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Columbia Global Reports
New Kings Of The World
There is a vast cultural movement emerging from the Global South and sweeping all before it. India’s Shah Rukh Khan, after all, is the most popular actor in the world. Bollywood, Turkish soap operas called dizi, K-pop and other aspects of Eastern pop culture are international in their range and allure and the biggest challenger yet to America’s monopoly since the end of World War II. Bestselling author Fatima Bhutto’s new book is about these new kings of popular entertainment in the twenty-first century. Carefully packaging not always secular modernity with traditional values in urbanized settings, they have created a new global mass culture that can be easily consumed, especially by the many millions coming late to the modern world and still negotiating its overwhelming challenges. Though this is a book primarily focused on India, it also explores the cultural industries of two other countries at the forefront of the challenge to American soft Turkey and South Korea. Plummeting American prestige, the belated rediscovery that local cultures are valuable in and of themselves and the rise of classes with different tastes and backgrounds emerging out of the turbulence and migration of globalization have marginalized the old guard of “Westoxified” elites and created a vast new landscape of cultural power. Indian, Turkish and even Korean mass culture offer a much better fit for this majority’s self-image and aspirations of sovereignty and dignity. Fatima Bhutto brings her thesis alive through exclusive interviews with Shah Rukh Khan, a behind-the-scenes-account of Magnificent Century, Turkey’s biggest TV show, watched by upwards of 200 million people across 43 countries and her travels to South Korea to see how K-Pop transformed the world of popular music and “Gangnam Style” became the first YouTube video to be viewed one billion times. Edgy, insightful and entertaining, New Kings of the World is an eye-opening look at the rise and rise of Eastern pop culture.
192 pages, Paperback
First published September 24, 2019
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876 people want to read
About the author
Fatima Bhutto
15 books770 followersFatima Bhutto studied at Columbia University, and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Her work has appeared in The Daily Beast,
New Statesman, and other publications. She was a featured panelist at the 2010
Daily Beast Women in the World Summit, and has been featured on NPRs Morning Edition, CNN, and in the pages of Marie Claire. She currently lives in Karachi.
"
New Statesman, and other publications. She was a featured panelist at the 2010
Daily Beast Women in the World Summit, and has been featured on NPRs Morning Edition, CNN, and in the pages of Marie Claire. She currently lives in Karachi.
"
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
August 19, 2022
If there was a rating below 1, I would gladly have given it. Bhutto neither knows anything about (any) entertainment industry nor shows any desire to know. She is infuriatingly vapid here. There is no K-Pop, J-Pop, stuff from China and southeast asian countries, her focus is on geo-politics not entertainment industry, and she gets that wrong too connecting wild theories together without proof (see reading updates below for examples of everything she gets wrong.) She should stick to fiction. The editor at Columbia (if any) should have checked this book for facts - hard-pressed to find any. Bhutto came to this project with a preconceived notion of a) appeasing the indian disapora abroad (who are the only reason why indian industry has a market abroad. White dudes in U.S. and Europe are not watching ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’), b) mixing current realities of Indian politics, Modi and rise of Hindutva, with anything and everything in indian films (almost like throwing all to the wall to see which idea sticks), and c) hitching a ride with SRK on a helicopter because nothing sells a book quite like an exclusive interview with SRK (or to lend an authenticity to a ‘global’ project by talking to an indian superstar, to the point that the whole project loses it’s purpose: which was to find out the reason why korean, japanese, turkish, and indian entertainment has reach / appeal outside their native countries.) I won’t be surprised if this whole book came about at Columbia over tea and scones, googling most of the stuff. So out went the reasons for alternative world where K-J-Asian music / dramas / films hold more power than Hollywood. Unlike indian films, k-dramas are not being watched by just koreans. She probably doesn't know but even China has it’s own base that Hollywood has been unable to crack - and it ain’t the fault of Mao Tze Tung or skewed lenses of Hollywood! All these have a huge market and audience in english and non-english-speaking worlds - i.e. in south asia, southeast asia, australia, middle east, and europe, where subtitled/ dubbed-in-english versions are seen, usually via the internet. I am not even going to start on spanish / norwegian / european fringe work. Bhutto is a rudderless, clueless ship going through a magical ocean sifting the air and mistaking it for the wind, forest and soul of creative, lucrative places. I consider this book to be myopic, a discriminatory, racist, ignorant, virtue-signaling, propagandist farce.
What made me even more mad is her lack of knowledge on Pakistan's entertainment industry - even TV! What the hell?!
She spends most of the book lamenting the current political status of muslims, talking about 3 muslim countries (all in relation to one star of one country), she is fixated with the idea that muslims created entertainment as kings and were great as kings and now like to watch kings on tv and admire kings of cinema. This is as cliched and stereotypical a colonial concept as it gets. In her mind, U.S. is the center of the universe which has come to recognize the power of k-pop, hindi cinema, etc. - quite ignoring / not knowing the fact that many countries' entertainment culture has been seen, heard, loved and copied for decades now all over the world. Just because U.S. daily news and nightly shows, and bhutto, didn't know about it doesn't mean it didn't have a huge fan base in U.S. and the world for 30-60 years.
Her focus for majority of this book is the cinematic career and political stances of the three khans of india from the 90s (salman khan, aamir khan, & SRK) - only because of their 'muslim-ness' - and I found it deeply offensive when she assumes that their popularity is due to muslim fans (and hence, not hindus in india) and does not even acknowledge the pluralistic nature of cinema or production houses that worked with each. It shocked me that she knew nothing about their films in 30-plus-years careers, political statements that each have made over the years, personal lives and image-brands that they developed and have come to signify or fan bases - let alone anyone else's. Indeed, by her own admission, she only saw SRK's films a week before she had to interview him - seven - and then asks him 'why can't the bollywood hero catch a break? why does he have to sacrifice?' (the book is full of this kind of inane, unfounded, pseudo-intellectual tripe - for e.g. she doesn't say which films she saw, but of the 100 films SRK has starred and cameoed in, he had an incurable disease in just one - KHNH, kills himself in another - Dil Se, and is thrown in jail for life in Veer Zara; so i don't know where bhutto gets the idea of his or any other hero's sacrifices from?!) She also credits him for knowing that 'the new world order accommodates violent confrontation' by picking psychotic roles in early films (!) Considering SRK came after the end of cold war, fall of berlin wall and afghan war (not that war or peacetime has anything to do with how or which indian films get made), and had zero choice over what he was offered in the beginning (psychotic roles were a fad at the time) and has played negative characters exactly 5 times in the last 27 years, this book is full of nonsensical, baseless assertions. His image has always been that of an indian, not hindu or muslim - this is something bhutto is unable to grasp. She is quick to correlate the 'rise' of khans with the rise of hindutva (!) - in her view, this was cinematic india's way of compensating muslims for ayodhya and political rise of hinduism - quite ignoring cinematic realities of 90s, other extremely popular non-muslim actors before, during and since these khans, the underworld (muslim) mafia's support for cinema, growing nexus of political and business leaders with actors, extortion rackets that killed people like gulshan kumar, opening up of private-sector entertainment market in india and impact of globalization; she is obsessed with the idea of how muslim their brand is or films are; she confidently (and incorrectly) says salman khan had a 'muslim identity' in his films (which she thinks means 'not being pushed around by a woman') and that aamir khan didn't overtly express himself as a muslim and has pro-modi persona (she quotes demonetization, but doesn't know about his statements on dam-building, religious intolerance, lynchings, or his Hajj, or the fact that he is the only actor to do a live charity marathon on GEO TV from dubai during mangal panday days). To her, what matters more is whether they were muslim enough on screen or not. She has no basis to say any of this, quotes no sources for this analysis, is factually wrong, and frankly, is extremely annoying. I doubt she has seen any of their films or read any interviews, or has seen any other indian film of any other actor either. Not that it matters, but salman khan's film-image is that of the ever-green child-man doing the right thing, a perennially under-rated and scandal-ridden actor who got his first Filmfare award as 'best supporting actor' for KKHH, 10 years after entry into films; aamir khan's brand as the 'perfectionist' took 12-years and one 'Lagaan,' he pooh-poohs Filmfare but goes to Oscars, developing himself as the conscience of indian civil society; this is all to make money and stay relevant in the age of celebrity culture; the only time salman khan played the 'muslim card' is when he got into trouble with the law, same as sunjay dutt (the no.1 actor in 92-93), same as SRK who played it into a controversy during MNIK's promotions (only because he understands the power of click bait & 24-hour news cycle.) Basically this is an author who doesn't even know indian cinema's history, actors and films' trajectory, or the corporatization of celebrity culture, migrant population in africa, europe and america, support to local businesses through star appearances, and universal themes (sports, war, love, poverty) and enduring popularity of musicals, that is directly responsible for global mass appeal of indian films, the centerpiece of this exercise.
I also found her assertion that 'the same forces that brought SRK into limelight are now trying to dismantle him' as deeply racist. SRK has had 25 years of superstardom. He's 53. Everyone's popularity wanes with time - that's the nature of showbiz and future of any 'no.1 actor.' His last big hit was 6 years ago (Chennai Express.) but he still is the no.1 go-to guy for adverts and promotions and speaking engagements (personally, I think he should break the shackles and do pretty woman, the wedding singer, the best offer, korean happy endeu, new world, ji sung's secret love, japanese departures, french tell no one, etc. with non-hindi directors, but that would dampen his ability to sell stuff.) I wonder what bhutto would have made of Rajesh Khanna's debacle in '74 or Amitabh Bachchan's lean years in '80s? Would she have suggested that some grand conspiracy brought an adopted child of nobodies (rajesh khanna) into limelight and then threw an educated middle-class hindu (bachchan) at him only to cast him aside for a muslim boy from delhi's ghettos (SRK)? This is not the way cinema is read or thought or seen and bhutto should use common sense / know better. Very inappropriate.
