as
was illustrated in the nepotism controversy involving Karan Johar, Kangana Ranaut
and Khan.
Ranaut’s comments on nepotism, aired in an episode of Koffee with Karan (2017)
in which she appeared with Khan (as part of promotional appearances for Rangoon),
her frank mentions about Johar’s favouritism, and how endemic this was to the
industry itself struck a sour note with her immediate audience.2 She was lampooned
by Johar onstage at the 2017 IIFA, where he appeared alongside fellow beneficiaries
2 In Koffee with Karan, Season Five, Episode Sixteen. 2017. “Saif, Kangana Let it All Out”. https://
www.hotstar.com/tv/koffee-with-karan/s-74/saif-kangana-let-it-all-out/1000167379.
of nepotism Varun Dhawan (son of film director David Dhawan) and Saif Ali Khan.
The trio took a dig at Ranaut’s expense, but the humour did not go down well with
many people watching. In a suitable illustration of how accessible celebrity is in the
age of social media, and also in a demonstration of cultures of response and reaction
that are made available by digital technologies, the nepotism debate, long overdue
in Bollywood, mobilized public support for Ranaut. Khan’s role was exacerbated by
an open letter he wrote in defence of his position on nepotism. The letter was highly
criticized for its seeming endorsement of eugenics and overall questionable politics.
He wrote that “(e)ugenics means well born and in a movie context, the genes (the
DNA we’re born with, not the blue trousers we wear)…If you need another example,
then take race horses. We take a derby winner, mate him with the right mate and see if
we can create another grand national winner. So, in that sense, this is the relationship
between genetics and star kids”.3 Khan’s problematic assumptions, his ignorance
about the concepts he discussed, and the casual entitlement evident in the letter turned
the tide of public anger against him. One writer called him a “sexist Uncle ji”, while
another suggested that the letter expressed a “nawab’s insane delusions”.4 The debate
demonstrated a shift in the reception and circulation of Bollywood celebrities, from
whom audiences now increasingly expect more socially responsible behaviour, and
a constant performance of authenticity. In such a mediatized climate, the spectacle of
an established older male actor taking down a self-made and award-winning young
female actor, especially around the time his own daughter was preparing for her
cinematic debut (thereby illustrating the truth in Ranaut’s comments) did not go
down well with Indian audiences. Following this, the question of nepotism has been
brought up several times, in interviews and chat shows with Bollywood actors, as a
point of debate. All this points to new directions for Bollywood, but especially for
the performance of stardom and celebrity.
The Re-Reinvention of Saif Ali Khan: The Rules of the Game
The two prominent oeuvres in Saif Ali Khan’s career are reflections of the cultural
journey and ideological shifts in Bollywood over the last two decades. The evolution
of the filmic hero, from Nick (Salaam Namaste) to Raja (Bullett Raja) denote the
3 In Khan, Saif Ali. 2017. “DNA Exclusive: Saif Ali Khan pens an open letter over the ‘Nepotism
rocks’ brouhaha during IIFA 2017” in DNA. https://www.dnaindia.com/bollywood/report-saif-ali-
khan-pens-an-open-letter-over-the-neopitism-rocks-brouhaha-during-iifa-2017-2508860.
4 In Sanyal, Prathikrit. 2017. “Saif Ali Khan makes a fool of himself with an open letter on nepotism”.
dailyO. https://www.dailyo.in/voices/saif-ali-khan-nepotism-eugenics-genetics-sexism-privilege-
karan-johar-kangana-ranaut-varun-dhawan/story/1/18515.html and Chawla, Bhaskar. 2017. “Saif
Ali Khan’s Views On Nepotism Are Even Darker Than They Appear”. Huffington
Post. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/bhaskar-chawla/saif-ali-khan-s-views-on-nepotism-are-even-
darker-than-they-appe_a_23046741/.
increasing preference for dramatic plots, action thrillers, rural/small-town narratives

and multi-thematic elements, and a rejection of the straightforward boy-meets-girl
romance and it familiar attendant tropes. In Khan’s cinematic journey, we note the turn
from the performance of an urban, metrosexual masculinity towards an ostentatious
and flagrant masculine performance, and the diversification of emotional themes in
cinematic narratives to include primary characters with grey shades. We argue that
Khan’s understated but powerful star persona is both produced and is a producer
of desirable gender performance, and this is further buffeted by his participation
in neoliberal advertising markets, and championship of consumer products that are
inextricably linked with the performance of a highly gendered and class-coded way
of life.
In unpacking the key affective components of Khan’s star text, we note the pro-
motion of ideals of Westernized masculine norms of individualism, consumption
and the normative couple unit, a successful combination replicated in his endorse-
ments for youthful and energetic brands. The latter half of his career, however, has
seen a shift in his presentation and public profile, signalling a broader transforma-
tion in Bollywood and its audiences, and the infusion of a neoliberal aesthetic and
practice in the industry. The rise in nostalgic narratives and hyperdisciplined mas-
culine bodies in cinema, and the circulation and promotion of celebrity through new
media platforms have heralded a new phase in Khan’s career, and enabled his present
avatar as a dependable yet inventive performer who is more a character actor than
a uni-dimensional hero. However, as was demonstrated through the recent debate
on nepotism, start texts are shifting, unstable formations, relying on a performance
of availability, authenticity and political sensitivity, and the crucial ability to con-
stantly participate in digital cultures of surveillance and self-monitoring. It remains
to be seen how Khan’s stardom weathers this dissemination of celebrity beyond the
hallowed portals on Bollywood.
In Kaalakaandi (a noir comedy set in one night in Mumbai; Verma 2018) the
protagonist (Saif) is informed that and should make the most of his remaining life.
Next follows a roller coaster ride across the metro as several stories run parallel
and intersect one another. Letting go of an actor’s vanity the second half of the film
onwards Saif is dressed in yellow and red furs, with hair tied up in multicoloured
rubber bands. Half-way through the film, Saif’s character, trippy on acid, tells a
transgender hooker that he isn’t interested in sex but just wants to see her “southern
hemisphere”, for he has always been curious about it. Hardly a line by a typical
Bollywood hero.
But then the Saif Ali Khan narrative never really gets predictable.
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Chapter 3
Shah Rukh Khan: Journey
from Charisma to Celebrity
Priya Kapoor
Abstract This essay studies the particular brand of Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) as
he achieves superstardom in the Hindi film industry and as a thought leader, earn-
ing him the moniker Badshah (king). By transcending ossifying gender roles and
ethnic-religious divisions might SRK be the quintessential Indian man who stands
for the nation (Cayla in Advertising Soc Rev 9(2), 2008)? Or is he a modern metro-
sexual whose identity is hybrid? This accounts for the dialectical tension that arises
from the ‘celebrity’ of SRK as global businesses boldly recruit cinephile audiences as
consumer-patriots of neoliberal India transforming dated identities of citizen-patriots
in postcolonial India. What follows then is the provocation that the study of celebrity
is a very particular cultural formation that Graeme Turner believes, “is a productive
location for the analysis of cultural shifts around gender, race or nationality” (Celebr
Stud 1(1), p.13, 2010). Lastly, the essay explores how SRK recoups his image as
charismatic actor and leader, not just as a brand ambassador of multinational com-
modities. Through ethnographic insight I propose that in SRK-defined films such as
My Name is Khan global Muslim audiences find a way to talk about and understand
their own experience of being Muslim during the Global War on Terror.
Keywords Celebrity · Globalization · Brand · Metrosexual masculinity ·

