By
Shashwati Ghose, Ph.D.*
Some sociologists, in analysing the film Pathaan from the perspective of ‘popular culture,’ have identified key themes of identity, nationalism, masculinity, love, and hope, to explain the film’s mass popularity. (Editorial Note, Doing Sociology, 2023)
Moreover, German sociologists of the
Frankfurt School of Thought, Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1947) had
pronounced that popular culture is not about art and aesthetics but is a
product of the culture industry wherein the passive masses are driven into a
base, commoners’ culture and are prone to mass deception.
I
have here a somewhat different point of view.
My viewpoint is fortified by new cultural
studies of Stuart Hall (2017) and a summing-up of foundational research on the
nature and terms of popular fandom (Purnima Mankekar, 1999). The path-breaking
studies of Shrayana Bhattacharya’s book (2021) titled ‘Desperately Seeking
Shah Rukh Khan: India’s lonely young women and the search for intimacy and
Independence’ and Lakshmi Srinivas’s (2016) ‘House full: Indian Cinema
and the Active audience’ based on the original and painstaking ethnographic
study on the character and behaviour of Indian film audiences, have been
inspirational. Also, the media reporting of the responses to the worldwide
release of Pathaan. The above has brought new information and shed new
light which has encouraged me to think afresh on ingredients of mass popularity
and to question some of the existing points of view.
Forty years back in 1983, the Jamaican
scholar Stuart Hall came from England to the University of Illinois, USA and
delivered a series of lectures on “Cultural Studies.” Academics at that time,
were divided between ‘what Hall termed the “authenticated, validated” tastes of
the upper classes and the unrefined culture of the masses.’ (Hsu, Hua 2017) Many
academics considered a serious study of popular culture as being beneath their
dignity. However, Hall did not give much importance to this hierarchy. ‘Culture, he argued, does not consist of what
the educated élites happen to fancy, such as classical music or the fine arts.
It is, simply, “experience lived, experience interpreted, experience defined.”’
And it can be more revelatory about the world than more traditional studies of
politics and economics alone could. (Hua Hsu, 2017)
Mass-based culture or the commoner’s
culture is termed popular culture. The above-referred sociologists appear to
contend that the mass popularity of Pathaan is explained by the themes
or concepts of identity, nationalism, masculinity, love, family and hope. I
argue that the basis of the film’s mass popularity must be sought in elements
and ingredients of mass entertainment and mass pleasure. This is possible only
when the abstract concepts of identity, nationalism/patriotism, masculinity, love,
romance, family and hope are depicted in ways that the masses can understand
and enjoy. For that, you need to have iconic actors (like Deepika Padukone and
John Abraham not just SRK), an interesting plot and script, inspiring and
meaningful dialogue, engaging frames and episodes of active action and thrills,
song-and-dance sequences, and moments of great suspense. The action is
fast-paced and energetic like a Real Madrid football match involving ace
football players like Messi and Ronaldo in rival teams. Or a T-20 cricket match
in which Yuvraj Singh smacks six sixes in an over of six balls. Pathaan
is also a film that shows a lot of technical supremacy, modernised action, and
modern costume design like that in James Bond or Batman movies or Marvel
Universe, factors that further explain its mass popularity. This in essence is,
according to me, the route of the blockbuster success of the film Pathaan.
The paper
discusses and compares the films Om Shanti Om and Chennai
Express with Pathaan to show how these individual
blockbusters were ‘hits’ due to the budding chemistry between Deepika and SRK,
besides the other factors mentioned above.
Comparing three SRK blockbusters: Pathaan, Om Shanti Om and Chennai Express
Genre and
plot:
Pathaan is a 2023 action thriller – spy film, starring Shah Rukh Khan in the titular role with Deepika Padukone, John Abraham, Dimple Kapadia, and Ashutosh Rana. Its plot revolves around Pathaan (Khan), an exiled RAW agent, who an abandoned orphan, is adopted by an Afghan family after Pathaan rescues 30 children attending a madrasa in an Afghan village. It is this adoption which gives Pathaan his identity. Pathaan returns every year to celebrate Eid with his adoptive Afghan family. Pathaan works with ISI agent Rubina Mohsin (Padukone) to take down Jim (Abraham), a former RAW agent, who plans to attack India with a deadly virus. After much suspense, action, and romance, Pathaan finally defeats Jim with Rubina Mohsin’s help, deactivating the deadly virus with Jim’s detonator. India wins. Pathaan joins the RAW.
