Les comparto un excelente artículo de Shikha Dalmia en Reason. Su tesis es que así como se reconoce cómo la música encarnada por los Beatles y el Rock & Roll ayudó a que el comunismo cayera, deberíamos fijarnos en el papel que está teniendo Bollywood en el mundo árabe contrarrestando la veta de islamismo fundamentalista.
Les dejo un párrafo en el que el autor compara la influencia de Hollywood vs. Bollywood y cómo el segundo tiene mucho más éxito en el mundo islámico al ser más tradicionalista:
Both Hollywood and Bollywood idealize true love that conquers all. But the obstacles that Hollywood’s lovers face—affairs, commitment phobia, children from previous marriages—have nothing to do with the concerns of people in traditional Muslim countries. They can relate far more with Bollywood’s paramours whose chief impediment is familial objections, given that arranged marriage is still a revered institution in that part of the world. Bollywood certainly encourages young lovers to follow their heart—but by persuading their families of the rightness of their cause, not by turning their backs on them. A typical Bollywood movie ends with lovers returning home after tying the knot. They fall at their parent’s feet, begging for their blessings, which the weeping parents, moved by the power of their love, finally bestow. In short, Bollywood seeks to realize romantic love not outside the broader family structure but within it, at once reforming and affirming a key social institution—a resolution that legitimizes Muslim reformers against Islamist reactionaries. Bollywood is at once both progressive and conservative.
