| Title | : | New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi and K-Pop |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1733623701 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781733623704 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 150 |
| Publication | : | Published September 24, 2019 |
Acclaimed author Fatima Bhutto profiles Shah Rukh Khan, by many measures the most popular movie star in the world; goes behind the scenes of Magnificent Century, Turkey’s biggest TV show, watched by upwards of 200 million people across 43 countries; and travels to South Korea to see how K-Pop started it all, and how “Gangnam Style” became the first YouTube video with one billion views.
New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi and K-Pop Reviews
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If there was a rating below 1, I would gladly have given it. Bhutto neither knows anything about (any) entertainment industry nor shows any desire to know. She is infuriatingly vapid here. There is no K-Pop, J-Pop, stuff from China and southeast asian countries, her focus is on geo-politics not entertainment industry, and she gets that wrong too connecting wild theories together without proof (see reading updates below for examples of everything she gets wrong.) She should stick to fiction. The editor at Columbia (if any) should have checked this book for facts - hard-pressed to find any. Bhutto came to this project with a preconceived notion of a) appeasing the indian disapora abroad (who are the only reason why indian industry has a market abroad. White dudes in U.S. and Europe are not watching ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’), b) mixing current realities of Indian politics, Modi and rise of Hindutva, with anything and everything in indian films (almost like throwing all to the wall to see which idea sticks), and c) hitching a ride with SRK on a helicopter because nothing sells a book quite like an exclusive interview with SRK (or to lend an authenticity to a ‘global’ project by talking to an indian superstar, to the point that the whole project loses it’s purpose: which was to find out the reason why korean, japanese, turkish, and indian entertainment has reach / appeal outside their native countries.) I won’t be surprised if this whole book came about at Columbia over tea and scones, googling most of the stuff. So out went the reasons for alternative world where K-J-Asian music / dramas / films hold more power than Hollywood. Unlike indian films, k-dramas are not being watched by just koreans. She probably doesn't know but even China has it’s own base that Hollywood has been unable to crack - and it ain’t the fault of Mao Tze Tung or skewed lenses of Hollywood! All these have a huge market and audience in english and non-english-speaking worlds - i.e. in south asia, southeast asia, australia, middle east, and europe, where subtitled/ dubbed-in-english versions are seen, usually via the internet. I am not even going to start on spanish / norwegian / european fringe work. Bhutto is a rudderless, clueless ship going through a magical ocean sifting the air and mistaking it for the wind, forest and soul of creative, lucrative places. I consider this book to be myopic, a discriminatory, racist, ignorant, virtue-signaling, propagandist farce.
What made me even more mad is her lack of knowledge on Pakistan's entertainment industry - even TV! What the hell?!
She spends most of the book lamenting the current political status of muslims, talking about 3 muslim countries (all in relation to one star of one country), she is fixated with the idea that muslims created entertainment as kings and were great as kings and now like to watch kings on tv and admire kings of cinema. This is as cliched and stereotypical a colonial concept as it gets. In her mind, U.S. is the center of the universe which has come to recognize the power of k-pop, hindi cinema, etc. - quite ignoring / not knowing the fact that many countries' entertainment culture has been seen, heard, loved and copied for decades now all over the world. Just because U.S. daily news and nightly shows, and bhutto, didn't know about it doesn't mean it didn't have a huge fan base in U.S. and the world for 30-60 years.
