The Empire Sings Back: Aesthetics, Politics, and Postcolonial Whimsy

This essay recovers the devalued aesthetic dimension of the Bollywood film/song from its over-determination as national allegory. The qualities attributed to the film/song, such as irrationality, fantasy, and non-synchronicity, which I term its postcolonial whimsy, and its value as the Bollywood filmʹs most transnational component, allow for the free play of th imagination. This admits the possibility of another performative public culture and imagir community not premised on exploitation, calculability, and passive spectatorship and con The film/song enables affect without literal linguistic comprehension, especially among th unfamiliar with the indigenous languages and musical traditions. What is derided as the s aspect of Bollywood films and as its most embarrassing element is its whimsical aesthetic film/song as the filmʹs fanciful, hopeful, and dreamy core and its unmoored quality broad of its possible political meanings. The film/song dis/plays what is unsung in spite of being (inferior) excess: the dreams and aspirations are still possible in everyday life.