Monsoon Weding and the Bollywood Wedding Film

Mira Nair´s film, Monsoon Wedding (2001), was a tremendous sucess with audiences in India and abdroad. 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.