Ethnography · Textual analysis · Discourse analysis
The study of celebrity is a very particular cultural formation that Graeme Turner
believes, “is a productive location for the analysis of cultural shifts around gender,
race or nationality”. Twitter accounts and Facebook pages keep celebrities alive in
the public imagination even during their time off-screen, when they are with fam-
ily, on vacation, or commenting on state politics. Shah Rukh’s middle-class New
Delhi background has bearing on the type of celebrity he is known to be. He is
educated, has a graduate Mass Communication degree from Jamia Millia Islamia,
Delhi, and after abandoning television stardom for the big screen, Khan (popularly
called SRK in India) attempts, philosophically, to carefully study [his own] fame and
P. Kapoor (B)
Department of International and Global Studies, Portland State University, PO Box 751, Portland,
OR 97201, USA
e-mail: kapoorp@pdx.edu

32 P. Kapoor
success through his risky filmic venture, Fan (Sharma 2016, Yash Raj Films) and
Zero (Sharma 2018, Yash Raj Films). Both films portray him as a flawed human (not
typically hero material), although introspection and self-critique help him emerge as
triumphant. He can be framed and analysed in multiple ways. One can study Khan as
a successful Muslim actor in post-colonial India, in an intercultural marriage, or as
a versatile metrosexual who stands for the rapid urbanization of rural areas with the
ability, as a celebrity, to bridge insurmountable divides such as rural/urban, rich/poor,
Hindu/Muslim with great aplomb and self-confidence. Julien Cayla believes that
SRKs “fluidilty and hybridity become his most potent assets. He is able to reconcile
tradition and modernity, masculinity and femininity, emotion and ambition. SRK’s
ability to evolve all at once in different spheres of Indian life, to transcend gender
roles, and ethnic religious divisions, helps craft his story as the Indian man. SRK
stands for the Indian nation (emphasis mine)” (Cayla 2008, n.p.). Additionally,
Walter J. Thompson, a leading advertising agency, and the Times of India recently
launched a campaign “Lead India” with SRK exhorting Indians to quit daydream-
ing about a pristine past or a glorious future, but to “do” something, to “dominate”.
Clearly, SRK is anointed to become the leader of a global neoliberal India and a
leading icon for consumer urban lifestyles. In this chapter, I am especially inter-
ested in examining the above-cited quote in the context of the over two dozen brand
endorsements and blockbuster films by Shah Rukh Khan. Has the citizen-patriotism
of the 1970s given way to the consumer-patriot of neoliberal India (Cayla 2008)?
What is the role of celebrity culture, especially Shah Rukh’s role, in this transition
from citizen to consumer? Can a Muslim actor be entrusted with, or be effective at
the task of nation-building during a time of the global war on terror, GWOT, where
the Muslim body has been transformed by the nation-state to bear the scars of moder-
nity and not be an equal partner in India’s march forward as a global and regional
economic power?
Shah Rukh Khan as a Symbol of Global India: A Mix

of Charisma and Celebrity
In the Fall of 2010, an academic conference charting SRK’s trajectory as a global

