Rajinikanth the Indian Superstar

The star as paratext in Tamil film

AvMeenaatchi Saverimuttu

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

Del i serien Asian Celebrity and Fandom Studies

1 471 kr

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Beskrivning

Exploring the career and work of the iconic “superstar” Rajinikanth, this in-depth study examines the ways in which Tamil masala cinema plays with, reflects and comments on its own canon, history and contexts.Taking in the length of Rajinikanth’s career, with a focus on his “golden age” in the 1990s through to his established status as one of the most popular stars of Indian cinema, this book explores the trajectory of his screen image built up through call backs, repeated gags and recurring tropes over several decades. Meenaatchi Saverimuttu demonstrates how Rajinikanth’s films, in reflecting on the star’s cultural position on- and off-screen, contribute to the ever-evolving figure of the Tamil cinema star: a ‘paratext’ in their own right.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2026-10-15
Mått:156 x 234 x 25 mm
Vikt:454 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Asian Celebrity and Fandom Studies
Antal sidor:224
Förlag:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN:9781350449466

Utforska kategorier

Film inom Kultur

Mer om författaren

Meenaatchi Saverimuttu is a Lecturer at Cardiff University, UK. She has expertise in film studies, stardom and fan studies, gender and queer theory and postcolonial theory. Her work on race and gender politics in Tamil cinema has been featured in the edited collection Tamil Cinema in the 21st Century: Politics, Genre and Technology (2021) edited by Selvaraj Velayutham and Vijay Devadas and Bioscope: South Asian Cinema Studies. Her forthcoming book Rajinikanth, Self Reflexivity and the Tamil Star as Paratext (Bloomsbury, 2025) combines contemporary stardom, fandom and film studies to conceptualise Tamil stars as cumulative paratexts, separate from both the offscreen star and their onscreen character. These paratexts exist across the stars career and are easily uncoupled from individual films to be referenced by fans and film texts alike.

Recensioner i media

'A theoretically innovative study, attentive to both aesthetic form and affective resonance, shows how the enduring star power of Tamil film icon Rajinikanth emerges through self-reflexivity, citationality, and the embodied energies of collective diasporic spectatorship, making a distinctive contribution to Tamil cinema scholarship.'

Innehållsförteckning

AcknowledgementsIntroductionPart 1: Introduction: Nativity, Self-Reflexivity and the Masala GenreChapter 1: Key Tropes and ProcessChapter 2: Rajini, Masala and Native identity: Annamalai (1992) and Padayappa (1999)Chapter 3: Adapting Rajini in the Works of S. Shankar: Sivaji (2007) and the Enthiran Duology (2010, 2018)Part 2: Introduction: Nostalgia, Paratext and PoliticsChapter 4: Reintroducing Rajinikanth: Kabali (2016) and Kaala (2018)Chapter 5: Revisiting Rajinikanth: Petta (2019)Chapter 6: Competing Paratexts and Rajinikanth Proxies in Darbar (2020)Postscript: The Future of the Star ParatextBibliographyIndex