Interpolating Xenophobia through Cultural Artefacts: A Case Study of Selected Bollywood Historical Adaptations as G(local) State Apparatus

Abstract

Cinema has a unique quality that engages diverse audiences and transcends spatial and cultural constraints. Considering this widening impact of films on designing and influencing thought  paradigms, my study investigates how film media can be used as a Glocal state apparatus to gain greater ideological ends. Over the years, the Bollywood film industry has produced many films that  reinforce the national sentiment by weaving racial, ethnic, and cultural prejudices into the narrative of productions exclusively dealing with the us/them dichotomy. The study’s argument would restrict  itself to scrutinising the characters, narrative, plot construction, point of view, and mise en scene, as filmed in the Bollywood historical adaptations Padmavaat (2015), Jodha Akbar (2008) and  Earth (2009). Though the movies are cross-temporally situated, the author has chosen these film texts on thematic grounds, i.e. ethnic dichotomies. These film texts will be analysed by referring to  Althusser’s theorisation of ideology, ideological state apparatuses, and interpellation to find out how certain cultural artefacts can transcend their prescribed role as means of entertainment and  become Glocal state apparatus to get the local as well as the global audience interpellated into a desired narrative. Moreover, the study has also benefitted from Linda Hutcheon’s journalistic formula  for analysing adaptations, which is used as a supporting lens to uncover the ideological implications of the selected film texts. The study has delimited its discussion on the role of ideological state  apparatuses in executing an ideology.
Keywords: Interpolation, Cultural Artifacts, Bollywood Historical Adaptations, Glocal, Xenophobia, Interpolation