phenomenon was held at the University of Vienna, Austria. Vienna became the most
likely venue because in the German-speaking world, SRK enjoys a large fan commu-
nity. Titled Shah Rukh Khan and Global Bollywood this conference attracted over 45
scholars, among them Rajendra Dudrah, Rachel Dwyer, Rosie Thomas and Sudha
Rajagopalan, spoke on topics based upon their ongoing research. Judging from the
plethora of workshops offered at the conference, one was able to see the diversity of
topic areas, ranging from reception, fandom and gender to religion, film and global-
ization. The coming together of scholars from the North and South propelled SRK as
3 Shah Rukh Khan: Journey from Charisma to Celebrity 33
a synthesizing icon able to bridge divides between “Indian identity and cosmopoli-
tanism, tradition and modernity or contradictory differences between religions or
between projections of male and female” (Press, University of Vienna 2010, n.p.).
From the time he first featured on state-run television (Doordarshan) in a success-
ful drama series Fauji (Kapoor 1988), to Davos in Switzerland, Khan has grown and
matured into a well-respected philanthropist in the public glare. For example, he was
recently awarded the prestigious Crystal Award at Davos, Switzerland, on 22 January
2018 for the social justice agenda of his charitable foundation1 . Davos, the hub for
the World Economic forum, is a mecca of global trade talks. It is a forum for shar-
ing new ideas, innovations and discussing possible exigencies among government
functionaries and elected national leaders. Top politicians, from Donald Trump to
Narendra Modi, delivered speeches, which were regarded carefully by global audi-
ences and journalists for the next new word on economic strategy and state policy.
Given his august company at Davos, other celebrities, even media-savvy Prime Min-
ister Narendra Modi’s daily broadcast Man Ki Baat (‘Speaking from the Heart) has
not found the dedicated audience that we associate with SRK’s media productions
such as expat dance shows, TED talks, interviews on TV and regular filmfare. This is
where the importance of SRK’s humanitarian efforts come in. Khan’s philanthropic
Mir Foundation is named after his father, for assisting and rehabilitating acid-burn
victims. In an interview with Tania Bryer (2018), Khan articulates his philosophy of
life, along with his vision for a just world. He talks about the work he had done in
Mumbai with burn victims, most of whom were children who suffered due to polit-
ical strife in Kashmir. Several children’s hospitals have benefitted from his largesse
and commitment.
In this paper, I argue that SRK, more than any other actor has moved through
the different stages (youth, to married man, father, actor, hero, visionary) of his
life, in full dazzle of media lights—as a struggling newly graduated young man
who trained under Delhi’s theatre personality, Barry John, until this glorious Davos
moment of global recognition as celebrity and thinker. Audiences identify with him
in different ways as he comes on-screen in Raees (Dholakia 2017) and My Name is
Khan (Johar 2010) where he grows into a moral and ethical Muslim leader, even if that
leadership involves being a purveyor of nefarious activities (as in Raees) or providing
a counterpoint to leadership despite disability. Although Khan’s character peddles
contraband liquor at a time of prohibition, and is a merchant of death in Raees, we
get to see that there is room for morality and ethical leadership in the underworld that
is easily identifiable in a society in transition—in Raees’ case, modernizing Gujarat.
In both these films, he distinguishes himself as Muslim unlike previous films where
he is mostly portrayed as a Hindu, easily categorized by his Hindu screen name and
modern secular2 fashion-labelled clothing.
1 A single-entry, by-invitation-only ticket to the World Economic Forum, in Davos 2018 cost 19,000
dollars. The others who received the Crystal Award were Cate Blanchett and Elton John.
2 Secular clothing is tacitly allowed only to the Hindu named character in Hindi language cinema.
Muslim clothing (caps, scarves, achkan, salwar-kurta and burqa), prayers or visits to the Mosque
34 P. Kapoor
Shah Rukh: A Charismatic Actor
Shah Rukh Khan came to the screen as a swashbuckling hero who by his own admis-
sion was not “chocolatey” enough (Bryer 2018). Khan means that he did not qualify
as having the classic good looks that previous Hindi film heroes Dharmendra or Sunil
Dutt were known for. But then Hindi cinema has never had a typical leading man
for their popular films as the successful screen presence of Om Puri, Rajkummar
Rao and Irrfan Khan demonstrate. Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra, Anil Kapoor and
Aamir Khan never started out as likely star material but rose quickly to the top fulfill-
ing “heroes” roles in romances, working-class plot lines, science fiction and murder
mysteries. Shah Rukh Khan’s ascendency in Bollywood is curious because it follows
a very successful stint in the 1988 television series—Fauji [soldier]. Popularity in
television does not always determine a successful film career as we have seen other
actors such as Chutki (Loveleen Mishra) and Badhki3 (Seema Bhargav) of all-time
television hit Hum Log fame do poorly in the film industry. In the TV series Fauji,
Khan’s rise to fame, ultimately becoming its “scene-stealer [where the actor]…was
cast by default” (Pal 2015, n.p.). This golden period of televisual history is often
considered “cinema’s tackiest era [marked by Govinda’s reign]…[and] television’s
finest” (Pal 2015, n.p.).
The transference of stardom from television to cinema was not easy for all tele-
vision actors like it was for SRK. Not only was he able to fare well betwixt media
stardoms but he was also able to bridge the digital divide by handling his social
media presence online, on TED Talks, Twitter and YouTube. Importantly, SRK’s
depiction of sensitive, evolving masculinities on-screen bore him well. Today, SRK
can easily be identified as the king of post-liberalization India, not just Bollywood
(where he is also anointed as Badshah). SRK wills for himself, an avatar that draws
the audience towards his popular persona of a “feeling being”. His famous unction
“I am a feeling you can’t resist” (Shah Rukh Khan, Filmfare 2012 cited in Gopinath
2018, p. 307) leads to a chief argument by Gopinath (2018, p. 308) that different per-
formative masculinities or new ways of “doing” masculinity define Khan. Adding
another dimension to his fluid masculine performativity, Gopinath (2018) asserts
that “the camera and his performance collude to emphasize his vulnerability and
his sensuality, constituting him as a feeling, sensitive man, both subject and object
of affect”. Furthermore, Gopinath (2018) believes that SRK repurposes heterosex-
ual masculinity via his emotional and sexual vulnerabilities on-screen to produce a
borderline queerness.
(or a muslim cemetery, pir/sufi dargah), festival celebrations are usually performative and semiotic
markers used to create a distinction between a Muslim and a Hindu film actor.
3 Chutki and Badhki are contemporaries of Shah Rukh Khan and Buniyaad was far more popular
than even Fauji.