Her focus for majority of this book is the cinematic career and political stances of the three khans of india from the 90s (salman khan, aamir khan, & SRK) - only because of their 'muslim-ness' - and I found it deeply offensive when she assumes that their popularity is due to muslim fans (and hence, not hindus in india) and does not even acknowledge the pluralistic nature of cinema or production houses that worked with each. It shocked me that she knew nothing about their films in 30-plus-years careers, political statements that each have made over the years, personal lives and image-brands that they developed and have come to signify or fan bases - let alone anyone else's. Indeed, by her own admission, she only saw SRK's films a week before she had to interview him - seven - and then asks him 'why can't the bollywood hero catch a break? why does he have to sacrifice?' (the book is full of this kind of inane, unfounded, pseudo-intellectual tripe - for e.g. she doesn't say which films she saw, but of the 100 films SRK has starred and cameoed in, he had an incurable disease in just one - KHNH, kills himself in another - Dil Se, and is thrown in jail for life in Veer Zara; so i don't know where bhutto gets the idea of his or any other hero's sacrifices from?!) She also credits him for knowing that 'the new world order accommodates violent confrontation' by picking psychotic roles in early films (!) Considering SRK came after the end of cold war, fall of berlin wall and afghan war (not that war or peacetime has anything to do with how or which indian films get made), and had zero choice over what he was offered in the beginning (psychotic roles were a fad at the time) and has played negative characters exactly 5 times in the last 27 years, this book is full of nonsensical, baseless assertions. His image has always been that of an indian, not hindu or muslim - this is something bhutto is unable to grasp. She is quick to correlate the 'rise' of khans with the rise of hindutva (!) - in her view, this was cinematic india's way of compensating muslims for ayodhya and political rise of hinduism - quite ignoring cinematic realities of 90s, other extremely popular non-muslim actors before, during and since these khans, the underworld (muslim) mafia's support for cinema, growing nexus of political and business leaders with actors, extortion rackets that killed people like gulshan kumar, opening up of private-sector entertainment market in india and impact of globalization; she is obsessed with the idea of how muslim their brand is or films are; she confidently (and incorrectly) says salman khan had a 'muslim identity' in his films (which she thinks means 'not being pushed around by a woman') and that aamir khan didn't overtly express himself as a muslim and has pro-modi persona (she quotes demonetization, but doesn't know about his statements on dam-building, religious intolerance, lynchings, or his Hajj, or the fact that he is the only actor to do a live charity marathon on GEO TV from dubai during mangal panday days). To her, what matters more is whether they were muslim enough on screen or not. She has no basis to say any of this, quotes no sources for this analysis, is factually wrong, and frankly, is extremely annoying. I doubt she has seen any of their films or read any interviews, or has seen any other indian film of any other actor either. Not that it matters, but salman khan's film-image is that of the ever-green child-man doing the right thing, a perennially under-rated and scandal-ridden actor who got his first Filmfare award as 'best supporting actor' for KKHH, 10 years after entry into films; aamir khan's brand as the 'perfectionist' took 12-years and one 'Lagaan,' he pooh-poohs Filmfare but goes to Oscars, developing himself as the conscience of indian civil society; this is all to make money and stay relevant in the age of celebrity culture; the only time salman khan played the 'muslim card' is when he got into trouble with the law, same as sunjay dutt (the no.1 actor in 92-93), same as SRK who played it into a controversy during MNIK's promotions (only because he understands the power of click bait & 24-hour news cycle.) Basically this is an author who doesn't even know indian cinema's history, actors and films' trajectory, or the corporatization of celebrity culture, migrant population in africa, europe and america, support to local businesses through star appearances, and universal themes (sports, war, love, poverty) and enduring popularity of musicals, that is directly responsible for global mass appeal of indian films, the centerpiece of this exercise.
I also found her assertion that 'the same forces that brought SRK into limelight are now trying to dismantle him' as deeply racist. SRK has had 25 years of superstardom. He's 53. Everyone's popularity wanes with time - that's the nature of showbiz and future of any 'no.1 actor.' His last big hit was 6 years ago (Chennai Express.) but he still is the no.1 go-to guy for adverts and promotions and speaking engagements (personally, I think he should break the shackles and do pretty woman, the wedding singer, the best offer, korean happy endeu, new world, ji sung's secret love, japanese departures, french tell no one, etc. with non-hindi directors, but that would dampen his ability to sell stuff.) I wonder what bhutto would have made of Rajesh Khanna's debacle in '74 or Amitabh Bachchan's lean years in '80s? Would she have suggested that some grand conspiracy brought an adopted child of nobodies (rajesh khanna) into limelight and then threw an educated middle-class hindu (bachchan) at him only to cast him aside for a muslim boy from delhi's ghettos (SRK)? This is not the way cinema is read or thought or seen and bhutto should use common sense / know better. Very inappropriate.
She thinks anti-pakistan sentiment in india is due to Modi. She apparently doesn't know that indian news channels have always followed the establishment's foreign policy narrative, just like media in u.s., uk and france follows their state's policies: for e.g. i have never seen a u.s. current affairs show being pleasant about iran, cuba, russia or china or criticizing israel. She also has a very skewed view on actors / actresses who praise modi or shout anti-pakistan slogans. India is a country where art is respected, artists are worshipped, revered, emulated. So many actors have had political leanings, participated in elections, campaigned for a party, and now, with the celebrity-fixation of news media, big business and big money, and advent of social media, artists routinely have to show their opinion on matters of 'national interest.' Why would an indian take the side of pakistan in pulwama or uri or other attacks? It's very immature of her to expect that. Unlike pakistanis, who got to see indian films through decades of smuggling and developed a sense of kinship with indian stars and culture (the films helped 'humanize' indians to pakistanis), all that indian people have seen (and have been shown) is pakistan's army, isi, hafiz saeed and 3-4 terror attacks in indian cities that their security apparatus blames pakistan for. Of course they'll hate pakistan. It's unfair, but there it is. The popularity and reach of our TV dramas is exaggerated in this book. Their films have always portrayed pakistanis as terrorists or caricature of luknow muslims! (they don't know us at all.)
