Page 81 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

0 | Bollywood and the Ind an D aspora

MtV desi: Misreading desi youth Culture
People of South Asian origin use the term “desi” to refer to each other—it means “from
the homeland,” but also positions one as South Asian outside the geographic area of South
Asia. Identifying “desis” as a niche market, MTV Networks launched an on-demand channel
called MTV Desi in July 2005 with content that was a mix of Bollywood music, Indi-pop (pop-
ular music produced both within the Indian subcontinent and in the diaspora), and shows
sourced from MTV India.
Eighteen months later, MTV Networks pulled the plug on MTV Desi, admitting that the
“premium distribution model for MTV Desi proved more challenging than anticipated.”
However, given the image of South Asians as affluent minorities, and the logics of the tele-
vision marketplace in the United States, where niche marketing to racial and ethnic minori-
ties is seen as sound business strategy, it would seem that MTV Desi did nothing wrong in
identifying its market. It seems MTV Desi failed to strike a chord among viewers because it
had misread desi youth culture.
There are two important lessons that emerge from the MTV Desi experiment that high-
light the complex and hybrid nature of diaspora cultures. First, MTV Desi failed to recognize
that desi identity has been shaped as much by mainstream American popular culture as by
“Indian” influences. While Bollywood and bhangra music may serve as a resource for desi
youth to define their identity in relation to ethnic and racial categories in the United States,
they are not all-encompassing. Second, MTV Desi did not realize that there is no nostalgia
for the homeland among desi youth who grew up in the United States. MTV Desi, at the end
of the day, may have appealed more to expatriate Indians who grew up with MTV India than
to second-generation desis.
In fact, in an MTV Desi video clip that circulated widely, a 20-something desi said as much:
“You are not an Indian . . . you are desi. You are of South Asia, not from South Asia . . . you don’t
speak Hindi or Gujarati or Urdu . . . you don’t know the backstreets of Karachi or Bombay.”
Desi tastes and needs, as MTV Desi realized, are formed at the intersection of several differ-
ent flows of popular culture and these cannot always be mapped neatly in national terms.

Further, in recent years, Bollywood’s convergence with the Internet has made
overseas audiences an integral part of the film industry. In addition to watch-
ing films, they are able to access content and participate in a national culture
in a more direct and immediate fashion than was previously possible. In other
words, new media have further reduced the time-lag between India and the di-
aspora where Bollywood is concerned. Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) are now
part of the same cultural space as Indians within India. The question is, are all
NRIs part of this global cultural space that is being defined by Bollywood? What
are the exclusions built into this notion of cultural citizenship?

ThE LimiTs oF CuLTuraL CiTizEnshiP
First, it is important to recognize that Bollywood is only one of several film
industries in India. While Bollywood is certainly the most well known outside