ThAct: Postcolonial Studies and cinematic representation

Celluloid Empires and Subaltern Struggles: A Postcolonial Reading of Hollywood, RRR, and Contemporary Resistance

A postcolonial analysis by Dilip Barad of how Hollywood action cinema and Indian blockbuster myth‑making naturalise state power, and how Adivasi, Ladakhi, and Manipuri struggles expose the limits of these hegemonic narratives.

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Introduction

This blog, authored by Dilip Barad, offers a postcolonial critique of how popular cinema and national development narratives manufacture consent for state power. Drawing on Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony and Nye’s concept of soft power, it argues that Hollywood blockbusters like Rambo, James Bond, and Zero Dark Thirty do not merely reflect American values but actively construct a worldview in which U.S. leadership appears natural, moral, and necessary.tandfonline.

Barad extends this framework beyond Hollywood to examine contemporary Indian contexts. He shows how S. S. Rajamouli’s RRR appropriates Adivasi revolutionary figures while reframing their resistance through upper‑caste Hindu iconography, and how “national development” projects such as the Ken‑Betwa river‑linking scheme, Ladakh’s statehood movement, and the Manipur conflict similarly marginalise subaltern voices by recasting complex struggles as security or integration issues.thehindu.

The blog’s central intervention is to link Hollywood’s “celluloid empire” to domestic hegemonies: both turn state interests into common sense, presenting intervention, surveillance, and extractive development as inevitable rather than contested.

Article 1: Heroes or Hegemons? The Celluloid Empire of Rambo and Bond in America's Geopolitical Narrative

Postcolonial Studies and the New Empire: Zero Dark Thirty and Hollywood’s Celluloid Empire

Introducing the article and its core claims

The article Heroes or Hegemons: The Celluloid Empire of Rambo and Bond in America’s Geopolitical Narrative argues that popular Hollywood action cinema functions as a key instrument of U.S. soft power. Its central claim is that films like the Rambo and James Bond franchises do not merely reflect American values; they actively construct a worldview in which U.S. leadership appears natural, moral, and necessary. The author draws on Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony to show how heroism, patriotism, and technological mastery are turned into “common sense” ideas that legitimize intervention, surveillance, and global dominance. In this reading, Rambo and Bond are not just entertainers; they are hegemonic figures whose adventures rehearse a world order centered on American authority.    

While the article focuses on Cold War and post‑Cold War spy/action cycles, its framework is even sharper when applied to post‑9/11 war-on-terror cinema. Films like Zero Dark Thirty (2012) translate the same hegemonic logic into a contemporary idiom: the U.S. as the universal protector of freedom, the “other” as terrorist or chaotic space requiring Western order.    

Key points from the article and their significance

Three points from the article are especially important for a postcolonial reading. First, it situates Hollywood within U.S. soft power, showing how films propagate ideals like liberty, moral authority, and world citizenship to naturalize American dominance in a multipolar world. Second, it uses Gramscian hegemony to explain how dominant groups get consent not only through force but through culture: heroism and patriotism become discursive tools that justify intervention and leadership. Third, it suggests that these narratives turn state interests   regime change, surveillance, extraordinary rendition   into popular “truths” that feel inevitable rather than contested. Together, these claims frame Hollywood as a “celluloid empire” that manufactures consent for U.S. geopolitics.

Postcolonial critique: from heroes to hegemons

A postcolonial reading deepens thisargument by exposing how these films reproduce imperial logics under the guise of entertainment. Zero Dark Thirty positions the United States (or its proxies) as the universal guardian of freedom, while the “other”   often from the Global South   appears as terrorist, rogue state, or chaotic space requiring Western order. This is cultural imperialism in action: the Global North’s media industries set the terms of visibility, heroism, and legitimacy, marginalizing alternative narratives from the periphery.

Zero Dark Thirty and American Exceptionalism

The ideological grammar is consistent: the West acts; the rest reacts. Even when plots are fictionalized, the underlying logic naturalizes practices like drone strikes or regime change as humanitarian duties. Postcolonial theory helps name this as a continuation of empire, now mediated through spectacle, star power, and global distribution networks that make American dominance feel morally right. In this sense, the CIA analyst in Zero Dark Thirty is not just a hero; she is a hegemonic figure whose quest rehearses a world order centered on U.S. authority.

Zero Dark Thirty

Theatrical release poster

Applying the framework to film: Zero Dark Thirty and contemporary resistances

Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the CIA’s hunt for Osama bin Laden as a moral quest led by a determined female analyst. The film’s affective core   torture as “necessary,” patience as virtue, victory as national redemption   aligns neatly with the article’s claim that cinema turns state interests into common sense. Postcolonially, the film erases the human cost of drone strikes, rendition, and occupation by focusing on American subjectivity: the analyst’s grief, resolve, and moral ambiguity become the story, while Pakistani civilians appear as background or threat.

STATEHOOD FOR LADAKH: CONSTITUTIONAL HURDLES AND WAY FORWARD

Yet this hegemonic grammar is not confined to Hollywood. It echoes in how “national development” narratives in India often frame tribal and ecological resistances as obstacles to progress. The Ken-Betwa river-linking project, for instance, is presented as a technocratic solution to water scarcity, while Adivasi and peasant opposition is dismissed as anti-development. Similarly, in Ladakh, demands for statehood and ecological protection are articulated as indigenous autonomy against extractive development, yet they are often recast in national media as security or integration issues. In Manipur, overlapping ethnic, land, and citizenship conflicts reveal how “national” narratives fail to accommodate plural sovereignties, rendering complex local histories as law-and-order problems. A postcolonial critique thus links Hollywood’s celluloid empire to domestic hegemonies: both turn state interests into common sense and marginalize subaltern voices.