Om Shanti Om
is a 2007 romantic fantasy film starring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and
Arjun Rampal. The film is about Om (Khan) who is a junior film artist in 1977
and after dying in a fire (caused by the villain Mukesh (Rampal)) when he loses
both his love Shantipriya (Deepika) and his own life, is reborn and emerges as
a rich superstar in 2007. He sets out to seek revenge from Mukesh who had
betrayed his wife, Shantipriya. and in turn meets Shantipriya’s look-alike
Sandy. Om organises the finale where Mukesh is killed by a chandelier that
falls on him at the behest of Shantipriya’s ghost.
Chennai Express is a 2013 action romantic
comedy film. It stars Deepika Padukone and Shah Rukh Khan.
The film revolves around Rahul Mithaiwala (Khan), a rich man who accidentally
boards the train Chennai Express and journeys from Mumbai to Rameswaram with
the daughter (Padukone) of an influential don who is fleeing from a forced marriage to another don.
These three SRK films are all action-packed thrillers: Pathaan
is all about spies, agents and a nation in
danger. Om Shanti Om is a romantic fantasy about unrequited love and
re-incarnation. While, Chennai
Express is a romantic comedy that dwells on a train journey as well as on rescuing
the damsel in distress.
Star power:
All three films are star-studded with Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone being
common and the third villain being different.
Themes:
While Pathaan harps on nationalism, patriotism, masculinity, it shares
the themes of love and romance, with Om Shanti Om and Chennai Express.
Om Shanti Om is a fantasy film whereas Chennai Express is a comedy
on (railway) wheels. Besides, Om Shanti Om portrays the mythmaking of
Bollywood[1].
Script pace: Pathaan
scores over the other two films in terms of its fast-paced script like an
action-filled sports event with iconic players.
Dialogue: These
films have a smattering of memorable dialogues which hit the common man: “Ek
soldier yeh nahi poochta Desh ne uske liye kya kiya.. Poochta hain woh Desh ke
liye kya kar sakta hai.” (Pathaan)
“Agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaaho to puri
kayanat usey tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai.” And “Picture abhi
baaki hai mere dost…” (Om Shaanti Om)
“Don’t underestimate the power of a common
man” (Chennai Express)
‘Masala’ movies:
The ingredients of mass popularity of all these three films are more or less
common: star-studded, song-and-dance, action packed, fast-paced, and full of
thrills and suspense.
On the Sociology of Doing.
Doing what? The sociology of Mass culture or Popular culture where culture is
no longer art or aesthetics but is an industry producing products of mass
entertainment like films, television, recorded music, sports, newspapers and
magazines called the ‘culture industry.’ As Anthony Giddens (2009) says “Max
Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno (1947) argued that in mass societies the
production of culture has become just as standardised and dominated by the
desire of profits as other industries… cultural products are targeted at the
largest possible audience. In a mass society, the leisure industry was used to
induce appropriate values amongst the public.” According to Adorno and
Horkheimer, the culture industry, particularly popular films, are used to
manipulate mass society into passivity; the culture industry was an instrument
of mass deception.
Literature about the viewing publics in
India (Mankekar 1999) is extremely limited and audience reception studies are
late entrants in Indian film studies (Srinivas 2002, 2010, 2016).
Author Lakshmi Srinivas (2016) says that
the Eurocentric Model of Adorno and Horkheimer assumes a passive audience that
receives and processes a movie’s message. In this model, an audience consists of
individuals each ‘reading’ a film as though it were a ‘text.’ They are not
expressive or active. Not so with an Indian audience.
Srinivas’s study of audience reactions contradicts
such a model of Eurocentrism and bases itself on the Indian experience of
active audiences. Rather, these active audiences are the engines to decide
whether the film succeeds at the box office or flops in generating revenues.
Bindu Menon Manil’s (2023) essay, on ‘Interrupted Histories: Pathaan,
Ambivalent Fans and the Affection for Cinema’ is in the opposite spectrum of
Srinivas’ observation that fans are very clear-headed, they either worship if
the film is to their liking or they react negatively if they are disappointed
with the film in question.
