13

Language and Indian Film Audiences

From Political Economy to Ethnography

Sunitha Chitrapu

The cultural imperialism perspective considers the one-way trade in films and television programs, from West to East, to be rooted in imperialist ambitions to control former colonies, and it fears that this flow would be harmful to native cultures in non-Western nations (Beltran, 1978; Guback, 1969; Mattelart, 1973; Nordenstreng & Varis, 1974; Schiller, 1969). Certainly, early analyses of international communication found a pattern of “one-way traffic” in television programming, from developed countries in the West like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to developing countries in Africa and Asia (Varis, 1974). However, later studies showed an increase in “regional exchanges,” particularly in Latin America and in the Arab countries, where media content from adjacent countries began to be traded, and in particular, films from India, Hong Kong, and Taiwan were found to be popular in other parts of Asia (Varis, 1984).

Indian film exports to countries in Africa, Europe, and the former Soviet Union have been further documented by a number of scholars (Abu-Lughod, 1993; Bradeanu & Thomas, 2006; Eleftheriotis, 2006; Iordanova, 2006; Larkin, 1997; Meyer, 1999; Muhammad, 1992; Rajagopalan, 2006; Van der Steene, 2009; Vasudevan, 1995). Media economics researchers studying the international trade in media products observe that, in general, countries that have large and wealthy domestic markets are able to create media products (such as films) that are popular when exported because, while audiences prefer cultural proximity in media content, there is also a preference for well-produced – in other words, more expensive – content (Hoskins & Mirus, 1988; Waterman, 1988; Wildman & Siwek, 1988). A large domestic market is therefore an asset to a film industry that has international aspirations.

In a similar vein, Thomas Guback's (1969) question – “If all industries are trying to export films, what occurs within markets?” (p. 14) – highlights the importance of investigating domestic markets for films. Thus, when scholars want to examine the international presence of Indian films, they would need to begin with an exploration of the domestic Indian film market's social and economic contours. While it is well known that more films are produced each year in India than in any other country of the world, what do we know about the audiences that support such a high film output? In other words, what do we know about the demand for films in India's pluralistic social and economic environment? There is still much to be discovered, learned, and understood about film audiences in India. With such a large and diverse population and a prolific film industry, India presents many rich opportunities to study film audiences.

One of the most prominent features of the Indian film market is the sheer diversity of its audiences. This diversity is not only in economic status, but also in culture and language. A staggering 22 languages are recognized as official languages in Schedule VIII by the Indian Constitution, while the total number of languages and dialects used by Indians runs into the hundreds. In economic terms, linguistic concerns are key components of a media market, because language determines access to, and therefore demand for, a media product (Wildman & Siwek, 1988).

India belongs to a tiny minority of countries (including Canada, Belgium, and Kenya) where films are produced in more than one language. Indian films have been produced in over 60 different languages ever since the beginning of sound film in 1931. When we consider this principal feature, we realize that, when it comes to media products such as films, India is not a monolithic national film market but a mosaic of different language markets that are dependent on the size and prosperity of the speakers of each language. One can, then, immediately make sense of the fact that the language spoken by the largest number of speakers – Hindi – is also the language in which the largest number of films have been made (starting from 1931, when language assumed importance in films as a result of the advent of sound), that Hindi films have higher budgets than films in most Indian languages, and that they are also the most popular exports. While the number of Hindi speakers is in the region of 400 million (as reported by the Indian census in 2001) – and this is certainly a large number compared to that of speakers of other languages – in terms of wealth, and hence of the share of disposable income that can be spent on film viewing, this Hindi-speaking audience is by no means in the same league as the slightly smaller but comparatively wealthier American audience for films produced in Hollywood. Thus it becomes apparent that Hindi films might do well in international markets that are smaller and less wealthy, such as in Africa or in Eastern Europe, but may not be as popular in larger, wealthier markets. Researchers such as Larkin (1997) have also observed that cultural proximity may work in favor of Indian films in some smaller markets in other non-Western contexts, as is the case in Nigeria. Language thus plays a crucial role in film production through its effect on market size, and therefore on film production budget and output; and, as we shall see in a later section, it plays a crucial role in film consumption as well.

While class and gender play an important role in shaping the reception of Indian films among diverse audiences, this chapter focuses primarily on the linguistic dimensions of audience demand for Indian films. Given the complex nature of Indian cultural production and consumption, a holistic, critical framework such as that advocated by the political economy approach allows us to take a “big picture” view of Indian film viewing. Through the breadth of analysis offered by this approach, a more nuanced understanding of findings from ethnographic studies of audiences becomes possible. In other words, political economy helps us understand “why,” while ethnography provides indispensible answers as to “how.” Combining the two approaches allows us to proceed from “how” to “why,” and our understanding gains both depth and breadth.