As for her 'interview' with SRK, Pakistan has the unique distinction, in my opinion (and I, unlike Bhutto know what I am talking about) of taking the 4 worst interviews ever of SRK, all marred by the self-involved / obsessed interviewees who had done zero research on him: Three were taken in Dubai during promotion of SRK-Kajol starrer ‘Dilwale’ by Hum, Samaa TV channels: host Sanam Jung kept telling Shahrukh how she had been offered indian films and she didn’t do them for abc reasons, host Shaista Lodhi kept talking about how she keeps her skin youthful and what she eats, host Sahir Lodhi kept talking about how his career has closely resembled that of SRK, how he was an RJ when he played one in Dil Se etc. REALITY CHECK: WHO GIVES A ___ ?! You have once-in-a-lifetime 20-minute opportunity to sit and talk to this guy, be useful, FGS! GEO TV’s current affairs host Hamid Mir did the fourth cringe-inducing interview during promotion of ‘Fan’ (where SRK kept his dark, black glasses on the entire time.)
Bhutto joins this esteemed panel as the fifth, not because she is self-involved - she isn’t - but for her lack of research into the shrewd, workaholic businessman sitting across from her, who is sounding bored of her breezy questions (an expression he has carried for 20 years now, nothing rattles him anymore.) She doesn't even know the basics: he is never on time, usually late by 2-4 hours everywhere (he once famously said 'time starts when i enter the room') and is perturbed that she has to 'wait.' Her capacity to create illusions of depth is limited to connecting two totally different and non-linear events together and justifying her thoughts as truths, ignoring the subject-matter entirely. Reading her exasperating non-interview with SRK is like reading about the chemical process of paint drying infinitum. It’s not even an interview on the topic of the book, more like sharing a helicopter ride with one of the biggest superstars in the world while he's working, and getting to write exactly that in a ham of a book. (SRK reportedly got a crore-plus for an hour's work on the Egytpian-you're-punked-fake-reality tv show, which she, of course, doesn't know, nor asks; she is more concerned that SRK will not eat his eggs, if she doesn't have some - WT-?! Okay, maybe she IS self-involved too.)
For those keeping track, the sixth worst interview was done by Zainab Badawi for BBC’s Hard Talk who kept talking (quite unnecessarily) about objectification of women in his films (he kept sighing as if tired of her questions.)
If the book is about SRK’s rise, then ask him relevant hard-hitting questions for example: This is a guy who has mastered the art of saying nothing while saying a lot, so I don’t know, anything is better than SRK casually asking his manager which movie he is referring to. Snooze Fest.
If the book is about why indian films / industry has a market outside india, then she could’ve easily spoken to a distributor / Yash Raj production house / guys at Netflix and Amazon / diaspora to give her an idea. Over the phone. From NYC. Having tea and scones.
What Turkish superstar Halit Ergenc (brushed off over cold tea in a cafe') tells Bhutto is gold and really what is going on in terms of popularity of turkish / korean stuff globally: while hollywood is fluff, fast and meaningless, full of repetitious, good-bad, white-black world (yet another legal / medical / LEA / sports drama, countless love-problem sitcoms), these focus on emotions, human element and fallibility of people - their greyness is celebrated. Nothing is black and white in their world. No hero is totally good. They are not afraid of the mess of war, history, politics, culture and what it means for their people. They are unapologetic of the past. They tell it like it is - most of the time (season 2 of a turkish drama almost always goes off track into soap operatic, melo territory. koreans and japanese are already melo from the start.) Family, relationships and respect for seniors at work is important. It's almost an eastern thing which west will never understand. Of course, Bhutto doesn't get it.
Unfortunately, this book is about what Bhutto thinks has happened in indian politics with the re-election of Modi; what she thinks has happened in Turkish politics; korean politics is not mentioned; what she thinks has happened in Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; what she thinks has happened in Pakistani politics. Truth, facts, pop culture and cinema play the role of an extra here (a backup dancer nobody knows, notices or remembers.)