She thinks anti-pakistan sentiment in india is due to Modi. She apparently doesn't know that indian news channels have always followed the establishment's foreign policy narrative, just like media in u.s., uk and france follows their state's policies: for e.g. i have never seen a u.s. current affairs show being pleasant about iran, cuba, russia or china or criticizing israel. She also has a very skewed view on actors / actresses who praise modi or shout anti-pakistan slogans. India is a country where art is respected, artists are worshipped, revered, emulated. So many actors have had political leanings, participated in elections, campaigned for a party, and now, with the celebrity-fixation of news media, big business and big money, and advent of social media, artists routinely have to show their opinion on matters of 'national interest.' Why would an indian take the side of pakistan in pulwama or uri or other attacks? It's very immature of her to expect that. Unlike pakistanis, who got to see indian films through decades of smuggling and developed a sense of kinship with indian stars and culture (the films helped 'humanize' indians to pakistanis), all that indian people have seen (and have been shown) is pakistan's army, isi, hafiz saeed and 3-4 terror attacks in indian cities that their security apparatus blames pakistan for. Of course they'll hate pakistan. It's unfair, but there it is. The popularity and reach of our TV dramas is exaggerated in this book. Their films have always portrayed pakistanis as terrorists or caricature of luknow muslims! (they don't know us at all.)
As for her 'interview' with SRK, Pakistan has the unique distinction, in my opinion (and I, unlike Bhutto know what I am talking about) of taking the 4 worst interviews ever of SRK, all marred by the self-involved / obsessed interviewees who had done zero research on him: Three were taken in Dubai during promotion of SRK-Kajol starrer ‘Dilwale’ by Hum, Samaa TV channels: host Sanam Jung kept telling Shahrukh how she had been offered indian films and she didn’t do them for abc reasons, host Shaista Lodhi kept talking about how she keeps her skin youthful and what she eats, host Sahir Lodhi kept talking about how his career has closely resembled that of SRK, how he was an RJ when he played one in Dil Se etc. REALITY CHECK: WHO GIVES A ___ ?! You have once-in-a-lifetime 20-minute opportunity to sit and talk to this guy, be useful, FGS! GEO TV’s current affairs host Hamid Mir did the fourth cringe-inducing interview during promotion of ‘Fan’ (where SRK kept his dark, black glasses on the entire time.)
Bhutto joins this esteemed panel as the fifth, not because she is self-involved - she isn’t - but for her lack of research into the shrewd, workaholic businessman sitting across from her, who is sounding bored of her breezy questions (an expression he has carried for 20 years now, nothing rattles him anymore.) She doesn't even know the basics: he is never on time, usually late by 2-4 hours everywhere (he once famously said 'time starts when i enter the room') and is perturbed that she has to 'wait.' Her capacity to create illusions of depth is limited to connecting two totally different and non-linear events together and justifying her thoughts as truths, ignoring the subject-matter entirely. Reading her exasperating non-interview with SRK is like reading about the chemical process of paint drying infinitum. It’s not even an interview on the topic of the book, more like sharing a helicopter ride with one of the biggest superstars in the world while he's working, and getting to write exactly that in a ham of a book. (SRK reportedly got a crore-plus for an hour's work on the Egytpian-you're-punked-fake-reality tv show, which she, of course, doesn't know, nor asks; she is more concerned that SRK will not eat his eggs, if she doesn't have some - WT-?! Okay, maybe she IS self-involved too.)
For those keeping track, the sixth worst interview was done by Zainab Badawi for BBC’s Hard Talk who kept talking (quite unnecessarily) about objectification of women in his films (he kept sighing as if tired of her questions.)
If the book is about SRK’s rise, then ask him relevant hard-hitting questions for example: This is a guy who has mastered the art of saying nothing while saying a lot, so I don’t know, anything is better than SRK casually asking his manager which movie he is referring to. Snooze Fest.
If the book is about why indian films / industry has a market outside india, then she could’ve easily spoken to a distributor / Yash Raj production house / guys at Netflix and Amazon / diaspora to give her an idea. Over the phone. From NYC. Having tea and scones.
What Turkish superstar Halit Ergenc (brushed off over cold tea in a cafe') tells Bhutto is gold and really what is going on in terms of popularity of turkish / korean stuff globally: while hollywood is fluff, fast and meaningless, full of repetitious, good-bad, white-black world (yet another legal / medical / LEA / sports drama, countless love-problem sitcoms), these focus on emotions, human element and fallibility of people - their greyness is celebrated. Nothing is black and white in their world. No hero is totally good. They are not afraid of the mess of war, history, politics, culture and what it means for their people. They are unapologetic of the past. They tell it like it is - most of the time (season 2 of a turkish drama almost always goes off track into soap operatic, melo territory. koreans and japanese are already melo from the start.) Family, relationships and respect for seniors at work is important. It's almost an eastern thing which west will never understand. Of course, Bhutto doesn't get it.
Unfortunately, this book is about what Bhutto thinks has happened in indian politics with the re-election of Modi; what she thinks has happened in Turkish politics; korean politics is not mentioned; what she thinks has happened in Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; what she thinks has happened in Pakistani politics. Truth, facts, pop culture and cinema play the role of an extra here (a backup dancer nobody knows, notices or remembers.)
Some of the stuff she gets wrong / is lazy about, in updates below (because frankly, there is so much of history / people / actors / countries / entertainment that she does not know, and simply assumes - every second line is factually incorrect - that after a while it got tiring to try to fix it.):
What made me even more mad is her lack of knowledge on Pakistan's entertainment industry - even TV! What the hell?!
She spends most of the book lamenting the current political status of muslims, talking about 3 muslim countries (all in relation to one star of one country), she is fixated with the idea that muslims created entertainment as kings and were great as kings and now like to watch kings on tv and admire kings of cinema. This is as cliched and stereotypical a colonial concept as it gets. In her mind, U.S. is the center of the universe which has come to recognize the power of k-pop, hindi cinema, etc. - quite ignoring / not knowing the fact that many countries' entertainment culture has been seen, heard, loved and copied for decades now all over the world. Just because U.S. daily news and nightly shows, and bhutto, didn't know about it doesn't mean it didn't have a huge fan base in U.S. and the world for 30-60 years.
Her focus for majority of this book is the cinematic career and political stances of the three khans of india from the 90s (salman khan, aamir khan, & SRK) - only because of their 'muslim-ness' - and I found it deeply offensive when she assumes that their popularity is due to muslim fans (and hence, not hindus in india) and does not even acknowledge the pluralistic nature of cinema or production houses that worked with each. It shocked me that she knew nothing about their films in 30-plus-years careers, political statements that each have made over the years, personal lives and image-brands that they developed and have come to signify or fan bases - let alone anyone else's. Indeed, by her own admission, she only saw SRK's films a week before she had to interview him - seven - and then asks him 'why can't the bollywood hero catch a break? why does he have to sacrifice?' (the book is full of this kind of inane, unfounded, pseudo-intellectual tripe - for e.g. she doesn't say which films she saw, but of the 100 films SRK has starred and cameoed in, he had an incurable disease in just one - KHNH, kills himself in another - Dil Se, and is thrown in jail for life in Veer Zara; so i don't know where bhutto gets the idea of his or any other hero's sacrifices from?!) She also credits him for knowing that 'the new world order accommodates violent confrontation' by picking psychotic roles in early films (!) Considering SRK came after the end of cold war, fall of berlin wall and afghan war (not that war or peacetime has anything to do with how or which indian films get made), and had zero choice over what he was offered in the beginning (psychotic roles were a fad at the time) and has played negative characters exactly 5 times in the last 27 years, this book is full of nonsensical, baseless assertions. His image has always been that of an indian, not hindu or muslim - this is something bhutto is unable to grasp. She is quick to correlate the 'rise' of khans with the rise of hindutva (!) - in her view, this was cinematic india's way of compensating muslims for ayodhya and political rise of hinduism - quite ignoring cinematic realities of 90s, other extremely popular non-muslim actors before, during and since these khans, the underworld (muslim) mafia's support for cinema, growing nexus of political and business leaders with actors, extortion rackets that killed people like gulshan kumar, opening up of private-sector entertainment market in india and impact of globalization; she is obsessed with the idea of how muslim their brand is or films are; she confidently (and incorrectly) says salman khan had a 'muslim identity' in his films (which she thinks means 'not being pushed around by a woman') and that aamir khan didn't overtly express himself as a muslim and has pro-modi persona (she quotes demonetization, but doesn't know about his statements on dam-building, religious intolerance, lynchings, or his Hajj, or the fact that he is the only actor to do a live charity marathon on GEO TV from dubai during mangal panday days). To her, what matters more is whether they were muslim enough on screen or not. She has no basis to say any of this, quotes no sources for this analysis, is factually wrong, and frankly, is extremely annoying. I doubt she has seen any of their films or read any interviews, or has seen any other indian film of any other actor either. Not that it matters, but salman khan's film-image is that of the ever-green child-man doing the right thing, a perennially under-rated and scandal-ridden actor who got his first Filmfare award as 'best supporting actor' for KKHH, 10 years after entry into films; aamir khan's brand as the 'perfectionist' took 12-years and one 'Lagaan,' he pooh-poohs Filmfare but goes to Oscars, developing himself as the conscience of indian civil society; this is all to make money and stay relevant in the age of celebrity culture; the only time salman khan played the 'muslim card' is when he got into trouble with the law, same as sunjay dutt (the no.1 actor in 92-93), same as SRK who played it into a controversy during MNIK's promotions (only because he understands the power of click bait & 24-hour news cycle.) Basically this is an author who doesn't even know indian cinema's history, actors and films' trajectory, or the corporatization of celebrity culture, migrant population in africa, europe and america, support to local businesses through star appearances, and universal themes (sports, war, love, poverty) and enduring popularity of musicals, that is directly responsible for global mass appeal of indian films, the centerpiece of this exercise.