This chapter is divided into four parts. The first part introduces the reader to linguistic diversity in India, looked at from a historical point of view, from colonial times till the present day. The second part foregrounds the economic effects of linguistic diversity on Indian film production in the context of political economy. The third part examines the reception literature on Indian film audiences. The concluding part presents some implications of using the political economy perspective while doing ethnographic studies of Indian film audiences.

Linguistic Diversity in India

Language use in India is deeply tied to a person's distinct ethnic, regional, caste, and family background, and hence language and dialect preferences are slow to change. A study of the history of language policies in India reveals that neither Persian, which was introduced by the Islamic rulers as the language of the administration, law, and commerce, nor English, which was introduced by the British to aid in colonial rule, managed to replace the use of existing languages (Schiffman, 1996).

The language policy of the British colonial administration highlights the enduring significance of Indian languages. When India came under the rule of the East India Company, Persian and Hindustani continued to be used in the provinces as exclusive languages of the administration until the 1830s, when the Company's Court of Directors observed that knowledge of other Indian vernacular languages was also desirable. Going beyond Persian and Hindustani, lesser known Indian languages were given an official role from 1837 onwards, when a more diverse palette of regional languages started to be used by the colonial administration in the provinces. The colonial administration's patronage of these vernacular languages was motivated by concerns of efficiency and legitimacy and by utilitarian ideals of justice (Mir, 2006). Mir observes that “the records acknowledge that local linguistic practices were complex, and that vernacular languages were critical to effective rule” (p. 399).

The East India Company further acknowledged the importance of regional languages to colonial rule through its emphasis on language training for Company officials. In the south of India, in Madras (present-day Chennai), the Company set up a vernacular-language training centre in Fort St George and arranged for monetary incentives to officials in training for completing language training in Persian and Hindustani – but only if they had already acquired the necessary level of proficiency in a “native dialect” (Mir, 2006).

Further evidence of the priority accorded to regional languages in India is seen in the actions of the church. The church took note of the value of allocating resources toward learning and teaching the local languages to support its evangelical activities. In the nineteenth century missionaries wrote dictionaries, grammars, and guidebooks in various Indian languages (Schiffman, 1996). They also translated the Bible into Indian languages and mapped the regions of India by the languages spoken; in 1822 the Baptist Missionary Society released a language map of 47 Indian languages (Mir, 2006). In time, however, the English language created professional opportunities for Indians that led to its widespread adoption in business and government affairs; but Indian languages continued to be important (Schiffman, 1996). The complex balance between English and various Indian languages thus has a historical precedent dating back to colonial times in India.

During the struggle for freedom Gandhi recommended the use of Hindustani in place of English; the Congress Party favored the use of Hindi, which was resisted in non-Hindi speaking parts of the country (ibid.). After India's independence from colonial rule in 1947, linguistic concerns played an important role in Indian politics. Within the first decade of independence, state boundaries were redrawn on a linguistic basis. While Hindi and English were constitutionally mandated as “national languages,” non-Hindi states resisted the “imposition” of Hindi, and this situation eventually led to a compromise known as the “three-language formula,” whereby school education in non-Hindi areas would include English, Hindi, and the local language, while in Hindi areas students would learn English, Hindi, and another Indian language (ibid.).

In time, however, Hindi language teaching took precedence in Hindi areas, whereas non-Hindi areas paid greater attention to English and the local language (ibid.). As Laitin (1989) points out, “[c]itizens develop complex language repertoires in order to interact with servants, family, merchants, colleagues and officials” (p. 415). A resident of a state like Bihar, where Hindi is the state language, needs to know only two languages, while the speaker of a minority language in a state where his mother tongue is not the state language will have to learn four languages: his mother tongue, the state language, English, and Hindi (Laitin, 1989).

Census statistics reveals that 24.79% of Indians are bilingual and 8.51% are trilingual (Census of India, 2001). Laitin's (1989) position – the view that speakers of minority language groups will have to learn more langauges – is borne out by census figures. For instance, almost 75% of those whose mother tongues have populations of approximately over 1 million speakers, such as Konkani and Sindhi, tend to be bilingual and between 35% and 50% of these speakers are trilingual (Raghuraman, 2010). As the size of the population speaking a certain language grows – as in the case of Punjabi, which is spoken by over 25 million people – bilingualism falls to 50%, and in the largest language groups it falls further – to 20% in Tamils and Bengalis, and to 12.5% in the largest language group, that of Hindi speakers (ibid.).