Luxury Product Endorsements: Commerce and Citizenship
Scholarly deliberations on celebrities endorsing consumer products surmise that our

recognition of the national and transnational emerges from the associations celebri-
ties make for the consuming publics.
Celebrity mobilities also mediate and shape our very sense of national and transnational
cultures and possibilities as well as being themselves ‘subject to’ or shaped by it: they are
part of a larger process by which we can make sense of what the national, the international
and the transnational means, or might mean. (Littler 2011, p. 2; Turner 2010)
Endorsing global fashion labels by a celebrity positions the audiences and the
celebrity as global consumers. Consuming a global fashion brand allows one to
join an elite group of consumers who recognize global fashion standards, thereby
inculcating a unique consumption-driven cosmopolitanism. Littler (2011) is of the
view that the creation of “celebrities” are an industry ploy to push greater number of
commodities onto the public to promote a specific conception of what might comprise
the cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitan consumption emerges as a focal point of identity
formation at the same time as audience identification with global labels deepens.
Not surprisingly, top actors in Indian cinema have become successful endorsers
of commercial products and processes (Venkatesakumar et al. 2012). All other genre
of non-film celebrities—fashion models, sports stars, etc. follow in this wholesale
investment in film personalities. No industry has benefited more from the success
of actors as symbols of commercial products than the advertising industry. By the
year 2012, leading actors like Shah Rukh Khan has endorsed 42 retail brands, Hritik
Roshan endorsed 20 retail brands, Juhi Chawla 17 retail brands and Amir Khan
10 retail brands, while cricket stars such as Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid
endorsed 15 retail brands each (Venkatesakumar et al. 2012, citing Patra and Dutta’s
2010 study). These figures may need adjustment after the 11 December 2017 star
marriage (Kaur 2018) of actor Anushka Sharma and cricketer Virat Kohli known by
fans as Virushka4 . The union of the head of the cricket team (Virat) and the leading
Mumbai actress (Anushka) has left the audiences and fans hankering for more access
to them. As with SRK, this access comes from advertising that features individual
actors or celebrities talking directly to their fan constituencies. In this way, advertising
is able to milk a certain collective audience mood that wants to see their celebrities
don expensive retail products thereby imparting a certain familiarity to products that
are more foreign than local. Subsequently, purchasing familiar high-priced products
feels less risky (since many others are doing the same) and the right thing to do as a
citizen of global India.
The celebrity-advertising-neoliberal complex, reminiscent of Angela Davis’5
prison–industrial complex (Davis 2000), benefits from contrapuntal institutions such
4 Another star marriage, in November 2018, of Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone, a former
fashion model, has been a boom for marketers, especially of haute couture clothing.
5 Imprisonment has become first resort of society to contain persons of colour. Recent movements like
Black Lives Matter demonstrate that the Justice System has been differential in meting out justice to
African Americans who are sent to prison in disproportionate numbers. The prison industry leases its
36 P. Kapoor
as celebrity-making industries and consumer-advertising industries are able to capi-

