Why Inclusion Makes Economic and Cultural Sense: Dissident masculinities in Indian cinema

As Hollywood has displayed, cultural influence can come from the arts. This chapter discusses how cinema in India could be more influential in promoting inclusion and receive greater economic benefits. Studies show that a market is being under served. Films portraying masculinity in different ways sell and could influence acceptance and inclusion while increasing revenue in India’s film industry. This chapter discusses how cinema in India could be more influential in promoting inclusion and receive greater economic benefits. Films portraying masculinity in different ways sell and could influence acceptance and inclusion while increasing revenue in India's film industry. Piracy is one of the most obdurate challenges to the film industry's growth. The implications of this shift resonated most strongly in Bombay, epicenter of the Indian film industry since the 1930s and 1940s. One important illustration of this is the immensely popular LGBTIQ film festival in Mumbai, Kashish. While Gandu is a visually and culturally provocative exception, Rituparno Ghosh's Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish is unusual in its exploration of a dissident masculinity that also affords unaccustomed philosophic pleasures. The author focuses on the project of renaturalization aligns with an important vector in contemporary theory in which the question of "the natural" is being radically rethought, reflecting similar investigation in cognitive science and cybernetics.