Calling God on the wrong number: Hindu-Muslim relations in PK (2014) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) | Humanities & Social Sciences

Calling God on the wrong number: Hindu-Muslim relations in PK (2014) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015)

Tuesday Seminar
Speaker: 
Rachel Dwyer
Date and Time: 
Tue, 14/02/2017 - 12:00am
Schedule: 
02:57 PM to 04:27 PM
Venue: 
HSS Committee Room (MS 610)

Abstract

Since December 2014, three of the biggest hits in the hundred-year history of Indian cinema have been released, all members of the “500 crore club". These include two Hindi films,PK and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, both comedies,and the Telugu/Tamil film, Baahubali: the beginning. It is striking that the two Hindi films, PK and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, both comedies, are set in the context of clearly designated Hindu practices, with two directly concerning Muslims and Pakistan. These films show religious groups in a new way, breaking with the conventions of the Islamicate genres, showing different communities and their beliefs and practices. The paper would focus on the complex and exciting connections between the films and the current imaginary in India.

Bio

Rachel Dwyer is Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at the Dept. of the Languages and Cultures of South Asia, SOAS, University of London. She is also member of the Centre of Jaina Studies, and the Centre for Media and Film Studies. She took her BA in Sanskrit at SOAS, followed by an MPhil in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford. Her PhD research was on the Gujarati lyrics of Dayaram (1777-1852). Professor Dwyer has published ten books, several of which are on Indian cinema, where she has researched and published on film magazines and popular fiction; consumerism and the new middle classes and the middlebrow; love and eroticism; visual culture; religion; Gandhi and the biopic; stars and dynastic stardom; Hinglish and language in cinema. She has written a book in the British Film Institute’s ‘World Directors’ series about one of the great figures of the Hindi film industry, Yash Chopra, with whom she has worked for several years. She later wrote the BFI’s guide to ‘100 Bollywood films’. She has recently completed Bollywood's India: Indian cinema as a guide to modern India for Reaktion Books (London and Hachette, India). She is currently researching the Asian elephant in India and has published papers on the elephant in cinema, in literature and religion.