The very first page of Lakshmi Srinivas’ “House
Full ! …,” which gives a detailed ethnographic description of an Indian
cinema audience, is electrifying, runs as follows:
“People talk throughout the film; piercing
whistles yells and cheers from boisterous “front benchers” punctuate the
screening. Cinema halls are sites of performance and spectacle both on and off
the screen. Young men shout out improvised dialogue, make “catcalls” and lewd
comments, people sing or hum along with the songs, and some may even dance.
Audiences are known to import ritual practices of (Hindu) worship to the cinema
hall as they propitiate the stars on-screen with incense and lighted camphor and
throw coins and flowers at the screen in appreciation. If the film fails to
live up to expectations, or if the electricity goes off, viewers take out their
frustration on their surroundings, ripping the upholstery with razor blades and
knives. Audiences also wreak havoc on seating, “pull the stuffing out” in
carnivalesque exuberance when, for example, they respond to on-screen spectacle
such as the heroine’s charms.”
This is not only about Indian cinema
audiences in general. As the Indian Express reported (January 26, 2023)
on videos of the first-day-first-show screening of the movie, Pathaan
fever gripped film fans. Cinema halls across India were transformed into dance
clubs and Shah Rukh fans burst crackers, from Kerala to Bhagalpur to Jalgaon.
Pathaan
madness: Several cinemas are now reporting damage to the screens because of the
frenzy caused by Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Pathaan, which released to
blockbuster response on January 25. Exhibitors limit inflow of people as fans
break into frenzy, dance near screen and break seats.[2]
A viral video from Kolkata says it all. “This
is #Kolkata now, the #Boycott gang has no impact here. Fans coined new slogan to counter
#BoycottPathaanMovie brigade. They say “shiray shiray rakto, shah rukh khan er
bhakto” ( Blood flowing in the veins are of #ShahRukhKhan𓀠
devotees)[3].
Srinivas (2016) also shows that the
audience has broadened to include a growing middle-class clientele, including
women – not to mention the Indian diaspora, ‘Non-Resident Indians’ (NRI).
The special place of NRIs in building the
mass popularity of Pathaan was revealed when SRK fan clubs organised
shows across the world, in countries as varied as USA, UK, Egypt, Syria, Peru,
Argentina, Mexico, Malaysia and even most of the Gulf countries. Shah Rukh
Khan's Fan Club had organised Pathaan First Day First Show for 50,000
SRK Fans.[4] SRK’s
fans in Dubai, Lima, Brazil, Germany and the USA had already booked their
tickets and were awaiting the first-day first show of Pathaan.
Fandom and Mass popularity
The question of passive audiences being
victims of mass deception raised by Adorno and Horkheimer, inter-alia
also raises the questions:
Are masses homogeneous? Is mass popularity
indivisible? Or can it be divided into its various heterogeneous segments? The
studies of Shrayana Bhattacharya (2021) and Lakshmi Srinivas (2016) provide us
with a complete answer.
Shrayana
Bhattacharya the author of the book - Desperately
seeking Shah Rukh Khan – is a World Bank economist and a fervent fan of Shah
Rukh Khan. In fandom slang, such a self-identified academic fan is referred to
as an ‘Acafan’. Ghazala Jamil (2022) in her EPW review of Bhattacharya’s book,
remarks that she has seen more academics unabashedly fawning and following Shah
Rukh Khan than any other star. Their numbers are not small. Besides,
Bhattacharya’s main focus is on the plentiful flock of lonely young women who
are romantically attached with the persona of their object of adoration: Shah
Rukh Khan. Women cine-fans are also separately studied by Lakshmi Srinivas
(2010) in her article titled “Ladies Queues, ‘Roadside Romeos,’ and Balcony
Seating: Ethnographic Observations on Women’s Cinema-going Experiences.”
Lakshmi Srinivas (2002, 2016) also identifies the common crowd, the middle
class and the NRIs as constituting the audience of popular Indian films. If we
add all this up, SRK’s fandom is a sum of these heterogeneous fandoms, i. e.
Acafans, lonely young women, other women, the common crowd, the middle-class,
and the NRIs, subject to some overlapping of these separate, heterogeneous
fandoms. All these fandoms, as characterised by their descriptions in the
different ethnographic studies, are constituted by thinking people who react
and respond. Hence, they cannot be passive cinema audiences subject to
mass-deception, as portrayed by Adorno and Horkheimer. This brings us to the
construction of popular culture.