Some of the stuff she gets wrong / is lazy about, in updates below (because frankly, there is so much of history / people / actors / countries / entertainment that she does not know, and simply assumes - every second line is factually incorrect - that after a while it got tiring to try to fix it.): -
So it might seem stange that an American, small town white girl would be bursting to talk Bollywood, Turkish Dizi, and K-Pop with you all but it really doesn't seem so strange after reading this book. In 2001 I had the absolute pleasure to see Monsoon Wedding in my local cinema. I loved everything, from the culture to the colours and music. I hurried to my local Blockbuster which had VHS copies of Asoka and Lagaan. My love for Bollywood was born not to mention my love for the two biggest Khans, Shah Rukh and Aamir. I spent hours on ebay to win auctions of DVDs and devoured them. After being raised on musicals my whole life it was the best thing ever. I think things reached a pinnacle when I got to see Main Hoon Na in the cinema and subscribed to a filmi magazine shipped from India.
Then in 2007 I moved to Turkey for seven years where even the American shows are dubbed in Turkish so why not just watch the Turkish ones. My absolute favourite was Öyle Bir Geçer Zaman ki, but I loved Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century) too and even ran in to Hürrem one evening in Taksim. I had a dizi that filmed in the apartment building across from me one year (Melekler Korusun), a friend who wrote for diziler, and we had a night out with one of the main cast members from Fatmagül'ün Suçu Ne. As a a funny tie in I also took a Bollywood dance class at the Indian Cultural Centre in Istanbul.
So, on to New Kings of the World! This was such a fun and fascinating read. In all the years of loving Bollywood I never gave any thought to how much the politics of the region played a part in what films were made and what the heroes were portrayed as. Fatima Bhutto gives us the front row tickets to it all with her insights of the region and plenty of humour too. The byline of this book calls it "dispatches" and that is what it is. This isn't a comprehensive media history by any means but it is conversations, interviews, and anecdotes about some of the much loved stars of Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop. She even got to spend two days with the King, Shah Rukh Khan, while he filmed an Egytian television show. It was hilariously madcap! I found the chapter about the popularity of Bollywood and especially Shah Rukh Khan in Peru to be especially interesting.
The next section about Turkish Dizi was equally fun to read. How it has spread being very much linked to geography and similar cultural values, and then how in recent years it has fallen out of some favour in the Arab world but still is immensely popular. The K-Pop section at the end was quite short but I still learned a lot. I now have some good bands to check out and I liked that Korean dramas growing in popularity was mentioned too as it is something I have noticed recently.
Thank you so much to Columbia Global Reports and Fatima Bhutto for my review copy. Opinions are all my own. UK release date: 10 October -
The travel magazine Afar sends writers on a trip to an undisclosed location at a very short notice and asks them to write about their experience for a section called Spin the globe. Fatima Bhutto's New Kings of the World is from a series of books by publishers at Columbia Global Reports that adapts a somewhat similar format. The publication sends writers around the world to produce slim volumes of books mostly to report on culture and politics (which is why the book is slim in nature, designed to attract the millennial with increasingly lesser and lesser attention spans). Bhutto's New Kings of the World traces the soft powers of the (third? may be not entirely) world from Bollywood to Turkish TV series to K-Pop sensations. Filled with terrific insights and observations, Bhutto's book carries more anthropological depth and is free from the navel-gazing usually associated with travel writing. She writes about how these soft power moguls navigate the tricky political landscape filled with unseen landmines that could be set off anytime for reasons not related to their content (for ex, Saudi Arabia banned Turkish TV series to get at Turkey for helping Qatar during the recent middle east crisis). Bhutto digs out nuggets after nuggets of information with the ability of an established journalist and the expertise of a tremendous storyteller, which she already is.
PS: Received an advance review copy from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review. -
I generally enjoy reading books about (the influence of) pop culture, so I enjoyed reading this one too. I already knew about Bollywood and Kpop, but had no idea about Dizis. Though the book doesn't delve much into Dizis, it is a good introduction to the world of Turkish TV shows if you are completely unfamiliar with them. The Kpop section is extremely short; I wish it was (much) longer. Half of the book is about Bollywood, rather Shahrukh Khan, but I am not complaining because who doesn't love King Khan?
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It was the century of blue jeans, Coca-Cola and Madonna. America was the barometer of cool. Where we sat in relation to its impulses, determined our proximity to modernity.
But it’s no longer the 20th century. The world has changed. American prestige has been replaced by Donald Trump. Africa is awash with zombie flicks from Nigeria or soapies from South Africa. The Asia Pacific region is seeing Indonesian cinema like never before.
In an increasingly multipolar world, with multiple actors pushing multiple agendas, the idea of American culture as the arbiter of our cultural universe is over. And in her new book, New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi and K-Pop, novelist and journalist Fatima Bhutto details the "new" cultural phenomena rising from the east, and sweeping the globe.