I also found her assertion that 'the same forces that brought SRK into limelight are now trying to dismantle him' as deeply racist. SRK has had 25 years of superstardom. He's 53. Everyone's popularity wanes with time - that's the nature of showbiz and future of any 'no.1 actor.' His last big hit was 6 years ago (Chennai Express.) but he still is the no.1 go-to guy for adverts and promotions and speaking engagements (personally, I think he should break the shackles and do pretty woman, the wedding singer, the best offer, korean happy endeu, new world, ji sung's secret love, japanese departures, french tell no one, etc. with non-hindi directors, but that would dampen his ability to sell stuff.) I wonder what bhutto would have made of Rajesh Khanna's debacle in '74 or Amitabh Bachchan's lean years in '80s? Would she have suggested that some grand conspiracy brought an adopted child of nobodies (rajesh khanna) into limelight and then threw an educated middle-class hindu (bachchan) at him only to cast him aside for a muslim boy from delhi's ghettos (SRK)? This is not the way cinema is read or thought or seen and bhutto should use common sense / know better. Very inappropriate.
She thinks anti-pakistan sentiment in india is due to Modi. She apparently doesn't know that indian news channels have always followed the establishment's foreign policy narrative, just like media in u.s., uk and france follows their state's policies: for e.g. i have never seen a u.s. current affairs show being pleasant about iran, cuba, russia or china or criticizing israel. She also has a very skewed view on actors / actresses who praise modi or shout anti-pakistan slogans. India is a country where art is respected, artists are worshipped, revered, emulated. So many actors have had political leanings, participated in elections, campaigned for a party, and now, with the celebrity-fixation of news media, big business and big money, and advent of social media, artists routinely have to show their opinion on matters of 'national interest.' Why would an indian take the side of pakistan in pulwama or uri or other attacks? It's very immature of her to expect that. Unlike pakistanis, who got to see indian films through decades of smuggling and developed a sense of kinship with indian stars and culture (the films helped 'humanize' indians to pakistanis), all that indian people have seen (and have been shown) is pakistan's army, isi, hafiz saeed and 3-4 terror attacks in indian cities that their security apparatus blames pakistan for. Of course they'll hate pakistan. It's unfair, but there it is. The popularity and reach of our TV dramas is exaggerated in this book. Their films have always portrayed pakistanis as terrorists or caricature of luknow muslims! (they don't know us at all.)
As for her 'interview' with SRK, Pakistan has the unique distinction, in my opinion (and I, unlike Bhutto know what I am talking about) of taking the 4 worst interviews ever of SRK, all marred by the self-involved / obsessed interviewees who had done zero research on him: Three were taken in Dubai during promotion of SRK-Kajol starrer ‘Dilwale’ by Hum, Samaa TV channels: host Sanam Jung kept telling Shahrukh how she had been offered indian films and she didn’t do them for abc reasons, host Shaista Lodhi kept talking about how she keeps her skin youthful and what she eats, host Sahir Lodhi kept talking about how his career has closely resembled that of SRK, how he was an RJ when he played one in Dil Se etc. REALITY CHECK: WHO GIVES A ___ ?! You have once-in-a-lifetime 20-minute opportunity to sit and talk to this guy, be useful, FGS! GEO TV’s current affairs host Hamid Mir did the fourth cringe-inducing interview during promotion of ‘Fan’ (where SRK kept his dark, black glasses on the entire time.)
Bhutto joins this esteemed panel as the fifth, not because she is self-involved - she isn’t - but for her lack of research into the shrewd, workaholic businessman sitting across from her, who is sounding bored of her breezy questions (an expression he has carried for 20 years now, nothing rattles him anymore.) She doesn't even know the basics: he is never on time, usually late by 2-4 hours everywhere (he once famously said 'time starts when i enter the room') and is perturbed that she has to 'wait.' Her capacity to create illusions of depth is limited to connecting two totally different and non-linear events together and justifying her thoughts as truths, ignoring the subject-matter entirely. Reading her exasperating non-interview with SRK is like reading about the chemical process of paint drying infinitum. It’s not even an interview on the topic of the book, more like sharing a helicopter ride with one of the biggest superstars in the world while he's working, and getting to write exactly that in a ham of a book. (SRK reportedly got a crore-plus for an hour's work on the Egytpian-you're-punked-fake-reality tv show, which she, of course, doesn't know, nor asks; she is more concerned that SRK will not eat his eggs, if she doesn't have some - WT-?! Okay, maybe she IS self-involved too.)
For those keeping track, the sixth worst interview was done by Zainab Badawi for BBC’s Hard Talk who kept talking (quite unnecessarily) about objectification of women in his films (he kept sighing as if tired of her questions.)
If the book is about SRK’s rise, then ask him relevant hard-hitting questions for example: This is a guy who has mastered the art of saying nothing while saying a lot, so I don’t know, anything is better than SRK casually asking his manager which movie he is referring to. Snooze Fest.
If the book is about why indian films / industry has a market outside india, then she could’ve easily spoken to a distributor / Yash Raj production house / guys at Netflix and Amazon / diaspora to give her an idea. Over the phone. From NYC. Having tea and scones.
What Turkish superstar Halit Ergenc (brushed off over cold tea in a cafe') tells Bhutto is gold and really what is going on in terms of popularity of turkish / korean stuff globally: while hollywood is fluff, fast and meaningless, full of repetitious, good-bad, white-black world (yet another legal / medical / LEA / sports drama, countless love-problem sitcoms), these focus on emotions, human element and fallibility of people - their greyness is celebrated. Nothing is black and white in their world. No hero is totally good. They are not afraid of the mess of war, history, politics, culture and what it means for their people. They are unapologetic of the past. They tell it like it is - most of the time (season 2 of a turkish drama almost always goes off track into soap operatic, melo territory. koreans and japanese are already melo from the start.) Family, relationships and respect for seniors at work is important. It's almost an eastern thing which west will never understand. Of course, Bhutto doesn't get it.
Unfortunately, this book is about what Bhutto thinks has happened in indian politics with the re-election of Modi; what she thinks has happened in Turkish politics; korean politics is not mentioned; what she thinks has happened in Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; what she thinks has happened in Pakistani politics. Truth, facts, pop culture and cinema play the role of an extra here (a backup dancer nobody knows, notices or remembers.)
Some of the stuff she gets wrong / is lazy about, in updates below (because frankly, there is so much of history / people / actors / countries / entertainment that she does not know, and simply assumes - every second line is factually incorrect - that after a while it got tiring to try to fix it.):
October 10, 2019
Rating : 4.5
This is how non fiction should be written! Even if the topic does not interest you, read it for the excellent writing.
The book reads like a movie, true to the topic it explores — exploring Bollywood, mostly Shah Rukh Khan, Turkish Dizis, Korean pop culture. It is pacy, inducing wonder with every page, making you curious to read more. I absolutely adored it. Divided into three sections, Bollywood and SRK form a first and major portion. Bhutto touches on how many stars of the past changed their names (Muslim sounding to Hindu sounding) and then came the rise of the three Khans, each one of them with a different public persona. Then the section focusses on the 'King of Bollywood' Shah Rukh Khan — who carved out a place (throne?) in the industry all by himself and took on challenging, negative roles, yet won hearts. Who knew about SRK fan clubs in Peru, dream destination Mumbai for trips for fans, people whose lives changed thanks to Bolly movies, dances to Hindi songs, star worship and more.
The Turkish drama section explores the parallel look at the evolution of culture, historical changes that affect the pop culture, cultural expectations, women on screen, family culture in eastern vs western screens. You'll want to watch some Turkish TV asap after this account.
Something that really bothered me in the book — the last section covering Kpop and K drama culture was too short and not explored in detail. This is a pity since East Asian TV has been taking the world by storm, both through dramas and bands. Many bands/drama were mentioned as one liners, which is a real pity considering how amazing the book read so far. It would've made more sense to the title of the book as well to cover this section with a wider scope — it was very short — I enjoyed reading about behind the scenes, contracts, training, competition etc of the idols and stars but overall I felt unsatisfied and sad at this section. I really wish the book went deeper into this instead of limiting the vast topic of dramas (not just Korean, but Jap, Viet, Chinese etc which are getting alot of attention internationally) into a very short essay. Nevertheless, the writing was gripping even in this section, and hence the high rating.
Much thanks to Aleph for a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.
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This is how non fiction should be written! Even if the topic does not interest you, read it for the excellent writing.
The book reads like a movie, true to the topic it explores — exploring Bollywood, mostly Shah Rukh Khan, Turkish Dizis, Korean pop culture. It is pacy, inducing wonder with every page, making you curious to read more. I absolutely adored it. Divided into three sections, Bollywood and SRK form a first and major portion. Bhutto touches on how many stars of the past changed their names (Muslim sounding to Hindu sounding) and then came the rise of the three Khans, each one of them with a different public persona. Then the section focusses on the 'King of Bollywood' Shah Rukh Khan — who carved out a place (throne?) in the industry all by himself and took on challenging, negative roles, yet won hearts. Who knew about SRK fan clubs in Peru, dream destination Mumbai for trips for fans, people whose lives changed thanks to Bolly movies, dances to Hindi songs, star worship and more.
The Turkish drama section explores the parallel look at the evolution of culture, historical changes that affect the pop culture, cultural expectations, women on screen, family culture in eastern vs western screens. You'll want to watch some Turkish TV asap after this account.
