Digital Popular Culture and Resistance Narratives: A Case Study of Indian Web Series

Abstract

The rise of digital technology in the 21st century signifies a momentous disruption in the way human life is conceived and lived. This transformation is evident in the digital re-imagination of the everyday practices that are a part of the public and private lives of people. Punathambekar and Mohan perceptively argue that “digital is now everywhere, it is simultaneously everywhere, and it is inter-actively everywhere” (26). In this context, this paper attempts to study the OTT (over-thetop) entertainment phenomenon in India and the extent to which it is instrumental in
affecting social transformation by changing and creating discourses around notions of self, society, gender, class, race, and caste. Through a study of highly popular web-series like Panchayat, Four More Shots Please, Indian Matchmaking, and Lust Stories, the paper argues that the digital content produced for the OTT platforms has disrupted the manner in which formulaic tropes of mainstream Bollywood cinema have operated. Instead, through a novel representation of characters and themes, transformational narratives about class struggle, caste-based discrimination and violence, women’s experiences, queer and same-sex groups, and identity politics have emerged at the core of representation through OTT-based films and web-series. They can be touted as subtle critiques of violence, hypermasculinity, corruption, and exploitative relationships while also registering themselves as antiestablishment voices. However, rather than being a straightforward indictment of regressive politics, Indian digital popular representations are a potent site of cultural conflict and negotiation, what Appadurai and Breckenridge promulgate as “zones of cultural debate” (5) in the context of public cultures. The paper, thus, raises the question as to how far popular digital content becomes a faithful and transformational representation of the aspirational, modern India and to what extent is it complicit in portraying narrow definitions of freedom, individuality, and progress.