Monsoon Weding and the Bollywood Wedding Film

Mira Nair’s film, Monsoon Wedding (2001), was a tremendous sucess with audiences in India and abroad. This article argues that one reason for the film’s sucess is it reliance on the highly popular genre of the Bollywood wedding film, a genre which has inspired several real-life imitations of non-screen wedding ceremonies in India during the past decade. Nair creates a crossover film that simultaneously quotes and questions the archetypal images and value schemes propagated by Bollywood wedding films. Monsoon Wedding updates the original Bollywood genre to accurately reflect present-day urban India’s globalized, hybrid identity.

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