Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Star Switching Power in Networked Bollywood
- 1 Of Vagabonds and Wayfarers: Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, and Hindi Cinema’s Family-Led Film Clusters
- 2 King of Kings: Amitabh Bachchan and the Emergence of Bollywood’s Corporate Networks
- 3 Global Dreamz: Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan Usher Global Bollywood into the New Millennium
- 4 Global Beauty Queens: Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, and Female Star Switching Power
- 5 Bards of Change: How Streaming Platforms and State–Industry Alliance Are Reconfiguring Star Power in Networked Bollywood
- Notes
- Index
5 - Bards of Change: How Streaming Platforms and State–Industry Alliance Are Reconfiguring Star Power in Networked Bollywood
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2024
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Star Switching Power in Networked Bollywood
- 1 Of Vagabonds and Wayfarers: Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, and Hindi Cinema’s Family-Led Film Clusters
- 2 King of Kings: Amitabh Bachchan and the Emergence of Bollywood’s Corporate Networks
- 3 Global Dreamz: Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan Usher Global Bollywood into the New Millennium
- 4 Global Beauty Queens: Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, and Female Star Switching Power
- 5 Bards of Change: How Streaming Platforms and State–Industry Alliance Are Reconfiguring Star Power in Networked Bollywood
- Notes
- Index
Summary
I just wanted to get into this [streaming] world [and] understand how [it] worked. The digital platform has opened up avenues for everybody.… OTT [over-the-top streaming platforms like Netflix] gives you great freedom to work without any pressure.… And most importantly, if your film is released on an OTT platform, there is no pressure from the box office. I feel it is like a revolution that is taking place, and I am lucky to be a part of that revolution.
—Anil Kapoor, Bollywood starAnil Kapoor, the Bollywood star whom we first encountered in the Introduction, recently released his first Netflix film, Thar (2022, dir. Raj Singh Chaudhary), a Hindi-language neo-Western thriller. The above statement by Kapoor acknowledges the novelty of changes to the contemporary industrial structure in the age of streaming. In its current iteration, the Bollywood landscape has been rapidly transforming, with the film industry becoming increasingly ‘networked’ with global and local streaming platforms. The contemporary industrial ecosystem is teeming with streaming platforms, including vernacular regional, national, and global entrants like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. In India, these streaming services are referred to as ‘over-the-top’ (OTT) platforms because they bypass traditional media services and many regulatory constraints to reach consumers directly through the internet.
Kapoor’s comment reflects broad changes in the industrial landscape and Bollywood’s position and influence on globalized entertainment culture in the third decade of the twenty-first century. At the 2014 IIFA, the Tampa conference recounted in the Introduction, Bollywood was hoping to make a splash in the US, wherein stars like Kapoor, who had created some presence in the US market, were leveraged as anchors. The story of India’s Bollywoodized market and industrial network, however, only a decade later, appears strikingly different. Now we see Netflix pulling out all stops to create a strong presence in India, closely followed by Amazon Prime Video and Disney+. OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are just the newest contenders. They have drastically altered the entertainment industry structure not just in India but also in Hollywood, where long-established conglomerate monopolies are being broken up or reconfigured. Through its multidirectional global ties, the Indian entertainment industry has been transforming into a veritable global network.
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- Networked BollywoodHow Star Power Globalized Hindi Cinema, pp. 209 - 235Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024