Brand Bollywood Care: Celebrity, Charity, and Vernacular Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

This chapter argues that one way Bollywood achieves this reframing of India as a global nation is through the creation of a globally viable, respectable and recognizable brand: celebrity care. It is primarily concerned with the discursive constructions of celebrity humanitarianism, of Brand Bollywood Care (BBC), the generic name for India's globalized film celebrity working for international goodwill, charitable causes, and the alleviation of at least some of the world's lingering malaises. After establishing a case for reading the Bollywood celebrity as vernacular cosmopolitan, the chapter turns to specific steps in this construction. First, it presents a discourse of antiquity in the claims made by Bollywood celebs about their humanitarian interests, suggesting that their global role was always already anticipated and prepared for in their local one. Second, it examines the “uneasy balance” in the discursive construction of the vernacular cosmopolitan.

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