talize on government loosening of tariff controls and support of neoliberal policies to
create a profitable system. To clarify, the creation of celebrity in Indian cinema and
the overlapping interests and parallel success of non-essential consumer goods (and
the advertising industry) creates a perfect marketing milieu possible only because
both industries—film and consumer markets for luxury cars, watches and clothes—
have benefitted from the shift of a socialist to neoliberal Indian economy. The sale
of star images and the imagination(s) that are brought to bear on audiences and fans
feel embodied once endorsed by stars and their fervent appeals to buy more (see
Khan’s Tag Heur watch advertisement). SRK in his own words is “a commercial
poet” combining his ambitions as a hyperconsuming material boy and a sensitive
emotional artist (Tehelka 2012 cited in Gopinath 2018, p. 310).
Shah Rukh Khan’s transition from hero to hero + brand was a first for Indian
cinema (Gehlawat 2015). Biographer and film critic Anupama Chopra says, “Shah
Rukh rarely met a product he could not endorse” (2007, p. 14). Shah Rukh’s rise to
celebrity goes hand in hand with India’s transition from socialist to neoliberal “free
trade” economy. Consumer markets sold non-essential goods to Indians around the
same time that SRK made it in films. Television evolved from black and white to
colour in 1982 to broadcast the Asian Games, giving TV sales a fillip (the potential
of television as a mode of sale of commodities is actualized), and post-1991 films
unabashedly placed Coke and Pepsi in the hands of its actors. Television sets sold
like hot cakes. Working-class families, barely scraping by, gave their new purchase,
pride of place in their living rooms. The liberalizing national economy in India
was forced to accept Bretton Woods’ recommendations (Desai 2016) of Free Trade,
which meant opening its shores to Western consumer branded items that already had
humbler looking Indian counterparts. Despite their gloss and sophistication, these
overpriced (compared to the modestly priced Indian goods) Western products were
superfluous in the lives of Indian households, which often lacked basic amenities
such as running potable water, fuel and indoor toilets. With a wave of change in the
economic policies of the state, a desire for an upwardly mobile English-speaking
public wanting to live an urban lifestyle, market protectionism became a bad word.
An avalanche of local and Western luxury goods hitting the Indian market jostled to
be known instantly by the purchasing public. The best route for instant recognition
of a new brand was to hire a known media celebrity, a well-known entity for youth
and older folk alike.
Endorsing products has not hurt Khan’s performance in film, they have enhanced
his profile and recognizability among Indian and Diasporic youth. Youth are the
primary film-viewing cohort and seem to crave viewing “upward mobility” (zero-to-
hero scripts) on-screen (hero travels the world, ends up with a partner of his choice,
simply being himself and oftentimes singing, dancing and playing the fool/jester). It
prisoners of colour to commercial industry who take advantage of the abysmally low pay for prison
inmates. The exploitation of their labour by commercial industry, the prison system and society’s
rank racism in a cruel triad is often known as the prison–industrial complex. Additionally, the
prison–industrial complex closely mirrors the military industry that is supported by the government
and the arms industries to form a close nexus known as the military–industrial complex.
is hard not to notice how this mobility (“foreign” travel is beyond the average Indian’s
reach) and tomfoolery is rewarded instantly on-screen. Film critics often call realist
films “escapist” because all the goods and services featured in the film—the cars,
clothing, entertainment venues and travel itineraries seem to surpass the reach of the
primarily youthful working-class and middle-class viewers who get overawed by the
easily acquired grandeur of the screen celebrities.
Charisma and Celebrity Theory
Shah Rukh Khan has been able to bridge the gaps between otherwise intersecting
theoretical concepts such as celebrity, charisma and leadership—all defined differ-
ently by disparate researchers without privileging one concept as subservient to the
other. The concept of charismatic authority is attributed to Max Weber wherein those
who are deserving of that designation are known to the public as great generals, sci-
entists, and political movers and shakers (Hendriks 2017). Interestingly, Weber does
not see charisma and celebrity as part of the same spectrum nor does he use the
terms interchangeably. Furthermore, Hendriks (2017) points out that Weber never
theorized media or film since mediated communication did not enjoy prominence in
his lifetime as it does in contemporary times.
Today, media is ubiquitous and an essential part of our daily diet. Therefore, charis-
matic figures (namely religious personalities, yoga gurus and doctors who announce
great cures and weight-loss remedies) receive prominence in mass or social media.
Oftentimes gossip-centred media benefits economically when celebrities create or
court controversy as in the case of President of the USA, Donald Trump, or the
romance and untimely death of Princess Diana in August 1997. Celebrities, on the
other hand, “can gain authority on a certain issue, sometimes to the extent that they
are consulted by policymakers” (Hendriks 2017, p. 351). To that end, Shah Rukh
Khan uses his 50th birthday (also marking the launch of TED talks in India) as a
turning point in his life; not unlike Aamir Khan (who believes ardently in a unique
version of celebrity civic and political engagement as demonstrated in this TV series
Satyameva Jayate or (“Only truth shall prevail”) (Bhatkal 2012–2014), wants to
achieve something that goes beyond his professional expertise and fame in Bolly-
wood can take him. During the global talks at Davos in Switzerland (21–25 January
2018), social media broadcast SRK hobnobbing with other Western celebrities at
socials and galas. SRK’s easy movement between national and transnational borders
serves as an indication that the very notion of celebrity-ism is porous and provides
global mobility to celebrities known primarily by their national background. This
must lead to a kind of standardization of celebrity-ism. Ted Talks India, and Star
Television, provide him just that opportunity. The process of charismatization and
celebritization is constantly evolving (Hendriks 2017) and we are still trying to under-
stand its variation and nuance with respect to different cultures and the vast number
of industry contexts. Hendrik’s examples of celebrity range from gangsta rappers
and dating coaches to current political demagogues. Celebrity-ism must be studied
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Two weeks ago Newman left his safe open and later missed a roll
of bills, containing one hundred dollars. Chief Michael S. Reilly, of
the Bayonne police, and the entire detective force examined the
premises and found them clewless.
Newman solved the mystery himself. In the woodshed at the rear
of his home, at 73 West Twenty-sixth Street, he heard a cat’s voice,
and spied Spondulix, the household pet, in a box with five kittens.
Newman picked one up and at the same time caught sight of
something green at the bottom of the box. He investigated and found
four ten-dollar bills, two twenties, two fives, and some twos.
The mother cat, in seeking for something with which to line her
cradle, had appropriated the money from the safe.
Hog Without Food or Water.

That a hog can live fifty-five days without food or water has been
proven. Burch Dowell, of Cookville, Tenn., one of Putnam County’s
prosperous farmers, states that he has a Duroc hog that lived for
fifty-five days without either food or water, in a deep gully into which
it had fallen and became entangled in the dense undergrowth,
rendering its escape impossible.
The hog was accidentally discovered a few days ago by Dowell,
who extricated it from its helpless predicament. It had lost 175
pounds in weight, but was still alive, and bids fair to rapidly recover
its former vigor.
Oldest Writing is of War on Locusts.

A number of ancient Sumerian tablets recording the deeds of the
Babylonians thousands of years ago have just been deciphered by
George A. Barton, at the University of Pennsylvania museum. One of
these tablets, which tells how a farmer rid his field of locusts and
caterpillars, is dated 4,000 B. C., and is the oldest piece of writing
extant, according to an announcement to-night by officials of the
museum. The farmer, Doctor Barton’s translation says, called in a
necromancer, who “broke a jar, cut open a sacrifice, a word of
cursing he repeated, and the locusts and caterpillars fled.” For this
service he received a tall palm tree.
Death in Electric Wringer.

Miss Margaret McConnell, aged thirty, daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
David L. McConnell, of Washington, Pa., a society girl and active in
church and charitable work, met a horrible death while investigating
the mechanism of an electric clothes wringer that had been installed
in the home that morning.
A long scarf the girl had thrown about her head caught in the
wringer and she was strangled before her mother, who was standing
close by, could shut off the current or go to her assistance.
Mrs. McConnell, too late, made frantic efforts to save the life of her
daughter. Unsuccessful, she summoned aid and then collapsed.
Pleads for Aged “Boy” Drug Fiend.

Pleading for her sixty-year-old “boy,” who, she says, will die if he is
not permitted to obtain the drugs denied him by the Harrison antidrug
bill, an eighty-one-year-old Colorado woman has written a pitiful
letter to Doctor B. R. Reese, of the Federal internal revenue division
of the treasury department. She addressed her letter to President
Wilson, but Secretary Tumulty sent it to Doctor Reese, whose office
is the clearing house of such correspondence.
Much as the appeal of the old Colorado woman moved the
officials, no exception will be made in that case. There is no intention
on the part of the internal revenue division to issue blanket permits to
obtain drugs for individual cases.
Cheer Their Boy Soldiers.

