The Middle East is Bollywood’s third largest overseas market and growing so rapidly that many Bollywood movies now hold premiers in Dubai on opening night. Dubai is even erecting a Universal Studios-like Bollywood theme that is expected to be a major draw for regional tourists.
But the Muslim country most in the grip of Bollywood mania is Pakistan, India’s cultural twin in every respect but religion. As with the Beatles under communism, the more aggressively Pakistani authorities have tried to purge Bollywood from their soil, the more its popularity has grown. During the country’s four-decade-long ban on Indian movies, Pakistanis smuggled VHS tapes and installed satellite dishes. When the ban was finally lifted in 2008, the Bollywood scene in Pakistan exploded. Not only have Bollywood movies been playing to packed houses, but Indian movie stars—despite Islam’s taboo against idol worship—are treated like demi-gods. The latest fad among Pakistan’s urban nouveau riche are Bollywood theme weddings in which the bride and groom dress in outfits worn by a movie’s stars and hold their wedding reception in elaborate tents patterned around the movie set.
It is not possible to emulate—and adulate—a cultural form while simultaneously rejecting its message. And Bollywood’s message is as profoundly at odds with the strictures of Islamic extremism as Rock and Roll’s anti-establishment message was with the diktats of Soviet totalitarianism.
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