Thus we find that, from colonial times, regional languages have remained significant in India. The linguistic reorganization of states underlines the importance of regional languages, despite the decision to use English and Hindi as national languages after independence. The following section analyses the effect of this linguistic diversity on film production in India.

Political Economy and Linguistic Diversity in the Indian Film Industry

The study of economic structures, relations of production, and political systems that protect particular economic structures is the main concern of the political economy research approach to media (Meehan, Mosco, & Wasko, 1993). The roots of political economy can be traced back to Adam Smith and David Ricardo in the eighteenth century, when the relations between society and the decisions on economic resource allocation began to be studied; this study was followed by writings of Marx and Engels, which outlined a normative/ideal economic model (“what ought to be”) that emerged from a critique of the capitalist mode of allocating resources (Wasko, 2003). The political economy approach emphasizes social change and history, social totality, moral philosophy, and praxis as its four central characteristics (Meehan et al., 1993; Mosco, 1996; Wasko, 2003); thus political economy takes a critical rather than a “celebratory” approach and uses methods from economics, sociology, and political science (Wasko, 2003).

The role of historical analysis is emphasized because it allows us to examine social change (ibid.). Underlining the importance of institutional analyses in the political economy approach, Garnham (1995) asks: “How is it possible to understand soap operas as cultural practices without studying the broadcasting institutions that produce and distribute them, and in part create the audience for them?” (p. 71). An understanding of the economic context is key to political economic analysis. Emphasizing an understanding of the capitalist context of media production and consumption, Meehan (2000) observes: “As human beings living in social collectivities, we do make culture – but in the context and within the limitations of capitalism” (p. 90). This is echoed by Garnham's (1987) definition of cultural production “as the production and circulation of symbolic meaning, as a material process of production and exchange, part of, and in significant ways determined by, the wider economic processes of society with which it shares many common features” (p. 25).

In the history of Indian film production, the foreign exchange shortages experienced by the newly independent Indian nation in the 1950s led to a limit being set on the number of American films that could be imported into the country, because revenues earned by American film studios in India could not be repatriated to their home country (Pendakur, 1985). These limits continued until they were lifted in the mid-1990s, in a newly liberalized India. Indian film production thus occurred in the context of this limitation on competing imports. Second, unlike in the US, where film production and distribution are controlled by a small group of companies, a large number of companies of various sizes participate in Indian film production and distribution (Pendakur, 1990). Third, Indian films are subject to government censorship, a carry-over from colonial times, and this restricts the types of subjects that are addressed and the way in which they are addressed in Indian films (Pendakur, 1992). Fourth, Indian films have traditionally earned a greater share of their revenues from the domestic market than from exports (Pendakur & Subramanyam, 1996). Fifth, from the arrival of the video in the 1980s, piracy has been prevalent in the Indian film market (ibid.). All these factors play a role in shaping Indian film production.

Political economy scholars have examined the pressures that the unique economic properties of media products exert on media producers, who are constantly struggling to maximize their audiences in a chaotic and unruly media environment. These properties include relatively negligible reproduction costs compared to the cost of creating the media product in the first place (the first-copy cost), non-rivalrous consumption (a person's use of a movie does not interfere with another person's use of the same movie), and non-exclusive consumption (which involves the difficulty of excluding those who have not paid to use the media product) (Garnham, 1995). For instance, even those members of the community who do not support their public radio station can still listen to it. These economic properties of media products lead media producers to maximize their audiences by pursuing monopolistic practices of media concentration or internationalization and cross-media ownership (ibid.). Writing about the economic imperatives that shape media production, Meehan (2007) thus notes that, “[w]ith an understanding of the rules and relationships governing cultural manufacture, we are better positioned to appreciate how the popular becomes popular” (p. 161).

Larkin (1997) highlights the importance of examining the political economy of the Indian film industry on the grounds that it clarifies “the relation between the economic and symbolic reasons for its popularity” (p. 411). We will see in a later section how economics plays a fundamental role in the ways in which films are made in Indian languages and in the fact that films made in some Indian languages enjoy advantages over others – in other words, it explains how popular Indian films become popular.

India is unique in that it is one in a handful of countries in the world where films are produced in a multitude of languages. Almost all other film producing countries make films in one national language. Of course Belgium, Canada, and Kenya are the notable exceptions. Belgian films are produced in Flemish and French (Mosley, 2001). Canada produces films in English, French, and some aboriginal languages. Even a linguistically diverse country like Indonesia only produces films in the national language (Heider, 1991). In contrast, as mentioned already, Indian films have been produced in over 60 different languages (not merely dialects) since 1931. In 2005 official records showed that a total of 1,041 Indian films were produced in 25 different languages.