Hollywood may not yet be dead, but Turkish shows - popularly known as Dizi - Bollywood or Hindi popular cinema, and South Korean pop music, known affectionately as K-Pop, are at the forefront of challenging the mystique of American soft power, Bhutto writes in three essays that make up the book.
“To be American is no longer to belong to a vaunted, cultural elite,” she writes in her book, written as a light but thoughtful introduction to the new cultural motifs of our time.
For the full review on Middle East Eye:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/discove... -
Lacks the depth that I was expecting.
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An excellent addition to the Columbia Global Reports, New Kings of the World” focuses on the cases studies of the three entertainment behemoths that while lightly influenced by American culture at times, are unique in the markets that they arise from: Bollywood movies, Dizi serials, and K-Pop music.
As someone who watches Bollywood movies, Dizi serials and listens to K-Pop occasionally, Bhutto does an excellent job with the linkages between development and the current politic of the nations of India and Turkey, emerging second world nations that are flexing their soft power in their regions of influence and surpassing the United States in areas of entertainment and pop culture that have been traditional fiefdoms for Western entertainment.
As a member of the Desi diaspora, Bollywood movies and music are one of the earliest and easiest connections that I can retain to the subcontinent and culture - granted, a culture that is seen through a specific lens and trope to be packaged and utilized to be an ideal of what I experience and see at home and in my community.
The Turkish Dizi, while a great avenue to pick up the Turkish language, also provides much needed familiarity as a practicing a Muslim. While most Dizi showcase secular Turks who are understood for the most part to the be culturally Muslim, the faith is rarely shown from a practicing perspective - but the themes are taken from the Qur’an, the Hadith, Sunnah, and religious practices developed by the Ottomans and the Turks to fit their society - still packaged better and more accessible even as an American Muslim Desi watching them with subtitles.
Though the book only covers K-Pop towards the epilogue, and most of the book is dedicated to Bollywood, it is a good gateway book for the subject, and I enjoyed the critical analysis and linkage to Indian and Turkish politics as I watched these mediums (especially Dizi such as Hercai, Sen Cal Kapimi, Sefirin Kizi, Erkenci Kus, etc) -
Extremely well-researched and detailed, Bhutto gets into the nitty-gritty of what makes Bollywood, Dizi and K-pop tick, particularly to audiences outside of their respective home countries. While I wish the chapter on Dizi was slightly shorter (and the one on K-pop slightly longer), the icing on the cake is an exclusive interview with SRK and a brief insight into what a day with him entails. Fresh off the hype of Pathaan, this was just what I needed.
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Enjoyed the Bollywood part and the hilarious footnotes.
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Thank you to the publisher for providing me for an advance copy of the book to read and review.
In New Kings of the World, Bhutto takes us on a tour of the three cultural phenomena that are poised to overthrow the US's worldwide intellectual dominance. Although US music and fashion still maintain a large share of the market, youth populations in other areas of the world struggle to reconcile the disconnect between popular culture and their own cultures. K-pop, dizis (Turkish dramas) and Bollywood provide a solution to the problem by allowing people to consume media with themes and values more similar to their own. From Shah Rukh Khan fan clubs in South America to dizi viewing parties among the Syrian refugee population in Lebanon these "New Kings of the World" are a solid middle ground, and in many cases, they're an example of how other countries can create entertainment industries without abandoning their traditions.
Bhutto's book was well-written and informative. She includes interviews not only from those making the media but also from those consuming it. Because the situation is not black and white, Bhutto explains the politics surrounding the different forms of media, debunking the notion that "west is best" while also listing reasons some people might still believe that it is.
I would like to give New Kings of the World a higher rating, but while illustrating the relationship between culture and religion, Bhutto writes that Muslims talk to God /through/ the Prophet or other intermediaries such as saints. This is not only incorrect, it's a grave sin in Islam. I'm not the person who believes in one particular version of Islam, but there are certain things that are expressly forbidden and talking "through" someone is one of them. This passage made me doubt the validity of the research, but enough of the information lined up with my own research that I trust the book overall and I even recommend it to others. -
Bhutto's New Kings of the World is an interesting dip into the shift of soft power from Western media to the East, including Bollywood, K-Pop and Turkish Dizi. Unfortunately, it suffers from being much too short (150 pages) for the subject matter it promises to explore. Consider this an introduction to the shift from Western popular culture rather than an in-depth dive. Taken as an introduction, this is a four-star book. If you're looking for a little more substance, however, I would not recommend.