Something that really bothered me in the book — the last section covering Kpop and K drama culture was too short and not explored in detail. This is a pity since East Asian TV has been taking the world by storm, both through dramas and bands. Many bands/drama were mentioned as one liners, which is a real pity considering how amazing the book read so far. It would've made more sense to the title of the book as well to cover this section with a wider scope — it was very short — I enjoyed reading about behind the scenes, contracts, training, competition etc of the idols and stars but overall I felt unsatisfied and sad at this section. I really wish the book went deeper into this instead of limiting the vast topic of dramas (not just Korean, but Jap, Viet, Chinese etc which are getting alot of attention internationally) into a very short essay. Nevertheless, the writing was gripping even in this section, and hence the high rating.
Much thanks to Aleph for a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.
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April 15, 2020
For a book that promised to be so cool, I was surprisingly underwhelmed by the reading experience. I think I have spent so long reading good reviews of Fatima Bhutto’s writing that I automatically assumed I would like her work; in situations such as these, when I know I have high expectations, it is only when I’m done that I realize that maybe my anticipation had set the whole endeavour up for failure. In this case, the only reason this book escaped a one-star rating is because those ratings are reserved solely for the books that I hate with a passion, and while this book fluctuated between the slightly-interesting and the somewhat-boring, it never actually veered into the sort of territory that makes me start counting the pages until the ending.
That’s not to say that the whole book is completely unworthy of the casual reader. For anyone who has the slightest interest in Bollywood, Turkish dramas, or K-pop, this book has lots of random facts that you probably won’t have known before, and enough interviews to satisfy the starstruck amongst us. In fact, probably the thing I liked the most was how the author connected real life to the cultural output of a country, showing how the things we consider as purely for entertainment can have consequences in the things we do and say.
The Supreme Court ruling that required not only the anthem to be played but also audiences to stand in solemnity came as a direct result of K3G. Having gone to watch K3G in a darkened Bhopal cinema in 2002, a Mr Shyam Chouksey was so stirred by the scene of Khan’s son singing ‘Jana Gana Mana’ at his English school concert that he stood up from his seat. His fellow audience members were not amused and complained that he was blocking their view. Chouksey was so insulted at his compatriots’ lack of respect for the national anthem that he began a protest outside the Bhopal cinema. When that yielded no results, he filed a case in Madhya Pradesh’s High Court, banging on until his cause reached the highest bench in the land.
She further strengthens the writing by flipping it both ways, showing how the geo-political climate of a country affects the kind of movies, TV shows, and music being produced. In fact, I think I could safely argue that a significant chunk of the book is about how the politics, foreign policy, and social milieu of the day and age play a huge part on the type of entertainment being churned out at that time. The whole spread of the book from the first part, which focuses on Bollywood, to the second portion dealing with Turkish dramas, and then onwards to the smaller section concerning K-pop follow almost the same pattern of detailing how the things going on in the world influenced the media of that time.
Such a pattern of non-fiction writing is usually my favourite form of narrative structuring, because connecting real life events to the things we see on TV or the kind of music we listen to is such an intricate and fun web to untangle, and I’m always in awe of writers who manage to do it with elegance and ease. Bhutto gets point for choosing to tackle her areas of interest in the same way, but she gets lost somewhere in the middle by the rambling and chaotic manner in which she chooses to cover these things. Without a proper sense of flow in the writing, and lacking the sort of structural integrity that I’m used to in my non-fiction reading, it felt like the book had good intentions but was too formless to satisfy the editor in me, who has spent too long poring over manuscripts pointing out the very same flaws this book fell prey to.
Beginning with Bollywood, the first obvious issue was the fact that the book is split into only two parts instead of three, with the first one entirely dedicated to India’s entertainment industry, and the second part dealing with both Turkish dramas and K-pop in a truncated, hastily put together version of the amount of coverage Bollywood got. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that Bhutto was able to interview Shahrukh Khan, who really shouldn’t need an introduction. Even I, whose parents exhibited a slightly xenophobic attitude towards all Indian movies, and who grew up more enamoured with One Tree Hill than with K3G, knew about Shahrukh Khan, because it’s impossible to live in Pakistan and not know about him. He’s the biggest celebrity there is, both in India and in Pakistan, and according to this claim, possibly in the world. And it seems that the author is very aware of the fact that her scoring an interview with him is a Big Deal, since she seems to go on about it for quite a while. (As an aside, Fatima Bhutto is part of the Bhutto clan, and must surely have had regular exposure to the hoity-toity members of society, so shouldn’t she a little less amazed by the presence of a celebrity? Just wondering.)
Surprisingly, the Shahrukh Khan interview was less interesting than the other stuff Bhutto mentions (probably cause Khan gets interviewed a lot and we already know all there is to know about him?), such as how Hindu-Muslim relationships caused famous actors and actresses to change their names, or the ways in which the main players in the acting industry have acted in accordance with the rising power of Modi’s government. Bhutto touched upon a fair number of movies stretching all the way from the era of partition up to the present decade, tracing how intersecting interests of politics, religion, and public interest have shaped the Bollywood industry.
In 1937, the All India league of Censorship, a self-designated Hindu cultural police, announced its objective to cleanse ‘the film industry of all its non-Hindu elements’ and many aspiring Muslim stars–including Meena Kumari who was born Mahjabeen Bano, Madhubala, nee Mumtaz Jan Dehlavi, and Dilip Kumar–changed their names in order to avoid being blackballed.
Overall, I found the Bollywood portion of the book more fascinating than the Turkish or South Koran parts, but that might just be my bias playing a part. While it’s true that the number of Pakistanis fans of Turkish and S. Korean dramas and music have continued to swell dramatically in the recent years, I’ve never been particularly enamoured by either of these two forms of entertainment. I knew about them in the sort of peripheral way where you hear your friends rave about it, but I’ve never watched any of the dramas, nor listened to any of the music with the sort of devoted following that constitutes familiarity, and am prepared to admit that that might have played a part in the limited interest I showed in the second half of the book.
That being said, there’s still a significant amount of interesting stuff in there. For one, I did not realize just how famous these Turkish dramas, called ‘dizi’, were. The fact that dubbed versions of them were being watched so religiously in Pakistan should have probably given me some idea, but the fact of the matter is that, according to the statistics presented in this book, they’re huge. With the widespread popularity of certain dizi such as Ask-I Memnu (Ishq-e-Mamnoon in the Urdu-dubbed telecast), Muhtesem Yuzyil (aka Magnificent Century), and Fatmaagul’un Sucu Ne? (otherwise known as What is Fatmagul’s Fault?), viewership from all around the globe has steadily been increasing, and Bhutto made a valid, if somewhat sub-par, attempt at explaining the rise in the interest of these dramas, both in terms of the political climate of the recent decade as well as in the ways in which people’s desire to watch certain things dictate the popularity of the type of media they consume. By quoting articles that spoke of wives expressing displeasure because their husbands didn’t come up to the standards set by their wives’ favourite Turkish heroes, or discussing in detail the Saudi Prince MBS’s desire to take over the channel MBC by pulling famous dizi off the air and holding the founder in luxury jail in 2017, Bhutto did an interesting job at connecting the multiple dots that all interconnect to make a foundation for the popularity of a certain type of show. While her topic placement and content structuring might not be the most remarkable, there is still a great degree of fascinating material in the book to uncover for the casual reader.
The Turks had done something neither the Americans, the Indians or our own shows did: they had achieved the perfect balance between secular modernity and middle-class conservatism. Unlike the deviants of Santa Barbara and The Bold and the Beautiful, the Turks were ordinary folk, chemical engineers or mechanics, simple men battling to live good, fair lives. The protagonist was not the begum, reclining on a sofa and shouting at her deprived, migrant maid, but the maid herself. In contrast to Pakistani or Indian serials, in Turkish shows the maid was not invisible, relegated to the periphery of the story, her poverty used only as a prop to elevate the master’s house. Here she was the architect of her own destiny, an innocent who comes to the city to provide for her family and change her fortune and she does so without any spiritual or material corruption, no matter the obstacles placed in her way.
It is the South Korean portion that is the weakest in the whole book, even though it feels like she might have interviewed the most people for it. Partially that is because people appear and disappear after having contributed only a singular quote, where I would have preferred a more comprehensive discussion with those who have been in the industry. Since the South Korean music industry might be considered the most successful in the west (Psy’s Gangnam style and the popularity of boy band BTS come to mind), it is a shame that we didn’t get to read about it in more detail. In fact, given that I’ve had such passionate (for their part) discussions with my friends who are fans of Korean dramas and music, I expected this part to provide me with the most interesting titbits, and while some parts of it did, overall it was slightly disappointing to be so disappointed by it.
In 2019, the Ministry for Gender Equality and Family warned local broadcasters that K-beauty standards, by which all stars ‘have similar appearances such as skinny body figure, light skin colour, similar hairstyle, body conscious clothes and similar make-up’ may lead to unhealthy perceptions of beauty. The ministry had gone so far as to issue guidelines as to how to approach what they called a ‘serious problem’ but were forced to withdraw them after an immediate outcry from fans screaming censorship and oppression. ‘In Korean they’re not called “artists”,’ Ashley Choi, a Korean-American music executive told me in Seoul. ‘They’re called “celebrities”, they’re called “entertainers” because they don’t create music. They call them “idols” because they want them to be gods, they want them to be untouchable.’
Overall, I’d recommend this book for those who have free time (which, given the current global situation, some of us have a lot of, while others have none at all) and some interest in the topics being discussed. It isn’t really the best non-fiction, and probably isn’t even the best in talking about these subjects. I’m sure there are better, more nuanced discussions of what Bhutto has touched here in other books, but as an introductory first step, I guess it’ll suffice.