The coming of sound was the technological event that triggered film production in Indian languages. The first sound film made in India was Alam Ara in 1931. Indian films began to be produced in the many languages spoken on the subcontinent (Thoraval, 2000). Barnouw and Krishnaswamy (1980) observe how this “discord of tongues” fragmented the large Indian film market into smaller markets, differentiated by language.

India thus resembles a federation of several film markets like the European Union rather than a national film market. In other words, it is a regional mosaic rather than a monolithic national film market. An examination of the economics of film production in India reveals that, statistically, production in Indian languages is significantly related to the size and wealth of the linguistic population: larger and wealthier linguistic populations support greater film production (Chitrapu, 2008). More films have been produced in Hindi (9,937) during the 75-year period from 1931 to 2005 than in any other Indian language, and production in the Tamil (6,362), Telugu (6,183), Malayalam (3,528), Kannada (2,798), and Marathi (2,628) languages follows – in exactly this order.¹

Further, film production in languages spoken by larger linguistic groups started earlier. The first sound film was made in Hindi in 1931. Official records show that film production in Bengali and Tamil also started in that same year. Production in Telugu, Gujarati, and Marathi began the following year, in 1932. Other languages soon followed them in the industry: Kannada in 1934, Punjabi in 1935, Assamese in 1935, Oriya in 1936, and Malayalam in 1938. The languages with the largest film production all got their start within the first decade of the arrival of sound.² This order closely follows that of the percentage of speakers of these language during that influential decade. Barnouw and Krishnaswamy (1980) report that the linguistic populations at that time were as follows: 140 million Hindi speakers, followed by the Bengali (53 million), Telugu (28 million), Marathi (21 million), Tamil (20 million +), Punjabi (15 million), Gujarati and Kannada (11 million each), Malayalam (9 million), Assamese and Oriya (2 million each), and Kashmiri (1 million) (Chatterji, 1945, cited in Barnouw & Krishnaswamy, 1980, p. 59).

The linguistic reorganization of states in the first decade of independence helped different sections of the Indian film industry to consolidate their audiences geographically. Moreover, the newly constituted states supported and funded cultural production in the state language. In some states, film production in the state language was supported by the state government through subsidies, low-interest loans, the development of film production infrastructure such as production and post-production facilities, favorable rates of taxation compared to those available for films in other languages, and also film awards (Pendakur, 1990). According to historian Ramchandra Guha,

Since trying to understand the effects of linguistic diversity on the international trade in Indian-language films, I found four patterns related to the size of linguistic film markets in India (Chitrapu, 2008). As the size of the linguistic market increased, (1) film production budgets increased; (2) film exports increased; (3) audiences were exposed to a greater variety and number of films, both originally produced in the local language and dubbed; and (4) audiences were exposed to a greater variety of genre elements in films.

First, larger linguistic markets generally support films with bigger production budgets. Hindi film budgets are generally the largest in the country, which mirrors the fact that Hindi/Urdu speakers form the largest language group, comprising almost 40% of the Indian population. The next largest and wealthiest Indian-language film markets are found in the four southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Kerala, which feature among the top 10 Indian states in terms of their gross state domestic product.³ In general, filmgoing is positively related to income: well-off audiences see more movies and more types of movies than their less well-off compatriots (Barnett & Allen, 2000). This is true in the four southern states, which together supported approximately 59% percent of Indian cinema theaters in 2003 (Distribution of Theaters, 2004, p. 19). These markets produced large numbers of films and supported high production budgets.

Second, larger linguistic markets show greater numbers of film exports. For instance, more Hindi films than films produced in other Indian languages are exported and find a place on the popularity charts in other countries such as the USA, UK, and Australia.⁴

Third, film audiences in larger linguistic markets were exposed to more films produced in their own language, and also had access to more imported films dubbed into local languages than audiences in smaller linguistic markets. In the nine-year period from 1996 to 2004, 95% of films that were dubbed were dubbed into Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi. However, while these three linguistic markets were more open to dubbed films in terms of absolute numbers, in relative terms these films only formed a small proportion compared to the films actually produced in these languages.

Fourth, films made in larger linguistic markets carried a greater variety of genre elements. Genre elements reported by the popular website www.imdb.com for 679 films produced in the top six languages of film production in India – Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, and Marathi – in the three-year period from 2003 to 2005 were examined. Only the Hindi film industry was able to support films that contained elements of all 17 genres reported by the website, including such expensive genres as animation, sci-fi, and war.⁵ In the fifth and sixth largest language-related industries – Bengali and Marathi – minimal to no elements of an expensive genre like action were found, while a comparatively inexpensive genre such as drama was predominant by comparison to the situation in the other four languages.

