Death of the villain: neoliberalism and contemporary hindi cinema

Popular Hindi cinema is an important ideological apparatus which very often propagates official discourses. This becomes evident in its propagation of a complex discourse about neoliberalism. Many popular Hindi films of the 1990s with their grand settings and foreign locations celebrate the new neoliberal India. Another remarkable characteristic of these films is the absence of the villain. However, some popular Hindi films, though very few in number, show traces of anger against official discourses and expose the villainy of the culture brought about by neoliberalism. This essay is an attempt to explore this oppositional discourse through a study of Madhur Bhandarkar's two films, Page 3 (2005) and Corporate (2006). The essay examines whether the oppositional discourse offers any real opposition to the hegemonic culture of neoliberalism or it merely constitutes increasingly sophisticated modes of producing consent to the hegemonic order.