Paris was enlivened early this week by gay crowds of conscripts of
the 1916 class parading the streets to the strains of the
“Marseillaise” and other patriotic songs previous to departing to join
their regiments in the center and the south of France.
These nineteen-year-old recruits compare favorably with those of
previous levies, and they showed the better effect of physical training
in preparation for their service in the army.
All appeared to be full of confidence, and they departed without a
sign of reluctance or regret.
Wet and Dry Vote for Alaska.

The Alaska Senate passed a bill submitting territorial prohibition to
the voters at the November election in 1916. The bill has already
passed the House. If the voters approve prohibition, it will become
effective January 1, 1918.
Missouri Town Gets a Bomb.

The glass in almost every alley window in a half block in the
business section of Excelsior Springs, Mo., was broken when what is
believed to have been a stick of dynamite was thrown into the alley.
One arrest has been made.
A number of people narrowly escaped injury.
The explosion is believed to be the outgrowth of ill feeling
engendered at the local-option election here, January 18.
Kills Big She-wolf and All Her Young.

General Putnam, of early-day fame, who crawled into a hole and
dispatched a ferocious “painter” therein, has a rival at Worland, near
Gillette, Wyo., in the person of Henry Schumacher, who recently
tracked a monster she-wolf to her den, and, with six-shooter in hand,
crawled in after her.
He had only proceeded a few feet when the wolf sprang for him,
but Henry was quick with his gun, as usual, placing several bullets in
her head before she could reach him.
Eight pups, about a month old, were found at the end of the den.
Schumacher killed them all, but, small as they were, they put up a
stiff fight, repeatedly biting him before he succeeded in killing them
all. Bounty to the amount of one hundred and fifty-five dollars was
collected on the old wolf and her young.
Girl Was Dumb and Now Talks.

Miss Helen Dodge, eighteen years old, daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
H. G. Dodge, of Lestershire, N. Y., born deaf and dumb, will deliver
an oral oration at her graduation from the Malone State Institution for
the Deaf and Dumb in June.
Miss Dodge’s case is considered one of the most remarkable in
the history of teaching the deaf and dumb. She was placed in the
institution when only four years old, and has been a student there
ever since.
Her teacher soon discovered that she was unusually intelligent
and began experimenting in an effort to teach her to speak. Her
vocal chords were found to be in normal condition, and before she
was seven years old she had been taught to make sounds which
were intelligible. She now speaks as distinctly and with as much
expression as a person with the normal faculty of hearing, and it is
declared that hers is the first case of the kind in this or any other
institution.
Educates Herself to Free Husband.

Fired with the ambition to become a lawyer, that she may some
day obtain the freedom of her husband, who is serving a life
sentence for the murder of Charles Reuter, a Tulsa, Okla., lawyer,
Mrs. Mamie Baker, dividing her time between household duties and
public school, has advanced from the lowest grammar grades to the
high school in less than two years. Mrs. Baker is a Bohemian, and
unfamiliarity with the English language has been an additional
drawback to her.
When she completes high school, it is her aim to enter a law
office. She insists she will be a practising attorney in three years.
Mrs. Baker does not seek to obtain the freedom of her husband
that she may again live with him, but to take the stain of crime from
her name. She has always insisted her husband is innocent of
murder.
Horse Stops Fast Express.

An engineer on a fast express on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
received a signal to stop his train near Defiance, Ohio. It was an
emergency signal, so the train was stopped as quickly as possible.
The conductor, amazed at the sudden stop, ran to the engine and
reached it just as the engineer was preparing to go back to the train
to ascertain the trouble. Both were dismayed when told no person
had given the signal.
An investigation of the express car, however, revealed that a horse
had the signal cord in its mouth and was pulling it with all its might.
Forgets He’s in Prison as He Hears Fifes Play.

A fife-and-drum corps visited the State Penitentiary, at Joliet, Ill., to
give the prisoners a treat.
The 1,500 convicts pushed back their plates when the corps
marched down the aisle of the big dining hall to the stirring tune of
“Marching Through Georgia.”
A grizzled old man seated at one of the benches rose and
followed, keeping step with the players. He was Thomas McNally, a
life convict from Chicago, who for twenty-five years has been “No.
3,692.”
“I am an old soldier—fought in the Civil War,” he mumbled in
apology when the music stopped. “I forgot where I was.”
An appeal for McNally’s pardon is pending. It is supported by the
judge before whom he was tried and twenty lawyers who believe he
is innocent.
SONG POEMS WANTED