These economic differences sometimes fuel struggles for the control of exhibition venues. The travails of the Kannada-language film industry show that some audiences in Karnataka (which has many speakers of other languages apart from the local Kannada) were favorable to watching films in other languages than Kannada. The Kannada-language film industry attempted to create a preferential system of exhibition, whereby films produced in other languages would have reduced access to theaters, to the benefit of Kannada films. This led to strikes on the part of exhibitors, who – naturally – were more interested in full houses than in preserving the language or ethnic chauvinism of the state in which they were showing a film (Sharma, 2004). The resulting controversy received wide attention in the press.

Language is thus a powerful economic force that shapes the structure of Indian film production, and linguistic population size plays a role in deciding the moment when a language film industry came into being, the size of film production, the size of production budgets, the size of film exports, and the variety of genre elements in films made in a particular language. The next section briefly outlines the political economy perspective before proceeding to apply it to the study of Indian film audiences.

Research on Indian Film Audiences

Scholars engaged in audience studies have advocated the benefits of foregrounding such investigations against the context of audiences' media use. Pendakur (1993) points to the contributions made by Clifford Geertz, Pierre Bourdieu, and Marshall Sahlins to the “effort on the part of cultural anthropologists to synthesize the concerns of political economy with a more sophisticated ethnographic practice on interpretive lines” (p. 86).

Even if a political economy perspective is not explicitly advocated, the stress on historical and social context reveals this viewpoint. For instance, Parameswaran (2004) proposes that “audience studies must stress the relational web of porous social formations within which the media constitute viewers' identities” (p. 316) and the importance of “deep contextualization of audience activity” (see also Hall, 1980; Morley, 1986; Gibson, 2000, cited in Parameswaran, 2004, p. 318). Ang (1996) advances “radically historicized and socially contextualized analyses of the processes that shape readers' identities” (cited in Parameswaran, 2004, p. 318). Understanding the context of media use helps to take a more critical stance and guard against ethnographic studies that celebrate active and resistant audience members, studies that may ironically end up aligning their goals with existing dominant and hegemonic structures such as the corporate media industry (Ang, 1996). Meers (2001) advocates the use of “critical ethnography” to offer a “critical counterweight to the industry” (p. 140) in film audience studies, emphasizing the social and political context of media consumption that Moore (1996) favors. In Europe, such an approach plays an important role, especially given the strategic use of research in the creation of public policy with regard to films (Meers, 2001).

Emphasizing the historical approach to film audience reception studies, Allen (1990) observes that four components need to be considered: (1) exhibition, that is, “the institutional and economic dimensions of exhibition” (p. 349); (2) audience demographics and social meanings of filmgoing in the tradition of Radway (1985) and Ang (1996); (3) performance, that is, “the immediate social, sensory, performative context of reception” (Allen, 1990, p. 352); and (4) activation, that is, “how particular audience groups make or do not made sense, [sic] relevance, and pleasure out of particular moments of reception” (pp. 353–354). Allen cautions that assembling the data related to activation becomes worthwhile only when we pay attention to “what these data might suggest about the underlying structures of reception, their interaction, variability, modification over time or resistance to change” (ibid.), which comes very close to the political economy perspective's core interest of social change, even if it is not explicitly stated. He illustrates this with the example of interviews with black filmgoers of the 1920s and 1930s that reveal the key role played by cinema theaters in the community's cultural life.

Since audiences' reception of particular media is deeply interconnected with their economic and social contexts and the range of media texts they consume, the theories that inform audience research should account for these factors (Livingstone, 1998). The importance of combining a big picture perspective with a closer view is supported by Alasuutari, who notes that,

The synergy between the political economy perspective and audience ethnography arises from the complementary nature of the observer's position in the two approaches; in other words, while the political economy approach examines the context within which culture is produced and consumed, ethnographic researchers take a participant observer position that is “emic,” in other words that of the culture being studied, and not that of an outsider (Meehan, 2000). Such differences in positions make it evident that, when taken together, the two approaches lead us to a fuller understanding of the phenomenon.

Meehan (2000) illustrates the new understanding that a political economy approach can bring to audience ethnography, and she does so by using the example of Star Trek fans. She notes that fans are generally portrayed negatively both in news media and in entertainment media. They are presented as “fools” in the former and as “sexually unattractive fools” in the latter. She also notes that ethnographic studies of fandom reveal that these fans “feel scorned” by the treatment meted out to them by the copyright owners. Meehan uses the political economy approach to contextualize Star Trek fandom within the appropriation of leisure time by oligopolistic American media corporations operating within a capitalist system.