How the Mass Popularity of Pathaan
is Constructed?
We consider here the proposition that the
mass popularity of Pathaan is constructed in terms of different themes
of identity, family and home, nationalism/ patriotism, secular harmony and
romantic love. To reiterate, our thesis is that the mass popularity of Pathaan
is not explained alone by the themes or concepts of identity, nationalism,
masculinity, love, family and hope. I argue that the basis of the film’s mass
popularity must be sought in elements and ingredients of mass entertainment and
mass-pleasure, which the audience can understand, appreciate and enjoy.
Identity, family, and home
Paromita Vohra (2023) draws our attention
to the Kya Tum Musalman Ho? scene in Pathaan. Pathaan’s answer to
this question is ambivalent and roundabout. He does not provide demographic or
religious details of his birth but provides a story of belonging and
connection. As Madhavi Menon (2023) recounts in her review of the film Pathaan
in Frontline, “Pathaan is a Pathan, not because he was “born” that way, or
because his “blood” is Muslim, but because he has chosen to be. He rescues 30
children attending a madrasa in an Afghan village, and, in turn, the villagers
adopt him as their own. He returns every year to celebrate Eid with his family.
As an orphan who was left outside a cinema theatre…, his Afghan family is the
only family Pathaan has known.” It is this Afghan family that saves India by
luring the villains into a trap, at the end. Pathaan’s identity is not just a
mark of religion, caste and kinship or residence but is in holistic and humane
terms of belongingness and comfort. It is this graphic representation of
identity that the masses – whomsoever – can easily identify without being
confronted with any distinctive characteristic of privilege or hierarchy. In
fact when Pathaan was screened for the first time, the public responded
loudly and passionately: Social Media reactions ranged from ‘Vanquisher’ to
“#Pathaan is High Voltage Action Drama with convincing story, …#ShahRukhKhan
performance is outstanding..,Too many surprise and twist.” And “best spy
thriller film. The solid comeback of Shah Rukh Khan. …Explosive action scene
and that cameo”[5]
Nationalism/ Patriotism
In Pathaan there is an India-Pakistan
angle as the exiled RAW agent Pathaan represents India whereas Rubina Mohsin is
an ISI agent and a spy for Pakistan. Abjuring the temptation of building a
background of India-Pakistan rivalry, Islamophobia and a Hindu-Muslim religious
divide, Pathaan strikes a surprising chord of secular harmony (Madhavi
Menon, 2023). Whereas the appeal of the
film Kashmir Files which portrays the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits is
based on the politics of narrow nationalism and polarisation, the amazing width
of the much greater mass appeal of Pathaan is based on the underlying filmic
expression of secular harmony. These two world-views appear to compete and
collide in the space of filmdom. That is why Hindutva forces valiantly and
desperately tried to defame Pathaan as being anti-national only because
the female lead was portraying a Pakistani spy who, to top it all, was wearing
a saffron bikini.
In an interview with Vox.com, an Indian
film expert, Rahul Desai, explains Pathaan’s subversive political
message. “The significance of the title is that patriotism isn’t a Hindu
birthright anymore. It’s not tied to a certain kind of religion. …(But) it’s
not about what kind of Muslim you are or where you come from. It’s the fact
that your love for your country,…should not be hijacked by one particular
community…” (Sharma, Swati, 2023)
Desai adds: “The film is a signal that
there is still a place for a very old kind of patriotism and secularism that
our country and Bollywood specifically grew up showcasing.That is why the box
office success of Pathaan is a measuring stick for the conscience of the nation
right now.” (ibid)
Madhavi Menon (2023) is ecstatic: “Pakistanis
as allies rather than enemies, Afghans as saviours rather than aliens, Indian
Muslims as protectors rather than foreigners—this is the milieu in which the
film operates. This is the most political, most daring, and… exhilarating
assertion of Indian syncretism. As Pathaan says with an urgency…: “Desh ka
sawal hai.”” Patriotism here is not abstract but has a real context of
syncretism and ‘nation in danger’ and how to save it. The masses go crazy and
lap it up.