Thank you to Fatima Bhutto, Columbia Global Reports, and Netgalley for allowing me to access a digital copy of this book in advance of its release. As always, all opinions are my own. -
This book advertises itself as a book about Bollywood, dizi, and kpop, but really it's just a book about Bollywood, which is unfortunate since I wanted to read about kpop. The book is also so disjointed that I'm uncertain I know what point the author was trying to make.
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People seem surprised that Fatima Bhutto wrote this book because she is associated with 'serious' journalism and fiction that tackle hard-hitting subjects like politics, identity and radicalism. But New Kings of the World, which focuses on the rise of Bollywood, dizi (Turkish TV shows) and K-pop (South Korean pop), is actually not as fluffy as it appears at first glance.
Don't get me wrong- it is an accessible and highly entertaining read. But it is also an investigative exploration of global culture that asks big questions: how is the axis of power shifting away from the West and the US in particular? and how is culture and soft power playing a role in this?
The book highlights that these cultural phenomena have a reach way beyond their borders (eg. the popularity of Bollywood in Peru thousands of miles away); dizi providing solace and entertainment in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon; or the popularity of K-pop internationally started by hits like Gangnam Style.
In the section on Bollywood I enjoyed how Bhutto linked the political and socio-economic developments in India to Bollywood eg the 50s and 60s being focused on nation building; the 'angry young man' (Amitabh Bachan) of the 70s who captured the disenchantment people felt with state corruption and ineptitude; neoliberal forces taking root in the 90s and early 2000s that made a western liberal lifestyle aspirational. Her outlook on present-day Bollywood is a bit grim, eg the links to the state's Hindu nationalist agenda, but I think she glosses over recent developments which I find heartening such as female directors and producers coming into the fray; films taking on unconventional topics and wider conversations around equal pay, nepotism and #metoo. -
Fatima Bhutto's exploration into the ongoing destabilization of American superiority in pop culture is an interesting, feet-on-the-ground look at two of the most prominent forms that have swept non-English speaking countries, Bollywood and Dizi, and while K-Pop is in the title its inclusion feels more like an addendum than a solid part of the work as a whole, excluded only to an epilogue in comparison the 160 pages that cover the former two subjects that make up the majority of the text.
It's very interesting, Bhutto charts the history of 21st Century Bollywood cinema with an eye that highlights the way it is hindered and aided by the increasingly powerful far-right presence in India, and the compromised situation that an industry built on nepo-babies finds itself in when faced with something more abjectly dark. The conflicted love and awareness of form is familiar to all those that find themselves interested in Indian cinema. It's from this point that we get an interesting day with SRK and then head towards Turkey to learn about the Dizi industry.
I was aware of but intimately familiar with the Dizi phenomena before reading this book and the insight it has supplied me, (as well as points into Pakistani television) have fascinated me and bulked up my watchlist. As with Bollywood, Bhutto does well to contextualize the rise of Dizi with the wider political situation surrounding not just Turkey but other Turkic countries, offering great insight into the lack of importance in appeasing English-speaking audiences and the struggles dramas face while trying to be engaging and, often, conservative in values. -
Disclaimer: I received this as an eARC via NetGalley in partnership with the publisher, for a fair and unbiased review.
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Given that my obsession with Bollywood is relatively new (in the last 2 years) and dizi (the last year), and I sort of fell into them, I figured this would be worth the read. If you don’t already have some sort of context for the Bollywood overuse of SRK, then a lot will be lost on the reader. Her goal of talking about three topics was a bit lofty, and the latter two (K-Pop and Dizi) didn’t receive nearly as much due diligence as the section about Bollywood, Indo-Pakistani political relations, and Shah Rukh Khan.
“Dispatch” is definitely a good word for this, but I think it would’ve been better if each topic had its own “dispatch” book/feature; the brevity of dizis and K-pop leads to believe that she just didn’t have the resources and time to dedicate to really go in-depth like she could have (granted, K-Pop is also new, in comparison to the other two). I will say, I greatly appreciated and enjoyed her inclusion of political context for the countries and how it affected culture/social situations, and references to different movies and dizis (more to add to my list!). For someone who wants context before they dive into the world of Bollywood, this is would be a decent source with which to start. -
I would gladly recommend this book to those who are into popular culture. It's mostly about how popular culture from the global south has gained foothold around the world. Discussion of each popular culture mentioned in the book would require many books. This book is a bit short to include all the details but it's still a good introduction and has some interesting findings when highlighting the spread of these popular cultures.