While fans represent a steady revenue stream for the corporation issuing the media product, additional revenue growth for the corporation comes not from fans, but from “mundanes” – that is, non-fans. Fans continue to be loyal consumers no matter what the corporation's behavior is toward them. However, through their various activities, fans threaten the accepted notion that media are “mere” entertainment and therefore must be contained, and this leads to the unflattering portrayal and the ridicule of fans in news and entertainment media. Thus, while the emic position of the ethnographer reveals the fans' unhappiness with the treatment they receive at the hands of corporations, the analytical approach used in political economy helps us theorize why they receive such treatment.

In India, film consumption is observed to take place amidst low-quality transport and energy infrastructure, and the film industry used to be subject to heavy taxation at the time of exhibition (Pendakur, 1990). The taxation on exhibition has led to some interesting effects, not observed elsewhere. In a startling contrast to Meehan's (2000) findings on the undermining of Star Trek fans in the American media, Srinivas (1996) observes in his study of the fans of Chiranjeevi, the Telugu filmstar, that fan associations were funded and cultivated by studios in Andhra Pradesh, India. He argues that, in an attempt to minimize distributor losses in the face of taxation that was independent of the number of tickets sold, distributors needed theaters to fill to more than 50%. Having dedicated fans meant having crowds on the opening day as well as repeat viewers. Fans in India thus serve an important economic function and are courted by the film industry.

Linguistic considerations influence not only how audiences consume media, but also how they choose to talk about and justify their audience consumption. Although this chapter is concerned with film audiences, a ready illustration of the importance of language for Indian media consumers is found in Parameswaran's (1999) ethnography of middle-class women's English-language romance reading in Hyderabad. Parameswaran contextualizes the importance of English-language skills in postcolonial India by delving into the historical role of English in India, where it has become the language of the power and business elites. She found that Indian romance readers had an instrumental view of English-language romance novels as tools that would improve their language skills, and therefore they expressed a preference for reading novels over watching television in regional Indian languages.

Preliminary research on film audiences shows that linguistic considerations also affect the economic structure of Indian film production in three main ways. First, films in the local language hold great attraction for particular sections of the local viewing audience. Srinivas' ethnographic investigation of film audiences in Bangalore found that, sometimes, lower-income and lower- to middle-income viewers were willing to pay more for the more expensive seats in the cinema theaters to watch regional language movies. As she observes, “[f]or such movies, even lower-income viewers are prepared to pay balcony rates and even ‘black market’ rates” (Srinivas, 2002, p. 163, italics mine).

In recent years there has been a spate of films in a regional dialect – Bhojpuri – despite Hindi being the main language spoken in northern states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The rise of Bhojpuri cinema in the Hindi heartland of eastern Uttar Pradesh and of Bihar can be traced, among other factors, to changing language equations in those regions (Tripathy, 2007). These changes occurred because of migration and the political consolidation of caste groups, which led to the production of cassettes and compact discs (CDs) of folk music that were popular with migrants seeking to escape the economic stagnation in these regions; and inexpensive films soon followed music albums (ibid.). In an observation that serves to underline the emotional connection that language creates between the audiences and media texts, Tripathy notes that, “[i]n a very significant sense, while Hindi has found a secure place in the lives of the masses in urban and rural India, it still lacks the intimacy of dreams that the vernaculars can provide” (p. 155).

The dubbing of films is practiced to a small extent in a few of the larger linguistic markets. When imported films are dubbed into Indian languages, culturally dissimilar materials are made culturally closer through what S. V. Srinivas (2003) calls “adding nativity.” In his study of the circulation of Telugu-dubbed Hong Kong action films in Andhra Pradesh, he observes that, through the process of language dubbing, “[t]he characters not only spoke in Telugu but they also spoke like characters in Telugu films; indeed, Hong Kong films were brought closer to Telugu films than ever before” (p. 55).

However, the importance of this cultural connection is mediated by the scale of the media production. Economic models of the international trade in film and television hold that, while audiences prefer media products that are closer to their own culture, they also prefer media products with larger production investments (Hoskins & Mirus, 1988; Waterman, 1988; Wildman & Siwek, 1988). This leads us to a second observation concerning the relationship between language and the economic structure of Indian film production. Expensive productions in languages other than the viewers' mother tongue sometimes attract audiences. Sharma (2004) reports how audiences who lived near the Andhra Pradesh border but within the state of Karnataka, which had imposed a moratorium on the exhibition of films that were not in the Kannada language, actually travelled across the border into Andhra Pradesh to watch the Telugu films of their choice.

