Introduction: Charting Stars in New Skies: Celebrity in Globalised Hindi Cinema

Abstract

Celebrity studies have largely focused on media stars in America and Europe. Stardom in contemporary Hindi cinema is an attempt to redress that balance 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 elaborated 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.