The first section of the book is about Bollywood. I'm pretty well-versed with the basics of Bollywood so that part is just fine. The trickier part is the recent development. It's probably hard for people who don't follow closely enough to understand the rightward tilt described in the book. (But as somebody who follows quite closely and agrees with the author, I feel weirdly comforted and assured seeing some worrying observations put into words.)
The gold is really in the second part. Fatima Bhutto explained Turkish TV drama, dizi, which is huge and being broadcast and remade far beyond Turkey. It was very interesting to learn about this thing you have not heard about. I'm now very interested in checking out the dizis mentioned in the book.
Things I don't necessarily like..... one or two small mistakes with facts in the first part on Bollywood. And the conclusion that the next big pop culture will be coming from China.... It's a sensible guess but I have my own bias. (And the fact that there's no major Chinese popular culture export up to now is telling enough.)
It's a quick read and you can even pick just the part you're interested in and read selectively. Would highly recommend it. -
Ok, this was bad. More than half of the book was her drooling over some random Bollywood star, including anecdotes of how watching his movies has literally saved people's lives. Cultist much?
Her narration was so convoluted that I couldn’t follow with half of it. I am still struggling to understand why she saw the need to list the full filmography of three actors (including the movie name in every possible language, the characters they played, who acted in the films with them, etc), without making a point other than “oh, yeah, they’re huge movie stars!” Like, no tea, no shade, but if I wanted to read the IMDB profile of someone I’ve never heard before prior to this book, I would have just done that. Not only that, but I’m sure IMDB would go through it in an orderly way, not in a mind-numbing back-and-forth style full of irrelevant data and acronyms that literally don’t build up to anything but number of pages.
There was also a bit of info on dizis which is also not groundbreaking or clear, and with no purpose other than describing the plot of each of them in great detail. Honey, I have Wikipedia for that.
I’m sad to have acquired this book digitally, I’m sure I could have used it better considering the pandemic’s toilet paper shortage. -
Before this book, I'd never heard of Dizi. I certainly didn't know that there exist TV shows out there that have weekly episodes that run for two hours. Still can't wrap my head around that. For that alone, I'm grateful for this book for expanding my mind to new things.
Having said that, this is barely a book. I'm into Bollywood, so it's not so surprising that I didn't learn a lot from the Bollywood chapter, but I pretty much don't know any K-pop bands outside of BTS, and I still didn't feel I learned anything new from the K-pop chapter. And now that I think of it, the K-pop chapter probably doesn't belong in the book, which I guess is why there was some Olympic-level contortion in the Afterforward to make it fit into the story.
All in all, if you don't know anything about Bollywood or Dizi or K-pop, then -- yes? But even that I'm not so sure because it's not quite 101.
Oh well... -
In addition to exploring and explaining the origins and evolution of three modes of “soft power” (i.e., cultural rather than political influence) from Asia, Bhutto also shows the ways in which economic, cultural, and political forces shape these modes and the values they express. Not much on K-pop, however, compared to the chapters on Bollywood films and Turkish dizi soap operas, but what Bhutto gleans from her research accords with her longer profiles of Bollywood and dizi: Long on placing family interest above self-interest; esteeming hard work and honesty; and being something the entire family can enjoy together. Not surprisingly, there’s a fair amount of tension between these traditional values as acted out and the lives lead by those doing the acting (and singing).
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I loved it, but I think the title is a bit misleading (hence 4 stars). 2/3 of the content focused on the genesis of Bollywood and how it reflected India's progression as a neoliberal state and its effects on South Asian geopolitics.
Based off of Fatima's talks, I assumed that K-Pop, more than Bollywood or Turkish dizis, was a perfect storm of colonial history, heavily Westernized culture, and neoliberalism...but that was squeezed into the last 10% of the book. -
Fun and interesting read! I will say, there’s some pretty basic stuff that the author gets wrong about Bollywood that even I know as a full on westerner (but Bollywood fan!). So it makes me wonder a little bit about nuances missed in the Turkey and Korea sections. But it was fascinating analysis and such a great interview with SRK!
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I was excited to get hold of this book since knowing about its release. I appreciate that Fatima has researched and spent time to get this together, it does impart information but the subjects are too vast to cover in 200 pages, maybe one subject would take that much space. Still wasn’t disappointed.
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I generally enjoy analyses about the rise of soft power from the east and this book does a good job in that. However, there are some issues. Exploring Bollywood, Dizi, and Kpop, and the order they are explored in, while certainly significant in popular culture, has not been justified sufficiently in the book. The book overall lacks depth and counter-narratives have been somewhat overlooked.