Third, the language of the film determines the site of viewing and therefore the extent of revenues that can be earned by that film. Gita Viswanath (2007), in an ethnographic investigation of film viewing practices in Bangalore, finds that young, mostly male filmgoers watch English-language films in the exclusive space of the “multiplex cinema generally housed in large, brightly lit and colorfully decorated malls,” where “the appearance of a Brad Pitt on a multiplex screen is received in a passive, suave and sophisticated manner” (p. 3290). While English films may be exhibited in multiplex cinemas, where the tickets are more expensive than in single-screen cinemas, they cater to much smaller audiences. Hollywood films in general have been observed to capture only 5–7% of the Indian market in terms of revenues, according to industry estimates (FICCI, 2007).

However, these filmgoers also report that they prefer to go to older single-screen theaters when they want to watch a film in a regional language, because “the clientele is more representative of the Indian demographics than in the multiplexes” (p. 3290) – in other words, the lower classes are also represented. Viswanath theorizes that these young people are able to “make unproblematic shifts in identities” when they switch between the two very different sites of film viewing. The reason for the move into the less exclusive space is this:

Viswanath contextualizes Indian film viewing in multiplexes as arising from two related historical trends, the first of which is the change in the structure of film exhibition stemming from the decline of Indian theatrical audiences in the 1980s due to the rise of television. This phenomenon led to a reduction in the numbers of single-screen cinemas and to the birth of multiplexes. Further, the growth in the Indian economy – which was due to changes in government policy favoring liberalization – led to increases in the income of middle-class Indians employed in the service sector of the Indian economy. Although Viswanath does not claim to take a political economy perspective, the context and analysis she presents is in line with the political economy approach outlined in an earlier section of this paper, which calls for an examination of history and social change. From the perspective of our understanding of the role of linguistic diversity as a part of Indian society, we can argue that the shifts in identity that Viswanath reports are related to the complex language repertoires that Laitin (1989) described.

As expected, gender and class mediate both the linguistic diversity and the reception of films in India. The gendered nature of filmgoing in India is revealed in the ethnographic studies of Dickey (1993) and Derne (2000). Derne observes that in the north Indian town of Dehradun, women accounted for approximately only a quarter of the audience in the better cinemas in the town, and very few attended the cheapest cinema, which was more popular with the men. He attributes the low attendance of women at cinema theaters to the pressures of household responsibilities and to “the need to be respectable.” The economic inequalities that shape media consumption in India, referred to earlier in the chapter's introduction, are also reported in these ethnographic studies of Indian film audiences. The work of Sara Dickey (1993), Steve Derne (2000), and S. V. Srinivas (1996, 2003) remains exceptional in that these scholars are among the few who have examined lower-income film audiences. Dickey's (1997) ethnographic investigation in a small town in Tamil Nadu showed that Tamil film fans typically belong to the lower socioeconomic classes in Tamil Nadu, and through the social welfare activities of their fan clubs they distinguish themselves from the “poor.”

Class mediates the language of film consumption. For instance, Steve Derne (2000) observes that, throughout the duration of his study, only one Hollywood film played in the north Indian town of Benares, in 1987, and the film was not appreciated by the audience; however, Derne does report that audiences in the more cosmopolitan city of Bangalore enjoyed Hollywood films. Similarly, Dickey (1993) reports that many filmgoers belonging to the lower classes in Madurai, a medium-sized town in Tamil Nadu, had never seen a single Hindi film. In a continuation of this trend, urban middle-class Marathi- and Gujarathi-speaking audiences in Mumbai preferred to watch Hindi films and to consume English print media (Desai & Agrawal, 2009). Class also affects the themes that are popular in films. Rao's (2007) ethnography of lower-middle-class film audiences in a small town in Punjab reveals a growing alienation from the globalized Hindi-language films, especially those aimed at wealthy diaspora audiences.

Implications for Studies of Film Audiences in India

The historical, economic, and research contexts outlined in the previous sections of this chapter point toward a robust future agenda for research on film audiences in India. In this section I raise questions and concerns that can perhaps direct the trajectory of future work. The historical importance of languages in India shows us how, despite the consecutive presence of Persian first, then of English and Hindi, regional languages continue to thrive in India. Depending on where an Indian citizen is living, he/she may use as many as four different languages. Linguistic diversity is a powerful economic force in India that shapes, among other things, the availability and use of films by audiences.