***
I review Pakistani Fiction, and talk about Pakistani fiction, and want to talk to people who like to talk about fiction (Pakistani and otherwise, take your pick.) To read more reviews or just contact me so you can talk about books, check out my Blog or follow me on Twitter.
That’s not to say that the whole book is completely unworthy of the casual reader. For anyone who has the slightest interest in Bollywood, Turkish dramas, or K-pop, this book has lots of random facts that you probably won’t have known before, and enough interviews to satisfy the starstruck amongst us. In fact, probably the thing I liked the most was how the author connected real life to the cultural output of a country, showing how the things we consider as purely for entertainment can have consequences in the things we do and say.
The Supreme Court ruling that required not only the anthem to be played but also audiences to stand in solemnity came as a direct result of K3G. Having gone to watch K3G in a darkened Bhopal cinema in 2002, a Mr Shyam Chouksey was so stirred by the scene of Khan’s son singing ‘Jana Gana Mana’ at his English school concert that he stood up from his seat. His fellow audience members were not amused and complained that he was blocking their view. Chouksey was so insulted at his compatriots’ lack of respect for the national anthem that he began a protest outside the Bhopal cinema. When that yielded no results, he filed a case in Madhya Pradesh’s High Court, banging on until his cause reached the highest bench in the land.
She further strengthens the writing by flipping it both ways, showing how the geo-political climate of a country affects the kind of movies, TV shows, and music being produced. In fact, I think I could safely argue that a significant chunk of the book is about how the politics, foreign policy, and social milieu of the day and age play a huge part on the type of entertainment being churned out at that time. The whole spread of the book from the first part, which focuses on Bollywood, to the second portion dealing with Turkish dramas, and then onwards to the smaller section concerning K-pop follow almost the same pattern of detailing how the things going on in the world influenced the media of that time.
Such a pattern of non-fiction writing is usually my favourite form of narrative structuring, because connecting real life events to the things we see on TV or the kind of music we listen to is such an intricate and fun web to untangle, and I’m always in awe of writers who manage to do it with elegance and ease. Bhutto gets point for choosing to tackle her areas of interest in the same way, but she gets lost somewhere in the middle by the rambling and chaotic manner in which she chooses to cover these things. Without a proper sense of flow in the writing, and lacking the sort of structural integrity that I’m used to in my non-fiction reading, it felt like the book had good intentions but was too formless to satisfy the editor in me, who has spent too long poring over manuscripts pointing out the very same flaws this book fell prey to.
Beginning with Bollywood, the first obvious issue was the fact that the book is split into only two parts instead of three, with the first one entirely dedicated to India’s entertainment industry, and the second part dealing with both Turkish dramas and K-pop in a truncated, hastily put together version of the amount of coverage Bollywood got. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that Bhutto was able to interview Shahrukh Khan, who really shouldn’t need an introduction. Even I, whose parents exhibited a slightly xenophobic attitude towards all Indian movies, and who grew up more enamoured with One Tree Hill than with K3G, knew about Shahrukh Khan, because it’s impossible to live in Pakistan and not know about him. He’s the biggest celebrity there is, both in India and in Pakistan, and according to this claim, possibly in the world. And it seems that the author is very aware of the fact that her scoring an interview with him is a Big Deal, since she seems to go on about it for quite a while. (As an aside, Fatima Bhutto is part of the Bhutto clan, and must surely have had regular exposure to the hoity-toity members of society, so shouldn’t she a little less amazed by the presence of a celebrity? Just wondering.)
Surprisingly, the Shahrukh Khan interview was less interesting than the other stuff Bhutto mentions (probably cause Khan gets interviewed a lot and we already know all there is to know about him?), such as how Hindu-Muslim relationships caused famous actors and actresses to change their names, or the ways in which the main players in the acting industry have acted in accordance with the rising power of Modi’s government. Bhutto touched upon a fair number of movies stretching all the way from the era of partition up to the present decade, tracing how intersecting interests of politics, religion, and public interest have shaped the Bollywood industry.
In 1937, the All India league of Censorship, a self-designated Hindu cultural police, announced its objective to cleanse ‘the film industry of all its non-Hindu elements’ and many aspiring Muslim stars–including Meena Kumari who was born Mahjabeen Bano, Madhubala, nee Mumtaz Jan Dehlavi, and Dilip Kumar–changed their names in order to avoid being blackballed.
Overall, I found the Bollywood portion of the book more fascinating than the Turkish or South Koran parts, but that might just be my bias playing a part. While it’s true that the number of Pakistanis fans of Turkish and S. Korean dramas and music have continued to swell dramatically in the recent years, I’ve never been particularly enamoured by either of these two forms of entertainment. I knew about them in the sort of peripheral way where you hear your friends rave about it, but I’ve never watched any of the dramas, nor listened to any of the music with the sort of devoted following that constitutes familiarity, and am prepared to admit that that might have played a part in the limited interest I showed in the second half of the book.
That being said, there’s still a significant amount of interesting stuff in there. For one, I did not realize just how famous these Turkish dramas, called ‘dizi’, were. The fact that dubbed versions of them were being watched so religiously in Pakistan should have probably given me some idea, but the fact of the matter is that, according to the statistics presented in this book, they’re huge. With the widespread popularity of certain dizi such as Ask-I Memnu (Ishq-e-Mamnoon in the Urdu-dubbed telecast), Muhtesem Yuzyil (aka Magnificent Century), and Fatmaagul’un Sucu Ne? (otherwise known as What is Fatmagul’s Fault?), viewership from all around the globe has steadily been increasing, and Bhutto made a valid, if somewhat sub-par, attempt at explaining the rise in the interest of these dramas, both in terms of the political climate of the recent decade as well as in the ways in which people’s desire to watch certain things dictate the popularity of the type of media they consume. By quoting articles that spoke of wives expressing displeasure because their husbands didn’t come up to the standards set by their wives’ favourite Turkish heroes, or discussing in detail the Saudi Prince MBS’s desire to take over the channel MBC by pulling famous dizi off the air and holding the founder in luxury jail in 2017, Bhutto did an interesting job at connecting the multiple dots that all interconnect to make a foundation for the popularity of a certain type of show. While her topic placement and content structuring might not be the most remarkable, there is still a great degree of fascinating material in the book to uncover for the casual reader.
The Turks had done something neither the Americans, the Indians or our own shows did: they had achieved the perfect balance between secular modernity and middle-class conservatism. Unlike the deviants of Santa Barbara and The Bold and the Beautiful, the Turks were ordinary folk, chemical engineers or mechanics, simple men battling to live good, fair lives. The protagonist was not the begum, reclining on a sofa and shouting at her deprived, migrant maid, but the maid herself. In contrast to Pakistani or Indian serials, in Turkish shows the maid was not invisible, relegated to the periphery of the story, her poverty used only as a prop to elevate the master’s house. Here she was the architect of her own destiny, an innocent who comes to the city to provide for her family and change her fortune and she does so without any spiritual or material corruption, no matter the obstacles placed in her way.
It is the South Korean portion that is the weakest in the whole book, even though it feels like she might have interviewed the most people for it. Partially that is because people appear and disappear after having contributed only a singular quote, where I would have preferred a more comprehensive discussion with those who have been in the industry. Since the South Korean music industry might be considered the most successful in the west (Psy’s Gangnam style and the popularity of boy band BTS come to mind), it is a shame that we didn’t get to read about it in more detail. In fact, given that I’ve had such passionate (for their part) discussions with my friends who are fans of Korean dramas and music, I expected this part to provide me with the most interesting titbits, and while some parts of it did, overall it was slightly disappointing to be so disappointed by it.
In 2019, the Ministry for Gender Equality and Family warned local broadcasters that K-beauty standards, by which all stars ‘have similar appearances such as skinny body figure, light skin colour, similar hairstyle, body conscious clothes and similar make-up’ may lead to unhealthy perceptions of beauty. The ministry had gone so far as to issue guidelines as to how to approach what they called a ‘serious problem’ but were forced to withdraw them after an immediate outcry from fans screaming censorship and oppression. ‘In Korean they’re not called “artists”,’ Ashley Choi, a Korean-American music executive told me in Seoul. ‘They’re called “celebrities”, they’re called “entertainers” because they don’t create music. They call them “idols” because they want them to be gods, they want them to be untouchable.’
Overall, I’d recommend this book for those who have free time (which, given the current global situation, some of us have a lot of, while others have none at all) and some interest in the topics being discussed. It isn’t really the best non-fiction, and probably isn’t even the best in talking about these subjects. I’m sure there are better, more nuanced discussions of what Bhutto has touched here in other books, but as an introductory first step, I guess it’ll suffice.
***
I review Pakistani Fiction, and talk about Pakistani fiction, and want to talk to people who like to talk about fiction (Pakistani and otherwise, take your pick.) To read more reviews or just contact me so you can talk about books, check out my Blog or follow me on Twitter.
March 13, 2020
The way that the world has looked at domination and control has changed drastically over the last few decades. Barring a few nation states rife with warfare, you do not need to roll battle tanks over the promenades of cities to actually win them over when you have the internet. A little bit of flashback here – my childhood in a small town in southern India was in the 90’s and one of the biggest wonders of that time was the VHS tape and the VCR (Video Cassette Recorder). Most of the kids of from that era eagerly waited to get VHS tapes and watch movies which otherwise never made it to theatres. It was through this medium that I discovered Top Gun, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Terminator and Tom & Jerry among others and also got a rudimentary understanding of how to speak in English. All of them came out of America and were all pop culture icons for a generation. Even when we could not pronounce the name “Schwarzenegger”, the children used to call him Arnold and debate as to whether he could beat Stallone in a fight. With the entry of cable TV into the Indian home, the stage was set for the American lifestyle to invade the minds of people. It was only with the passage of time that I could reflect and come to an understanding as to how much the sensibilities of America in the 90’s had coloured my thought process for a long time. The point that I wanted to drive home was that all you needed was a culture worth exporting and you have it made. The era of American omnipotence in the arena of global entertainment is now a faded silhouette for there are some other big players out there. Fatima Bhutto comes up with a crisp account that introduces three of these players : Bollywood cinema, Turkish Soap Operas and the world of Korean Pop music (K-POP).
