Playing it the nation's way: tradition, cosmopolitanism, and the native-masculine of Hindi sports films

The generic popularity of Hindi sports films has been overwhelming in recent years. The article examines this genre of Hindi films through the thematic construction of the sports'man' and its evolutionary manifestation from a masculine figure symbolising India's national unitarian eth...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Contemporary South Asia 2023-10, Vol.31 (4), p.533-546
Main Authors: Radhakrishnan, Pooja, Ray, Dibyakusum
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Athletes
athletic masculinity
Cosmopolitanism
Cultural heritage
Dangal
Dissolution
Globalization
Masculinity
Motion pictures
nation-building
Nationalism
neo-nationalism
Neoliberalism
Patriarchy
Popularity
re-ethnicization
Sports
Sports films
Sultan
Traditions
Transformation
Wrestling
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Summary:The generic popularity of Hindi sports films has been overwhelming in recent years. The article examines this genre of Hindi films through the thematic construction of the sports'man' and its evolutionary manifestation from a masculine figure symbolising India's national unitarian ethos to a megalithic, tradition-backed, orthodox patriarchy post-2010s. It elaborates this seemingly linear transformation through decade based phases, starting from the social-emancipatory athletic phenomenon of the pre-globalisation era to the neoliberal Hindi sports films of the early millennial phase. The study then explores the slow dissolution of the 'composite masculinity' that considered the ethnic variegation of Indian nationalism, and the emergence of sporting cinema on patriarchal and athletic superheroes. The article further discusses how it was nurtured within deeply insular, and ethno-religious gaming traditions of antiquity like the akhara wrestling, in fictional/biographical sports films like Sultan (Zafar 2016) and Dangal (Tiwari 2016). While commenting on this transformation of the 'national athlete' into the 'heritage's surrogate', the article attempts to provide a detailed methodology of understanding the expanding canon of Hindi sports films so far and how it aligns itself with the re-ethnicisation of India's polity in the last two decades.
ISSN:0958-4935
1469-364X
DOI:10.1080/09584935.2023.2245345