The economics of the linguistic market size for films reveals that audiences in larger linguistic markets have access to more films in their own language, whether through local production or through language dubbing; these films are made with bigger budgets and with a greater variety of genre elements. Film audiences in states with larger populations speaking the same language therefore have access to a different set of films than film audiences in states with smaller linguistic populations. While Hindi film audiences have access to (elements of) many genres in Hindi films, audiences of films in other languages may not have access to (elements of) as many genres. For instance, Hindi films contain elements of the action genre, while films in other languages are unable to afford elements of this expensive genre. Where do such audiences turn to satisfy their demand for action films, and what are the implications of this quest? Is it possible that, rather than turning to the more expensive Hollywood action films, Telugu distributors turned to the cheaper action films coming out of Hong Kong? Srinivas (2003) writes of the immense popularity of the Hong Kong action film in Andhra Pradesh and of the spread of martial arts schools in the state. Where do audiences in other states turn for their action films?

Past research on mass media effects and processes reveals the existence of knowledge gaps between media audiences with greater access and ones with reduced access. What kinds of knowledge gaps exist between Hindi film audiences and audiences of films with fewer speakers, say Konkani or Sindhi?

Media economics models of the trade in media products lead us to expect that films from larger linguistic industries travel better than films from smaller linguistic film industries. Films produced in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu are also exported to markets outside India to a greater extent than films produced in languages with fewer speakers. How does this affect the diaspora audiences in different parts of the world? How do members of the Tamil diaspora choose films from India, in other words do they choose Tamil films, or are they open to Hindi films or films in other Indian languages? How do class and gender identities affect these complicated choices?

Within India, how do the patterns of flows in vernacular-language films affect audience responses and domestic markets? Some researchers hold that Hindi-language cinema is popular throughout India, while others have found no evidence of this, especially with lower-income audiences. How do audience members' class and gender identities intersect with the consumption of films in languages other than one's own mother tongue? And how do these viewing patterns change with the availability of technologies such as digital versatile discs (DVDs), versatile compact discs (VCDs), and television? Given the various constraints imposed on women in India, do women in some parts of the country have access to certain genres of films that others don't have access to because of the languages that they speak?

Research also shows that media products from markets that are culturally closer to each other travel better than ones from culturally dissimilar markets. On the basis of this we would expect the four southern states to have a higher trade in each other's films than in films from other parts of the country. To what extent is this true? How do taxation and other forms of government regulation and intervention – such as support for production infrastructure – affect this balance? Is this kind of support borne out in audience/citizen endorsement?

With the gains made by India's services sector in the current global economy, English-language acquisition has increased as the preferred route for occupational and upward social mobility. How has this affected the choices that Indian filmgoers make? How are Hollywood films altered when they are dubbed into Indian languages? TV channels in India that screen Hollywood films routinely carry subtitles in English, because the English dialogues spoken by the actors have an American accent, which is unfamiliar to many English-speaking Indians. How does this affect Indian filmgoers like those interviewed in Desai and Agrawal's (2009) study, who watched Hindi films but read English newspapers? What are the choices made by young Indians who have come of age in a liberalized India and have grown up on television channels that are full of imported children's programming dubbed into their local language? What films do they select to watch?

The questions on Indian domestic and diaspora film audiences that this chapter's conclusion raise illuminate the ways in which the political economy approach to film industries can generate a robust agenda for audience research in India's rapidly changing landscape of film production and consumption. Political economy and audience ethnography in India's diverse and pluralistic multilingual media markets can enrich each other. If political economy directs audience studies to consider the influence of regulations and policies and the economics of production and distribution on film viewers' taste cultures, the messy realities and contradictions uncovered in audience ethnography can challenge political economy to incorporate social and cultural theories in order to challenge or modify its tendencies toward economic determinism. When political economy and audience ethnography approaches speak to each other, we increase our opportunities to draw rich insights into the various forces that govern the diverse multilingual practices of film viewing in India – a country that produces the largest number of films in the world.

NOTES

1 Compiled from statistics recorded by the Central Board of Film Certification reported in Rajadhyaksha and Willemen (1999) for the years 1931–1981 and from annual reports of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), Mumbai, India, for the years 1982–2005.

2 Film productions in these 11 languages, taken together, constituted 97% of Indian-language film productions in the 75-year period from 1931 to 2005.

3 Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, 2004. Statement: Gross state domestic product at constant prices. Retrieved Oct 30, 2007, from http://mospi.nic.in/7_gsdp_const_9394ser.htm

4 In Malaysia, owing perhaps to the large proportion of audiences of Tamil origin, Tamil films are more popular than Hindi films out of the films imported from India. Schiffman (1995) reports that 85% of the 1.5 million Indians in Malaysia are of Tamil origin. I found that Tamil films constituted 71% and Hindi films constituted 27% of Indian films featuring on the popularity charts.

5 The 17 genre elements are: action, adventure, animation, comedy, crime, drama, family, fantasy, history, horror, musical, mystery, romance, sci-fi, sport, thriller, and war.

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