for publication. You may write a
big song hit! Experience
unnecessary. Publication
guaranteed if acceptable. Send us
your verses or melodies today.
Write for free valuable booklet.
Marks-Goldsmith Co. [Dept. 70]
Washington, D.C.
The Nick Carter Stories
ISSUED BEAUTIFUL
EVERY COLORED
SATURDAY COVERS
When it comes to detective stories worth while, the Nick Carter
Stories contain the only ones that should be considered. They are
not overdrawn tales of bloodshed. They rather show the working of
one of the finest minds ever conceived by a writer. The name of Nick
Carter is familiar all over the world, for the stories of his adventures
may be read in twenty languages. No other stories have withstood
the severe test of time so well as those contained in the Nick Carter
Stories. It proves conclusively that they are the best. We give
herewith a list of some of the back numbers in print. You can have
your news dealer order them, or they will be sent direct by the
publishers to any address upon receipt of the price in money or
postage stamps.
704—Written in Red.
707—Rogues of the Air.
709—The Bolt from the Blue.
710—The Stockbridge Affair.
711—A Secret from the Past.
712—Playing the Last Hand.
713—A Slick Article.
714—The Taxicab Riddle.
717—The Master Rogue’s Alibi.
719—The Dead Letter.
720—The Allerton Millions.
728—The Mummy’s Head.
729—The Statue Clue.
730—The Torn Card.
731—Under Desperation’s Spur.
732—The Connecting Link.
733—The Abduction Syndicate.
736—The Toils of a Siren.
738—A Plot Within a Plot.
739—The Dead Accomplice.
741—The Green Scarab.
746—The Secret Entrance.
747—The Cavern Mystery.
748—The Disappearing Fortune.
749—A Voice from the Past.
752—The Spider’s Web.
753—The Man With a Crutch.
754—The Rajah’s Regalia.
755—Saved from Death.
756—The Man Inside.
757—Out for Vengeance.
758—The Poisons of Exili.
759—The Antique Vial.
760—The House of Slumber.
761—A Double Identity.
762—“The Mocker’s” Stratagem.
763—The Man that Came Back.
764—The Tracks in the Snow.
765—The Babbington Case.
766—The Masters of Millions.
767—The Blue Stain.
768—The Lost Clew.
770—The Turn of a Card.
771—A Message in the Dust.
772—A Royal Flush.
774—The Great Buddha Beryl.
775—The Vanishing Heiress.
776—The Unfinished Letter.
777—A Difficult Trail.
782—A Woman’s Stratagem.
783—The Cliff Castle Affair.
784—A Prisoner of the Tomb.
785—A Resourceful Foe.
789—The Great Hotel Tragedies.
795—Zanoni, the Transfigured.
796—The Lure of Gold.
797—The Man With a Chest.
798—A Shadowed Life.
799—The Secret Agent.
800—A Plot for a Crown.
801—The Red Button.
802—Up Against It.
803—The Gold Certificate.
804—Jack Wise’s Hurry Call.
805—Nick Carter’s Ocean Chase.
807—Nick Carter’s Advertisement.
808—The Kregoff Necklace.
810—The Copper Cylinder.
811—Nick Carter and the Nihilists.
812—Nick Carter and the Convict Gang.
813—Nick Carter and the Guilty Governor.
814—The Triangled Coin.
815—Ninety-nine—and One.
816—Coin Number 77.
NEW SERIES
NICK CARTER STORIES

1—The Man from Nowhere.
2—The Face at the Window.
3—A Fight for a Million.
4—Nick Carter’s Land Office.
5—Nick Carter and the Professor.
6—Nick Carter as a Mill Hand.
7—A Single Clew.
8—The Emerald Snake.
9—The Currie Outfit.
10—Nick Carter and the Kidnaped Heiress.
11—Nick Carter Strikes Oil.
12—Nick Carter’s Hunt for a Treasure.
13—A Mystery of the Highway.
14—The Silent Passenger.
15—Jack Dreen’s Secret.
16—Nick Carter’s Pipe Line Case.
17—Nick Carter and the Gold Thieves.
18—Nick Carter’s Auto Chase.
19—The Corrigan Inheritance.
20—The Keen Eye of Denton.
21—The Spider’s Parlor.
22—Nick Carter’s Quick Guess.
23—Nick Carter and the Murderess.
24—Nick Carter and the Pay Car.
25—The Stolen Antique.
26—The Crook League.
27—An English Cracksman.
28—Nick Carter’s Still Hunt.
29—Nick Carter’s Electric Shock.
30—Nick Carter and the Stolen Duchess.
31—The Purple Spot.
32—The Stolen Groom.
33—The Inverted Cross.
34—Nick Carter and Keno McCall.
35—Nick Carter’s Death Trap.
36—Nick Carter’s Siamese Puzzle.
37—The Man Outside.
38—The Death Chamber.
39—The Wind and the Wire.
40—Nick Carter’s Three Cornered Chase.
41—Dazaar, the Arch-Fiend.
42—The Queen of the Seven.
43—Crossed Wires.
44—A Crimson Clew.
45—The Third Man.
46—The Sign of the Dagger.
47—The Devil Worshipers.
48—The Cross of Daggers.
49—At Risk of Life.
50—The Deeper Game.
51—The Code Message.
52—The Last of the Seven.
53—Ten-Ichi, the Wonderful.
54—The Secret Order of Associated
Crooks.
55—The Golden Hair Clew.
56—Back From the Dead.
57—Through Dark Ways.
58—When Aces Were Trumps.
59—The Gambler’s Last Hand.
60—The Murder at Linden Fells.
61—A Game for Millions.
62—Under Cover.
63—The Last Call.
64—Mercedes Danton’s Double.
65—The Millionaire’s Nemesis.
66—A Princess of the Underworld.
67—The Crook’s Blind.
68—The Fatal Hour.
69—Blood Money.
70—A Queen of Her Kind.
71—Isabel Benton’s Trump Card.
72—A Princess of Hades.
73—A Prince of Plotters.
74—The Crook’s Double.
75—For Life and Honor.
76—A Compact With Dazaar.
77—In the Shadow of Dazaar.
78—The Crime of a Money King.
79—Birds of Prey.
80—The Unknown Dead.
81—The Severed Hand.
82—The Terrible Game of Millions.
83—A Dead Man’s Power.
84—The Secrets of an Old House.
85—The Wolf Within.
86—The Yellow Coupon.
87—In the Toils.
88—The Stolen Radium.
89—A Crime in Paradise.
90—Behind Prison Bars.
91—The Blind Man’s Daughter.
92—On the Brink of Ruin.
93—Letter of Fire.
94—The $100,000 Kiss.
95—Outlaws of the Militia.
96—The Opium-Runners.
97—In Record Time.
98—The Wag-Nuk Clew.
99—The Middle Link.
100—The Crystal Maze.
101—A New Serpent in Eden.
102—The Auburn Sensation.
103—A Dying Chance.
104—The Gargoni Girdle.
105—Twice in Jeopardy.
106—The Ghost Launch.
107—Up in the Air.
108—The Girl Prisoner.
109—The Red Plague.
110—The Arson Trust.
111—The King of the Firebugs.
112—“Lifter’s” of the Lofts.
113—French Jimmie and His Forty
Thieves.
114—The Death Plot.
115—The Evil Formula.
116—The Blue Button.
117—The Deadly Parallel.
118—The Vivisectionists.
119—The Stolen Brain.
120—An Uncanny Revenge.
121—The Call of Death.
122—The Suicide.
123—Half a Million Ransom.
124—The Girl Kidnaper.
125—The Pirate Yacht.
126—The Crime of the White Hand.
127—Found in the Jungle.
128—Six Men in a Loop.
129—The Jewels of Wat Chang.
130—The Crime in the Tower.
131—The Fatal Message.
132—Broken Bars.
133—Won by Magic.
134—The Secret of Shangore.
135—Straight to the Goal.
136—The Man They Held Back.
Dated April 24th, 1915.