ZERO DARK THIRTY - Official US Trailer

Original reflection: empire’s affective economy and counter-cinema

What makes Zero Dark Thirty so effective is not just its plot but its affective economy: it sells empire as feeling good about oneself. Audiences are invited to identify with the analyst’s moral clarity, technological mastery, and willingness to sacrifice   emotions that align neatly with state interests. Postcolonial critique disrupts this by asking: whose safety is prioritized? Whose grief counts? Whose history is erased? In a globalized media landscape, the task is to cultivate counter‑readings and counter‑cinemas that refuse the universalizing claims of Western heroism and make visible the costs of empire for communities in the Global South   and for Adivasi, Ladakhi, and Manipuri peoples whose struggles are similarly depoliticized in national narratives.

Article 2: Reimagining Resistance: The Appropriation of Tribal Heroes in Rajamouli's RRR

Postcolonial Studies and Resistance: Appropriation of Tribal Heroes in RRR

Introducing the article and its core claims

The article Reimagining Resistance: The Appropriation of Tribal Heroes in Rajamouli’s RRR examines how S. S. Rajamouli’s blockbuster RRR appropriates real anti-colonial figures Komaram Bheem (an Adivasi/Gond leader) and Alluri Sitarama Raju into a fictional friendship narrative. Its central claim is that while the film presents itself as a celebration of tribal and anti-colonial resistance, it reframes these struggles through upper-caste Hindu iconography, thereby flattening caste and indigeneity. In postcolonial terms, RRR “writes back” to the British empire but does so through a majoritarian idiom that can silence internal colonizations.

Key points from the article and their significance

Three points from the article are especially important. First, it shows how RRR fuses two historical revolutionaries who never met into a mythic brotherhood, creating an emotionally potent but historically flattened narrative. Second, it argues that the film subsumes Adivasi resistance under upper-caste Hindu symbolism: Bheem’s “Jal, Jangal, Zameen” slogan is rewritten in Devanagari on a white flag, while his political consciousness appears to flow from Raju’s benevolence. Third, it warns that this is not neutral myth-making; it risks reproducing the very hierarchies that Adivasi and Dalit movements contest: the idea that subaltern agency must be authorized by upper-caste guidance. Together, these claims frame RRR as a film that resists one empire while potentially consolidating another what some critics call the “revolution will be Brahminized.”

Postcolonial critique: Brahminization of revolt

RRR is visually spectacular and emotionally compelling, yet its representational choices raise sharp postcolonial questions. By fusing two historical revolutionaries who never met into a mythic brotherhood, the film creates a powerful but historically simplified story. More critically, it subsumes Adivasi resistance under upper-caste Hindu symbolism: Bheem’s “Jal, Jangal, Zameen” slogan is rewritten in Devanagari on a white flag, while his political consciousness appears to flow from Raju’s benevolence.

This is not neutral myth-making. It risks reproducing the very hierarchies that Adivasi and Dalit movements contest: the idea that subaltern agency must be authorized by upper-caste guidance. In postcolonial terms, RRR resists British colonialism but does so through a narrative that can marginalize internal differences of caste, language, and culture. The film’s global success thus complicates the “resistance” label: it resists one empire while potentially consolidating another what some critics call the “revolution will be Brahminized.”

Kantara: A Legend

Theatrical release poster

Applying the framework to film and contemporary struggles

Similar dynamics appear in other recent Indian blockbusters. Analyses of films like Kantara and various mytho-epics note how tribal cosmologies and local histories are repackaged into pan-Indian Hindu narratives, often sidelining community-specific voices. Even when national cinemas “write back” to colonial power, they can be absorbed into global capital’s order, reproducing hegemonic aesthetics and distribution logics.The article’s framework becomes even more urgent when read alongside contemporary tribal and environmental struggles.

Hundred of villagers have gathered inside a protected tiger reserve, begun marching to Delhi, and organised Jal, Mitti and Aakash Satyagrahas, Chula Bandhs and symbolic hangings to protest the river-linking project.

The opposition to the Ken-Betwa river-linking project foregrounds Adivasi claims over land, water, and forest precisely the “Jal, Jangal, Zameen” that RRR aestheticizes but depoliticizes. In Ladakh, demands for statehood and ecological protection articulate indigenous autonomy against extractive development. In Manipur, overlapping ethnic, land, and citizenship conflicts reveal how “national” narratives often fail to accommodate plural sovereignties. A postcolonial cinema attentive to these movements would center subaltern voices, languages, and forms of knowledge rather than folding them into majoritarian myth.

Original reflection: resistance as representation, not spectacle

What RRR reveals is that resistance can be spectacularized without being radicalized. The film’s emotional power comes from its mythic framing, but that same framing risks erasing the specific political demands of Adivasi and Dalit movements. Postcolonial critique asks us to distinguish between representation that empowers and representation that appropriates. In a globalized world where blockbusters travel easily, the task is to cultivate counter-cinemas and counter-readings that keep resistance specific, accountable, and rooted in the communities it claims to represent.

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References 

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