Bollywood and it’s movies have spread their wings and flown all over the global market and Bhutto picks up one of the biggest celebrities of the industry – Shah Rukh Khan and tries to explore his impact as a global business icon and also through his presence in the lives of people. Bhutto distances herself from the most obvious aspect of Shahrukh’s fan base in India and tries to understand how a star and the characters he has played has touched the lives of people in places far flung across the world. This is also the best part of the book which delves deep into the subject of stardom and what it brings for the person and also how cinema touches the lives of people. It is an insightful view of how mainstream Indian cinema in the guise of Bollywood has a pan-global reach where language counts for next to nothing when it is comes to people enjoying the movie.
The second cultural aspect that Bhutto explores is how the Turkish dizi (which is what the soap operas from that country are called) have an even bigger audience base than anything that is being created in the west. In the book, there is an interesting comparison of how a wildly popular dizi called Magnificent Century overtook the popularity of Game of Thrones in its heyday. And this was only one of the many series that Turkey puts out into the world. There is also an exploration of the gender politics of Turkey as seen through the prism of a dizi named What Is Fatmagül’s Fault? which also touches upon the topics of power, politics and the realities of life for a rape survivor. To me this study on how Turkey exports its culture as a prime selling commodity was one of the finest aspects of this book in terms of its depth and research involved.
The third and final part of the book is about how Korea (the South) has come to dominate most of the music industries across the world. Bhutto delves into the lives of the young celebrities from the K-Pop scene and gives an understanding of the gruelling regime of discipline and backbreaking work that are needed to climb the rungs to global popularity. This part is also a case study of how the nation of South Korea has made entertainment their mainstay as an industry. My only gripe with this part of the narrative was that it was not as elaborate as the first two. While the subjects were undeniably interesting, it pretty much felt like it ended before it even got started.
There is a definitive pattern in the way the book is constructed : the largest piece is on Bollywood and Shah Rukh Khan, Turkey and it’s dizi are a shorter narrative and Korea gets the shortest part in the whole book. If it was spanned out in way that could focus equally on all three of these areas then this book would certainly have imparted more by way of understanding and knowledge.
Recommended. This would be a good addition to understand how the Western monopoly in the business of culture is being challenged by new and refined players.
Bollywood and it’s movies have spread their wings and flown all over the global market and Bhutto picks up one of the biggest celebrities of the industry – Shah Rukh Khan and tries to explore his impact as a global business icon and also through his presence in the lives of people. Bhutto distances herself from the most obvious aspect of Shahrukh’s fan base in India and tries to understand how a star and the characters he has played has touched the lives of people in places far flung across the world. This is also the best part of the book which delves deep into the subject of stardom and what it brings for the person and also how cinema touches the lives of people. It is an insightful view of how mainstream Indian cinema in the guise of Bollywood has a pan-global reach where language counts for next to nothing when it is comes to people enjoying the movie.
The second cultural aspect that Bhutto explores is how the Turkish dizi (which is what the soap operas from that country are called) have an even bigger audience base than anything that is being created in the west. In the book, there is an interesting comparison of how a wildly popular dizi called Magnificent Century overtook the popularity of Game of Thrones in its heyday. And this was only one of the many series that Turkey puts out into the world. There is also an exploration of the gender politics of Turkey as seen through the prism of a dizi named What Is Fatmagül’s Fault? which also touches upon the topics of power, politics and the realities of life for a rape survivor. To me this study on how Turkey exports its culture as a prime selling commodity was one of the finest aspects of this book in terms of its depth and research involved.
The third and final part of the book is about how Korea (the South) has come to dominate most of the music industries across the world. Bhutto delves into the lives of the young celebrities from the K-Pop scene and gives an understanding of the gruelling regime of discipline and backbreaking work that are needed to climb the rungs to global popularity. This part is also a case study of how the nation of South Korea has made entertainment their mainstay as an industry. My only gripe with this part of the narrative was that it was not as elaborate as the first two. While the subjects were undeniably interesting, it pretty much felt like it ended before it even got started.
There is a definitive pattern in the way the book is constructed : the largest piece is on Bollywood and Shah Rukh Khan, Turkey and it’s dizi are a shorter narrative and Korea gets the shortest part in the whole book. If it was spanned out in way that could focus equally on all three of these areas then this book would certainly have imparted more by way of understanding and knowledge.
Recommended. This would be a good addition to understand how the Western monopoly in the business of culture is being challenged by new and refined players.
September 14, 2019
So it might seem stange that an American, small town white girl would be bursting to talk Bollywood, Turkish Dizi, and K-Pop with you all but it really doesn't seem so strange after reading this book. In 2001 I had the absolute pleasure to see Monsoon Wedding in my local cinema. I loved everything, from the culture to the colours and music. I hurried to my local Blockbuster which had VHS copies of Asoka and Lagaan. My love for Bollywood was born not to mention my love for the two biggest Khans, Shah Rukh and Aamir. I spent hours on ebay to win auctions of DVDs and devoured them. After being raised on musicals my whole life it was the best thing ever. I think things reached a pinnacle when I got to see Main Hoon Na in the cinema and subscribed to a filmi magazine shipped from India.
Then in 2007 I moved to Turkey for seven years where even the American shows are dubbed in Turkish so why not just watch the Turkish ones. My absolute favourite was Öyle Bir Geçer Zaman ki, but I loved Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century) too and even ran in to Hürrem one evening in Taksim. I had a dizi that filmed in the apartment building across from me one year (Melekler Korusun), a friend who wrote for diziler, and we had a night out with one of the main cast members from Fatmagül'ün Suçu Ne. As a a funny tie in I also took a Bollywood dance class at the Indian Cultural Centre in Istanbul.
So, on to New Kings of the World! This was such a fun and fascinating read. In all the years of loving Bollywood I never gave any thought to how much the politics of the region played a part in what films were made and what the heroes were portrayed as. Fatima Bhutto gives us the front row tickets to it all with her insights of the region and plenty of humour too. The byline of this book calls it "dispatches" and that is what it is. This isn't a comprehensive media history by any means but it is conversations, interviews, and anecdotes about some of the much loved stars of Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop. She even got to spend two days with the King, Shah Rukh Khan, while he filmed an Egytian television show. It was hilariously madcap! I found the chapter about the popularity of Bollywood and especially Shah Rukh Khan in Peru to be especially interesting.
The next section about Turkish Dizi was equally fun to read. How it has spread being very much linked to geography and similar cultural values, and then how in recent years it has fallen out of some favour in the Arab world but still is immensely popular. The K-Pop section at the end was quite short but I still learned a lot. I now have some good bands to check out and I liked that Korean dramas growing in popularity was mentioned too as it is something I have noticed recently.
Thank you so much to Columbia Global Reports and Fatima Bhutto for my review copy. Opinions are all my own. UK release date: 10 October
Then in 2007 I moved to Turkey for seven years where even the American shows are dubbed in Turkish so why not just watch the Turkish ones. My absolute favourite was Öyle Bir Geçer Zaman ki, but I loved Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century) too and even ran in to Hürrem one evening in Taksim. I had a dizi that filmed in the apartment building across from me one year (Melekler Korusun), a friend who wrote for diziler, and we had a night out with one of the main cast members from Fatmagül'ün Suçu Ne. As a a funny tie in I also took a Bollywood dance class at the Indian Cultural Centre in Istanbul.
So, on to New Kings of the World! This was such a fun and fascinating read. In all the years of loving Bollywood I never gave any thought to how much the politics of the region played a part in what films were made and what the heroes were portrayed as. Fatima Bhutto gives us the front row tickets to it all with her insights of the region and plenty of humour too. The byline of this book calls it "dispatches" and that is what it is. This isn't a comprehensive media history by any means but it is conversations, interviews, and anecdotes about some of the much loved stars of Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop. She even got to spend two days with the King, Shah Rukh Khan, while he filmed an Egytian television show. It was hilariously madcap! I found the chapter about the popularity of Bollywood and especially Shah Rukh Khan in Peru to be especially interesting.
The next section about Turkish Dizi was equally fun to read. How it has spread being very much linked to geography and similar cultural values, and then how in recent years it has fallen out of some favour in the Arab world but still is immensely popular. The K-Pop section at the end was quite short but I still learned a lot. I now have some good bands to check out and I liked that Korean dramas growing in popularity was mentioned too as it is something I have noticed recently.
Thank you so much to Columbia Global Reports and Fatima Bhutto for my review copy. Opinions are all my own. UK release date: 10 October
April 11, 2021
3.5 stars
Let's start by saying I genuinely enjoyed reading this. It was a quick read and read very much like a long article, a detailed youtube video analysis or a final term thesis paper. It reminded me very fondly of my media studies electives at IBA and in general, of all the things I loved about my Social Sciences degree. Fatima Bhutto's writing style was simple, non fussy and often quite witty and snarky at points. But overall, this book left me wanting a lot more and felt like it just brushed the tip of the iceberg without really sinking (pun intended) into the depths of what it claimed to examine.
