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Adriana Gonzalez
CAPSTONE
4 November 2012
Module 3 Essay
Bollywood: A Testimony to the Strength of Cultural Identity
For my third Module assignment, I read the article “Bollywood versus Hollywood: Battle
of the Dream Factories” by Heather Tyrrell. I will go through summarizing the article,
interjecting with insights relevant to our topic this week of “global perspectives”. Let’s start
with a better understanding of the term “Bollywood”. Bollywood can be loosely described as
North Indian popular commercial cinema that came from combining the cinematic traditions of
Hollywood with content addressing the ideological heritage of colinisation (Tyrrell 313).
Bollywood is based upon the dispute and competition between Western commercial and
culturally imperialistic cinema and Third-World (non-commercial, indigenous, politicized)
Cinema. This has led to an overall criticism of Hollywood and support for alternative cinema
both in India and other countries (Tyrrell 312). I want to take a second here to think about what
this resulting side-taking has shown. It is clear that anything associated with commercialism,
especially products coming from America, are fought against in an attempt to maintain a sense of
cultural identity. As we can identify with the Barber reading, globalization has a general
tendency to turn the whole work into a common, or similar image. This represents to many a
threat to their cultural individuality and identity that they hold sacred and are unwilling to part
with. This tendency we have witnessed for cultures to fight against products and commodities
associated with Western civilization, such as Hollywood films, proves just how sacred cultural
identity is to some.
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Tyrrell’s article attempts to validate Bollywood’s originality as a cultural identity by
noting its survival and successes despite an influx of Hollywood and Western culture marked by
the 1992 lifting of a ban on dubbing foreign films into Hindi (Tyrrell 315). I personally believe
that one of the main reasons Bollywood proves so successful can be attributed to its hybrid
structure that is neither solely politically motivated nor completely devoid of nationalist, or anticolonialist content (Tyrrell 313). Bollywood, has in a sense, been globalized itself in this way. It
exists in neither extreme realm, but rather succeeds as a combination of cultural, environmental,
political, and market factors. This idea can be noted as well in Robertson and White’s article, and
can be summarized as globalization acting as more than economic discourse (it transcends
several other factors particular to specific cultures and environments). The asymmetry Robertson
and White note in regards to globalization (termed as “glocalization”) can be witnessed with the
cultural backlash of Hollywood movies in India. Their “human transformation” is occurring at a
much slower pace than other cultures, deliberately fighting Western commercialism with every
ounce they have.
Bollywood has been argued to be, in the end, conforming as it takes on a commercial
aspect opposing the tradition of Third Cinema (as well as its opposing light-hearted song and
dance). I would like to question the audience here, as well as give my own opinion. Can
Bollywood be considered conforming, if conforming means grouping together for the sole
purpose of opposing another force? This coincides with the idea that “any friend of my enemy is
a friend of mine”. Or, because it acts as a cultural substitute to the “conforming” Western culture
epitomized by Hollywood film, does it shed the title of conforming itself? These are questions
we must ask as we observe the effects of holding onto cultural identity across the globe.
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As a whole, Hollywood has been unable to displace Bollywood as the most popular and
widely accepted form of film in India, and as a result has attempted to switch gears by investing
in Indian studios, thereby putting money into Bollywood productions as opposed to trying to
replace it with Hollywood product (which has obviously proven unsuccessful) (Tyrrell 316). My
favorite part of this article was the concluding point made by Tyrrell that can be summarized as
such: global, hegemonic forces are not confined to the West alone. We have seen, through the
holding on of Bollywood culture and identity, that there is power in numbers. When a large
enough group of people have a means of maintaining their cultural identity, they will do so by all
means- and with force. Globalization, while proven to have its positive effects, will never
convince everyone to release their cultural upbringings and traditions for a more commercial,
accessible, Westernized lifestyle.