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Abstract

This article posits a homology between (1) the developmentalist logic endemic to hegemonic discourses of globalization and (2) the logic of the `too late' that drives the melodrama genre, to argue that the experience of globalization is, itself, highly melodramatic. Focusing on the far-reaching transformations of the Mumbai-based film industry and its global epiphenomenon `Bollywood', the article critically analyzes the hooplas and anxieties that structure contemporary Indian cultural nationalism. Countering overarching prognoses of global homogenization, it draws attention to the myriad ground-level transactions through which difference is capitalized and managed. This understanding of melodrama as the persistence of difference helps explain the continuing popularity of the genre in the global South.

Keywords

Bollywood cultural nationalism difference globalization melodrama

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The Melodramas of Globalization

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