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Well written, easy to read, slyly funny, global whirl-wind tour of contemporary movies, tv, and pop music beyond the pale first world bubble, following the trail of Bollywood to South American fandom, through to Turkish TV epics, and on to K-Pop. Pull your head out of your phone and let this book remap your world.
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Immersive, funny and a true learning experience. A wonderful observation of soft power and its future directions. But it was finding out how people across the world connect to and find meaning in bollywood, K-pop and dizi that was most touching.
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Unlike American music and movies, which have became the go to international media in terms of popularity and cultural hegemony, regional entertainment market wasn't able to penetrate the world. But its not so safe to use the term 'world' here as unknowingly its succumbing to the notion that to call something international it needs western approval. However, its safe to say that none were able to capture that market for a long time, leaving Hollywood and its products hegemonic. Bhutto's book examines the influence of three main cultural forces (Bollywood, Dizi and K-Pop) outside their countries of origin in places where its replacing the hegemony of western media. And how they are capturing the aspirations and artistic needs of people in ways their own mainstream media fails to do.
However, for an ambitious title that seems to span the whole planet, New Kings mostly remain as new kings of the non western world, more like a small subset of non western world in my opinion. The first part on commercial Indian cinema, or Bollywood as it is popularly known, opens with popularity of same and the actors in Pakistan regardless industry's Indian base. It is hardly a surprising fact considering how music (Coke studio could be the most contemporary example) and media had always found ways to collaborate and cross borders, regardless the political tensions; much like Cricket. But the way, it was presented was really illuminating. The opening with Raj Kapoor's early family haveli in Dakhi Nalbandi, and him knowing Dilip Kumar while growing up in Qissa Khawani before moving to Bombay, imo, was a stellar ode to the pre partitioned India. She connects the colonial era history to present day with Sharukh Khan - who single handedly takes the bigger chunk of her book - and his ancestral 'Mannat' in Peshawar. There is also a brief glimpse into the history of Hindi cinema and its evolution around communal politics, like 1937's self appointed All India League of Censorship that its aftermath that forced many Muslim actors take Hindu stage names. But it ends rather abruptly, but rightfully, as the focus of the book is on Bollywood's influence in the current world. And this followed my first major gripe with the book, regardless taking more than 70% of the book, it lacks depth.
I have had first hand influence of people referring and singing Hindi songs outside India, which always put a smile on my face; and many a times they were good ice breakers. This made her account of fandom and patronage in West Asia (or Middle East depending on where you live), south America (the account is only limited to Peru if I remember well), and the most well known pre internet connections across the world. This greatly eclipses the influence and exposure of Indian media in Maghreb and rest of Africa (MENA is mentioned, but that was it); or rest of south Asia for that matter. The lack of mention of Ekta Kapoor's perpetualy airing mega serials (though not worth knowing) made the narrative felt shallow. In Ghana, auto rikshaws are known as 'Pragya' after heroine in Ekta's 'Kumkum Bhagya'. Nor was there any mention of 'Caminho das Índias' and Brazil. Also, as in all of her other accounts, the influence and exposure in West are ignored. This lopsideness was visible on the turf author seems to know as well, for example south Asia is only India and Pakistan; also, though weighed on outside influence, Bhutto's acocunt makes one feel like Indian cinema is synonymous with Bollywood which is hardly the case. And even in that she dedictes a long time, and infact a long chapter to Sharukh Khan and her encounter with him; the latter, albeit interesting, felt very misplaced.
Like the book, my review is also sided with the media I am more familiar with. I haven't watched any traditional Turkish Dizi. But I enjoyed the account, esp the popularity and politics of nationalism around it. It almost made me feel like she missed out the chance to write a full book on Bollywood and its influence by adding the politics and identity surroudng it. The part on Dizi infact captured her opening reasoning, that universal appeal of American pop culture had also to do with the lack of availability of other global pop cultures. Its also a bit ironic considering the fact that most of Shahrukh Khan's movies or rather the most popular ones surround the third world elite with means to travel abroad and engage in international consumerism. Anyway, it was not my second major gripe with the book, that was the account on K-pop which was reduced to an epilogue. It did provide a great insight on the context under which K-pop originated, the American military occupation and how their bases formed the 'base' for fusion. The account also gives insight into selection procedure and ugly business behind K-pop bands which works more like talent recruitment and carefully regulated groups from mere asthetics to public life; polar opposite to the concept of bands as we know it. Anyway, the account is more like a long form article, and doesn't justify the title of the book.
Though it aims to be an account on influence of non western media, the book has more Bollywood than the rest, and in that, it has more Sharukh Khan than Bollywood. Still a very fun and easy read.