The book is divided into three major topics: Bollywood, Turkish Dramas, and K-Pop. I knew enough about the first given that most of the events she traced happened in my recent memory. But I can't say the same about the latter two. So for me, those two sections were the most interesting - especially the K-Pop chapter (which oddly enough was an 'epilogue' ? Not sure what that was about.)
But it feels like just when you start getting interested in something, she moves on to something else. It's very quick and misses a lot of chances for deeper insights. Perhaps that is left to the reader but I feel like with a topic such as this, she could have expanded GREATLY on a lot of things she touched. I'm sad that despite showing Rekha and Nusrat Fateh Ali on the cover they weren't mentioned even once (I may be mistaken I have a terrible memory, but I am quite sure).
In the end, I think it was a great choice to pick this up because of my personal interest in these themes and topics but if you're really looking for detailed understandings of how eastern pop culture is penetrating the world, I think you could do just as well with some articles off the internet and some brilliant youtube videos on the same topics.
Let's start by saying I genuinely enjoyed reading this. It was a quick read and read very much like a long article, a detailed youtube video analysis or a final term thesis paper. It reminded me very fondly of my media studies electives at IBA and in general, of all the things I loved about my Social Sciences degree. Fatima Bhutto's writing style was simple, non fussy and often quite witty and snarky at points. But overall, this book left me wanting a lot more and felt like it just brushed the tip of the iceberg without really sinking (pun intended) into the depths of what it claimed to examine.
The book is divided into three major topics: Bollywood, Turkish Dramas, and K-Pop. I knew enough about the first given that most of the events she traced happened in my recent memory. But I can't say the same about the latter two. So for me, those two sections were the most interesting - especially the K-Pop chapter (which oddly enough was an 'epilogue' ? Not sure what that was about.)
But it feels like just when you start getting interested in something, she moves on to something else. It's very quick and misses a lot of chances for deeper insights. Perhaps that is left to the reader but I feel like with a topic such as this, she could have expanded GREATLY on a lot of things she touched. I'm sad that despite showing Rekha and Nusrat Fateh Ali on the cover they weren't mentioned even once (I may be mistaken I have a terrible memory, but I am quite sure).
In the end, I think it was a great choice to pick this up because of my personal interest in these themes and topics but if you're really looking for detailed understandings of how eastern pop culture is penetrating the world, I think you could do just as well with some articles off the internet and some brilliant youtube videos on the same topics.
August 12, 2019
The travel magazine Afar sends writers on a trip to an undisclosed location at a very short notice and asks them to write about their experience for a section called Spin the globe. Fatima Bhutto's New Kings of the World is from a series of books by publishers at Columbia Global Reports that adapts a somewhat similar format. The publication sends writers around the world to produce slim volumes of books mostly to report on culture and politics (which is why the book is slim in nature, designed to attract the millennial with increasingly lesser and lesser attention spans). Bhutto's New Kings of the World traces the soft powers of the (third? may be not entirely) world from Bollywood to Turkish TV series to K-Pop sensations. Filled with terrific insights and observations, Bhutto's book carries more anthropological depth and is free from the navel-gazing usually associated with travel writing. She writes about how these soft power moguls navigate the tricky political landscape filled with unseen landmines that could be set off anytime for reasons not related to their content (for ex, Saudi Arabia banned Turkish TV series to get at Turkey for helping Qatar during the recent middle east crisis). Bhutto digs out nuggets after nuggets of information with the ability of an established journalist and the expertise of a tremendous storyteller, which she already is.
PS: Received an advance review copy from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.
PS: Received an advance review copy from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.
March 12, 2020
I generally enjoy reading books about (the influence of) pop culture, so I enjoyed reading this one too. I already knew about Bollywood and Kpop, but had no idea about Dizis. Though the book doesn't delve much into Dizis, it is a good introduction to the world of Turkish TV shows if you are completely unfamiliar with them. The Kpop section is extremely short; I wish it was (much) longer. Half of the book is about Bollywood, rather Shahrukh Khan, but I am not complaining because who doesn't love King Khan?
May 24, 2020
Fatima Bhutto describes the origins, history and influence of cinematographic / musical movements from India (Bollywood), Turkey (dizi) and Korea (K-pop) as well as their emergence as global alternatives to Hollywood and American pop music. Most interestingly the book explains these movements and their success in their geopolitical context and provides striking illustrations of the phenomenal success of these movements outside of their home countries (e.g. Shahrukh Khan fan clubs in Peru). I highly recommend it especially if you have an interest in Asian history and culture. However I was somewhat disappointed that the book did not give equal depth of treatment to the three movements, in particular the section on K-pop whetted my appetite but felt rather short and superficial.
December 7, 2020
It was the century of blue jeans, Coca-Cola and Madonna. America was the barometer of cool. Where we sat in relation to its impulses, determined our proximity to modernity.
But it’s no longer the 20th century. The world has changed. American prestige has been replaced by Donald Trump. Africa is awash with zombie flicks from Nigeria or soapies from South Africa. The Asia Pacific region is seeing Indonesian cinema like never before.
In an increasingly multipolar world, with multiple actors pushing multiple agendas, the idea of American culture as the arbiter of our cultural universe is over. And in her new book, New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi and K-Pop, novelist and journalist Fatima Bhutto details the "new" cultural phenomena rising from the east, and sweeping the globe.
Hollywood may not yet be dead, but Turkish shows - popularly known as Dizi - Bollywood or Hindi popular cinema, and South Korean pop music, known affectionately as K-Pop, are at the forefront of challenging the mystique of American soft power, Bhutto writes in three essays that make up the book.
“To be American is no longer to belong to a vaunted, cultural elite,” she writes in her book, written as a light but thoughtful introduction to the new cultural motifs of our time.
For the full review on Middle East Eye: https://www.middleeasteye.net/discove...
But it’s no longer the 20th century. The world has changed. American prestige has been replaced by Donald Trump. Africa is awash with zombie flicks from Nigeria or soapies from South Africa. The Asia Pacific region is seeing Indonesian cinema like never before.
In an increasingly multipolar world, with multiple actors pushing multiple agendas, the idea of American culture as the arbiter of our cultural universe is over. And in her new book, New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi and K-Pop, novelist and journalist Fatima Bhutto details the "new" cultural phenomena rising from the east, and sweeping the globe.
Hollywood may not yet be dead, but Turkish shows - popularly known as Dizi - Bollywood or Hindi popular cinema, and South Korean pop music, known affectionately as K-Pop, are at the forefront of challenging the mystique of American soft power, Bhutto writes in three essays that make up the book.
“To be American is no longer to belong to a vaunted, cultural elite,” she writes in her book, written as a light but thoughtful introduction to the new cultural motifs of our time.
For the full review on Middle East Eye: https://www.middleeasteye.net/discove...
December 10, 2019
Lacks the depth that I was expecting.
March 31, 2021
I wish less words were spent on Bollywood, and instead more were devoted to the Hallyu. The book only scratches the surface of the K-phenomenon.
January 28, 2021
An excellent addition to the Columbia Global Reports, New Kings of the World” focuses on the cases studies of the three entertainment behemoths that while lightly influenced by American culture at times, are unique in the markets that they arise from: Bollywood movies, Dizi serials, and K-Pop music.
As someone who watches Bollywood movies, Dizi serials and listens to K-Pop occasionally, Bhutto does an excellent job with the linkages between development and the current politic of the nations of India and Turkey, emerging second world nations that are flexing their soft power in their regions of influence and surpassing the United States in areas of entertainment and pop culture that have been traditional fiefdoms for Western entertainment.
As a member of the Desi diaspora, Bollywood movies and music are one of the earliest and easiest connections that I can retain to the subcontinent and culture - granted, a culture that is seen through a specific lens and trope to be packaged and utilized to be an ideal of what I experience and see at home and in my community.
The Turkish Dizi, while a great avenue to pick up the Turkish language, also provides much needed familiarity as a practicing a Muslim. While most Dizi showcase secular Turks who are understood for the most part to the be culturally Muslim, the faith is rarely shown from a practicing perspective - but the themes are taken from the Qur’an, the Hadith, Sunnah, and religious practices developed by the Ottomans and the Turks to fit their society - still packaged better and more accessible even as an American Muslim Desi watching them with subtitles.
Though the book only covers K-Pop towards the epilogue, and most of the book is dedicated to Bollywood, it is a good gateway book for the subject, and I enjoyed the critical analysis and linkage to Indian and Turkish politics as I watched these mediums (especially Dizi such as Hercai, Sen Cal Kapimi, Sefirin Kizi, Erkenci Kus, etc)
As someone who watches Bollywood movies, Dizi serials and listens to K-Pop occasionally, Bhutto does an excellent job with the linkages between development and the current politic of the nations of India and Turkey, emerging second world nations that are flexing their soft power in their regions of influence and surpassing the United States in areas of entertainment and pop culture that have been traditional fiefdoms for Western entertainment.
As a member of the Desi diaspora, Bollywood movies and music are one of the earliest and easiest connections that I can retain to the subcontinent and culture - granted, a culture that is seen through a specific lens and trope to be packaged and utilized to be an ideal of what I experience and see at home and in my community.
The Turkish Dizi, while a great avenue to pick up the Turkish language, also provides much needed familiarity as a practicing a Muslim. While most Dizi showcase secular Turks who are understood for the most part to the be culturally Muslim, the faith is rarely shown from a practicing perspective - but the themes are taken from the Qur’an, the Hadith, Sunnah, and religious practices developed by the Ottomans and the Turks to fit their society - still packaged better and more accessible even as an American Muslim Desi watching them with subtitles.
