Idealized Bodies – Embodied Ideals: Young Female Audiences and Their (Re)Negotiations of the Bollywood Heroine in Trinidad

Film heroines have been an integral part of Hindi cinema’s long-standing transnational circuits and, in more recent times, of global Bollywood. Due to current changes in the reception context, young audiences in Trinidad are confronted with the need to make meaning of heroines within disjunctive cultural formations, both in negotiating heroines of newly released films as well as renegotiating established icons. This article offers a historical overview of Hindi cinema, related notions of idealized Indian womanhood, and marginalized viewing pleasures. Secondly, drawing on interviews conducted in Trinidad between 2010 and 2013, it gives insights into the signifying practices of young women. The focus is on how young women exert discursive and interpretative power to selectively reconfigure heroines and star texts, thereby signifying Indianness as well as a space to express their desires.