Love and Romance
In Pathaan love and romance are
obviously not abstract themes but depicted as accepted reality, both obvious
and subdued. The two songs Besharam Rang and Jhoome Jo Pathaan
are accompanied by enthralling dance steps. Romance in Pathaan is
sometimes understated and subtle as when Pathaan tells Rubina his Pakistani
counterpart that “Khauf humme andhaa banaa deta hai (Fear makes us blind). To
which Rubina responds “I am not your enemy.” And Pathaan seems to agree. The
masses have no difficulty in understanding the nuances of love.
Conclusion
By analysing the film in terms of its
popular content and themes that speak to the masses and appeal to the national
sentiments of secularism, syncretism and patriotism, I have shown that it is
not abstract themes or concepts, Popular culture is, simply, “experience lived,
experience interpreted, experience defined” as the great Jamaican sociologist,
Stuart Hall, put it way back in 1983 (Hsu, Hua 2017). The significance of
cultural and ethnographic studies from Stuart Hall onwards, including those of
Purnima Mankekar, Shrayana Bhattacharya, Lakshmi Srinivas, Ghazala Jamil,
Madhavi Menon up to those of the most creative blog ‘Doing Sociology’, cannot
be undermined or belittled.
References:
1. Bhattacharya,
S. (2021). Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India’s Lonely Young Women and the
Search for Intimacy and Independence. Harper Collins.
2. Editorial
Note. (2023, July 29). Pathaan, Meri Jaan…Memoirs, Analyses and Reflections
in Doing Sociology: Building the Sociological
Imagination.
3. Giddens,
Anthony. (2009). Sociology, 6th edition. Wiley India.
4. Hsu,
Hua. (2017, July 17). Stuart Hall and the Rise of Cultural Studies. The
New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/stuart-hall-and-the-rise-of-cultural-studies
5. Horkheimer,
M. and Adorno, T. W. (2002[1947]) Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical
Fragments (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).
6. Jamil,
Ghazala. (2022, December 31). (Scholar) Fans and Fandom Studies.
Economic and Political Weekly, Vol LVII No. 53
7. Manil,
Bindu Menon. (2023, July 30). Interrupted
Histories: Pathaan, Ambivalent Fans and the Affection for Cinema. in Doing
Sociology: Building the Sociological Imagination.
8. Mankekar,
Purnima (1999): Screening Culture, Viewing Politics, Durham: Duke
University Press.
9. Menon, M. (2023,
February 14). How ‘Pathaan’ gives the secular credentials of Bollywood a new
boost of life. Frontline.
10. Puri,
Paridhi. (2023, February 15). Bollywood Mythmaking in Om Shanti Om in
Opium of the Masses, substack.com.
https://paridhipuri.substack.com/p/bollywood-mythmaking-in-om-shanti
11. Sharma,
Swati. (2023, February 10). Breaking down Pathaan, the most popular movie in
the world, Vox.com
https://www.vox.com/culture/23592808/pathaan-shah-rukh-khan-bollywood
12. Srinivas,
Lakshmi (2002): “The Active Audience: Spectatorship, Social Relations and the
Experience of Cinema in India,” Media, Culture & Society, Vol 24, No 2, pp
155–73.
— (2010): “Ladies Queues, ‘Roadside Romeos,’ and
Balcony Seating: Ethnographic Observations on Women’s Cinema-going
Experiences,” South Asian Popular Culture, Vol 8, No 3, pp 291–307.
— (2016): House Full: Indian Cinema and the Active
Audience, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
13. Vohra,
Paromita. (2023, July 30). Vasantasena’s Lychpin, Memory Games and
Re-Membering in Pathaan: A Reading in Three Scenes. in Doing Sociology:
Building the Sociological Imagination.
*Shashwati Ghose is a doctorate in Sociology from
Jamia Millia Islamia and can be reached at shashwati1@gmail.com
[1] https://paridhipuri.substack.com/p/bollywood-mythmaking-in-om-shanti
[2] https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/pathaan-madness-exhibitors-limit-inflow-of-people-as-fans-break-into-frenzy-dance-near-screen-break-seats-8410403/
[3] https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/pathaan-theatre-reaction-videos-shah-rukh-khan-siddharth-anand-8405481/
[4] https://www.news18.com/news/entertainment/shah-rukh-khans-fan-club-to-organise-pathaan-first-day-first-show-for-50000-srk-fans-6829765.html