137—The Seal of Gijon.
Dated May 1st, 1915.
138—The Traitors of the Tropics.
Dated May 8th, 1915.
139—The Pressing Peril.
Dated May 15th, 1915.
140—The Melting-Pot.
PRICE, FIVE CENTS PER COPY. If you want any back numbers
of our weeklies and cannot procure them from your news dealer,
they can be obtained direct from this office. Postage stamps taken
the same as money.
STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave.,

NEW YORK CITY
Transcriber’s Notes:
Minor errors and omissions in punctuation have been fixed, otherwise spelling and
punctuation has been left in original condition, except for the below
Page 3: “Dawton” changed to “Lawton”
Page 12: “the jewelry slolen” changed to “the jewelry stolen”
Page 19: “messenger on the steamer” changed to “passenger on the steamer”
Page 26: “Mr. Kruse” changed to “Mr. Krause”
Page 27: “detachments of Turks” changed to “detachment of Turks”
Page 27: “brought the little ones” changed to “brought the little one”
Page 27: “milita authorities” changed to “military authorities”
Page 28: “Some Facts You May Not Nnow” changed to “Some Facts You May Not
Know”
Page 31: “Twin Brothers Marry Sisiers” changed to “Twin Brothers Marry Sisters”
Page 31: “ended up a mesage” changed to “ended up a message”
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NICK CARTER
STORIES NO. 143, JUNE 5, 1915: THE SULTAN'S PEARLS; OR,
NICK CARTER'S PORTO RICO TRAIL ***
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Ebook Stardom in Contemporary Hindi Cinema Celebrity and Fame in Globalized Times 1St Edition Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan Online PDF All Chapter

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Ebook Stardom in Contemporary Hindi Cinema Celebrity and Fame in Globalized Times 1St Edition Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan Online PDF All Chapter

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Stardom in Contemporary Hindi Cinema

Celebrity and Fame in Globalized Times

Behind the Scenes Contemporary Bollywood Directors and

Historicizing Myths in Contemporary India: Cinematic

Twenty First Century Celebrity Fame in Digital Culture

Religious Education in Asia : Spiritual Diversity in

Celebrity Mad Why Otherwise Intelligent People Worship

The Nation in War A Study of Military Literature and

Caught In Between Intermediality in Contemporary

Encounters with the Real in Contemporary Italian

ISBN 978-981-15-0190-6 ISBN 978-981-15-0191-3 (eBook)

1 Introduction: Charting Stars in New Skies: Celebrity

Part I Masculinity, Celebrity, Stardom

Part II Spectacular Bodies

8 Shahid Kapoor: Multi-Platform Mediations

Part III The ‘Outsiders’

Part IV Women on Top

Part V Transnational Stardom

19 Tabu: Less Is More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Anwesha Arya School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of

Tutun Mukherjee Hyderabad, Telangana, India

Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan and Clare M. Wilkinson

Keywords Hindi film · Stardom · Film stars · Celebrity studies

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 1

is probably not much of a surprise, given the encompassing, universalising business

on which it is given. The logic of parda (veiling) is conventionally applied to the

English medium education, preferably abroad—Siddiqui has none of these. Still,

Acknowledgements No work exists in a vacuum. Both of us acknowledge the contributions of

Acharya, V. K. (2018). Thugs of Hindostan. Yash Raj Films.

Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan and Liza Tom

Abstract In this chapter, we examine the underpinnings of Khan’s career trajectory

Keywords Stardom · Globalization · Masculinity · Metrosexuality · Celebrity

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 15

The Youthful Casanova and Ensemble Actor: Initial Films

Saif Redux: Shifting Cultural Paradigms of Bollywood

A defining feature of post-liberalization cinema was the increasing orientation of

The New Saif: The Late 2000s and Shift in Masculine

Race and the Ambiguous Male Lead

New Media, Celebrity and Brand Bollywood

The Re-Reinvention of Saif Ali Khan: The Rules of the Game

increasing preference for dramatic plots, action thrillers, rural/small-town narratives

Abbas–Mustan. (2008). Race. Tips Industries.

Keywords Celebrity · Globalization · Brand · Metrosexual masculinity ·

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 31

Shah Rukh Khan as a Symbol of Global India: A Mix

In the Fall of 2010, an academic conference charting SRK’s trajectory as a global

Shah Rukh: A Charismatic Actor

than even Fauji.

Luxury Product Endorsements: Commerce and Citizenship

Scholarly deliberations on celebrities endorsing consumer products surmise that our

as celebrity-making industries and consumer-advertising industries are able to capi-

Charisma and Celebrity Theory

Hog Without Food or Water.

Oldest Writing is of War on Locusts.

Death in Electric Wringer.

Pleads for Aged “Boy” Drug Fiend.

Cheer Their Boy Soldiers.

Wet and Dry Vote for Alaska.

Missouri Town Gets a Bomb.

Kills Big She-wolf and All Her Young.

Girl Was Dumb and Now Talks.

Educates Herself to Free Husband.

Horse Stops Fast Express.