Though the book only covers K-Pop towards the epilogue, and most of the book is dedicated to Bollywood, it is a good gateway book for the subject, and I enjoyed the critical analysis and linkage to Indian and Turkish politics as I watched these mediums (especially Dizi such as Hercai, Sen Cal Kapimi, Sefirin Kizi, Erkenci Kus, etc)
March 7, 2023
Extremely well-researched and detailed, Bhutto gets into the nitty-gritty of what makes Bollywood, Dizi and K-pop tick, particularly to audiences outside of their respective home countries. While I wish the chapter on Dizi was slightly shorter (and the one on K-pop slightly longer), the icing on the cake is an exclusive interview with SRK and a brief insight into what a day with him entails. Fresh off the hype of Pathaan, this was just what I needed.
November 12, 2019
Enjoyed the Bollywood part and the hilarious footnotes.
March 6, 2020
Thank you to the publisher for providing me for an advance copy of the book to read and review.
In New Kings of the World, Bhutto takes us on a tour of the three cultural phenomena that are poised to overthrow the US's worldwide intellectual dominance. Although US music and fashion still maintain a large share of the market, youth populations in other areas of the world struggle to reconcile the disconnect between popular culture and their own cultures. K-pop, dizis (Turkish dramas) and Bollywood provide a solution to the problem by allowing people to consume media with themes and values more similar to their own. From Shah Rukh Khan fan clubs in South America to dizi viewing parties among the Syrian refugee population in Lebanon these "New Kings of the World" are a solid middle ground, and in many cases, they're an example of how other countries can create entertainment industries without abandoning their traditions.
Bhutto's book was well-written and informative. She includes interviews not only from those making the media but also from those consuming it. Because the situation is not black and white, Bhutto explains the politics surrounding the different forms of media, debunking the notion that "west is best" while also listing reasons some people might still believe that it is.
I would like to give New Kings of the World a higher rating, but while illustrating the relationship between culture and religion, Bhutto writes that Muslims talk to God /through/ the Prophet or other intermediaries such as saints. This is not only incorrect, it's a grave sin in Islam. I'm not the person who believes in one particular version of Islam, but there are certain things that are expressly forbidden and talking "through" someone is one of them. This passage made me doubt the validity of the research, but enough of the information lined up with my own research that I trust the book overall and I even recommend it to others.
In New Kings of the World, Bhutto takes us on a tour of the three cultural phenomena that are poised to overthrow the US's worldwide intellectual dominance. Although US music and fashion still maintain a large share of the market, youth populations in other areas of the world struggle to reconcile the disconnect between popular culture and their own cultures. K-pop, dizis (Turkish dramas) and Bollywood provide a solution to the problem by allowing people to consume media with themes and values more similar to their own. From Shah Rukh Khan fan clubs in South America to dizi viewing parties among the Syrian refugee population in Lebanon these "New Kings of the World" are a solid middle ground, and in many cases, they're an example of how other countries can create entertainment industries without abandoning their traditions.
Bhutto's book was well-written and informative. She includes interviews not only from those making the media but also from those consuming it. Because the situation is not black and white, Bhutto explains the politics surrounding the different forms of media, debunking the notion that "west is best" while also listing reasons some people might still believe that it is.
I would like to give New Kings of the World a higher rating, but while illustrating the relationship between culture and religion, Bhutto writes that Muslims talk to God /through/ the Prophet or other intermediaries such as saints. This is not only incorrect, it's a grave sin in Islam. I'm not the person who believes in one particular version of Islam, but there are certain things that are expressly forbidden and talking "through" someone is one of them. This passage made me doubt the validity of the research, but enough of the information lined up with my own research that I trust the book overall and I even recommend it to others.
July 30, 2019
Bhutto's New Kings of the World is an interesting dip into the shift of soft power from Western media to the East, including Bollywood, K-Pop and Turkish Dizi. Unfortunately, it suffers from being much too short (150 pages) for the subject matter it promises to explore. Consider this an introduction to the shift from Western popular culture rather than an in-depth dive. Taken as an introduction, this is a four-star book. If you're looking for a little more substance, however, I would not recommend.
Thank you to Fatima Bhutto, Columbia Global Reports, and Netgalley for allowing me to access a digital copy of this book in advance of its release. As always, all opinions are my own.
Thank you to Fatima Bhutto, Columbia Global Reports, and Netgalley for allowing me to access a digital copy of this book in advance of its release. As always, all opinions are my own.
December 4, 2019
Bhutto's new nonfiction release, New Kings of the World is so beautifully written. One of those books which you must definitely read for the writing! The narrations are so candid & the author's observations left me in awe.
The book explores major 3 entertainment industries and how various actors have carved a place for themselves: Bollywood, Turkish drama & Kpop. These new Kings have left a huge impact on their fans all over the world.
The first & major portion is Bollywood & Shah Rukh Khan which was my favorite part. We also get to read about SRK's fans all over the world, the three Khan's in the industry, SRK's interview & interaction with the author gives a personal touch to the story.
I haven't really watched anything from Turkish drama or Kpop so the next two sections were very new to me, but they do give us a overview of the industry and their actors and how these dramas are gaining more popularity around the world. These two sections are brief and comparatively shorter than the first section.
The language is very easy, the writing is brilliant!
Definitely worth reading even if this topic doesn't interest you!
The book explores major 3 entertainment industries and how various actors have carved a place for themselves: Bollywood, Turkish drama & Kpop. These new Kings have left a huge impact on their fans all over the world.
The first & major portion is Bollywood & Shah Rukh Khan which was my favorite part. We also get to read about SRK's fans all over the world, the three Khan's in the industry, SRK's interview & interaction with the author gives a personal touch to the story.
I haven't really watched anything from Turkish drama or Kpop so the next two sections were very new to me, but they do give us a overview of the industry and their actors and how these dramas are gaining more popularity around the world. These two sections are brief and comparatively shorter than the first section.
The language is very easy, the writing is brilliant!
Definitely worth reading even if this topic doesn't interest you!
March 6, 2020
One of the few non-fiction books that I have ever read, and I must say, this one is making me broaden my horizons even more!
Written in an easy-to-follow narrative style, this book will make you want to look up all the movies and TV shows and songs mentioned in it (if that isn't high praise for a book dealing with Bollywood, Turkish television and K-pop, I really don't know what is). For me, this book was the perfect mix of academic study and pop culture references (well, duh for a book dealing exclusively with pop culture, but you'll understand when you read it).
As a lifelong Bollywood fan, I was highly impressed with the way the book navigated Bollywood (and its messes), and also, how it provided answers to some very important questions. Do read it, even if you're not particularly a fan of the three industries talked about in the book- it's compelling anyway, and you never know, you might find some good art here.
Written in an easy-to-follow narrative style, this book will make you want to look up all the movies and TV shows and songs mentioned in it (if that isn't high praise for a book dealing with Bollywood, Turkish television and K-pop, I really don't know what is). For me, this book was the perfect mix of academic study and pop culture references (well, duh for a book dealing exclusively with pop culture, but you'll understand when you read it).
As a lifelong Bollywood fan, I was highly impressed with the way the book navigated Bollywood (and its messes), and also, how it provided answers to some very important questions. Do read it, even if you're not particularly a fan of the three industries talked about in the book- it's compelling anyway, and you never know, you might find some good art here.
January 17, 2020
This book advertises itself as a book about Bollywood, dizi, and kpop, but really it's just a book about Bollywood, which is unfortunate since I wanted to read about kpop. The book is also so disjointed that I'm uncertain I know what point the author was trying to make.
April 18, 2020
Each country should make all its own goods and there is no reason why they can't. E.g., France should consume products made in France, in order that its culture remain different from other countries. Cultural diversity requires economic independence.
*
Consider the following true definitions for globalization's terms, which this book ignores or dismisses:
*
GLOBALIZATION TERMS GLOSSARY
*
The economy = the corporate global economy.
*
Industrialization = corporate usurpation of production and destruction of the independent craftsman.
*
Economic development = replacement of small businesses and self-sufficient local economies with the corporate global economy.
*
Job creation = 1. (Global South) sweatshops, plantations, child labor. 2. (Global North) paper-shufflers paid 20 times the hourly rate of Global South workers who do the real, productive work.
*
Economic freedom = working for the corporations and buying from the corporations.
*
Economic growth = ever-increasing profits for white collar parasites (e.g., Wall Street manipulators and big corporate and banking executives).
*
Global labor competition = economic growth by giving your job to a sweatshop worker in another continent.
*
Global labor market = no laws re environment, minimum wage, worker safety, or child labor.
*
Outplacement interview = You’re fired.
*
Globalization = imperialism.
*
Globalization = destruction of all cultures.
*
Mobility of capital = rootlessness, unaccountability.
*
Competitive production costs = revocation of centuries-old protective tariffs (trade barriers), which enables production to be moved to off-shore sweatshops.
*
Free trade = massive oil-burning transportation system that centralizes economic power in the corporations.
*
Privatization = corporate appropriation of public lands and resources which creates favored monopolies.
*
The poor = people who live sustainably in true communities and diverse cultures, crafting their own homes, clothing, and utensils, and growing their own organic food. These millions are termed “poor” because industrial capitalism places no value on communities, culture, and the goods and services people provide for themselves.
*
Stabilization = subjugation, as in "The US military presence has stabilized the region."
*
Shift to export economy = corporate agribusiness theft of peasants' land creating massive mono-crop plantations and forced migration into big city slums and sweatshops.
*
Business-friendly environment = corporate puppet regime installed by U.S. military, CIA, Mossad, MI6, etc., and controlled by detailed and conditional World Bank loans.
*
European Union = elimination of democracy and borders and the homogenization of Europe's diverse cultures.
*
Costs outsourcing = subsidies, bailouts, and tax breaks given to corporations in exchange for campaign contributions and cash payments.
*
Media = propaganda machine owned by corporations and funded by corporate advertising.
*
Industry consultant = corporate lobbyist.
*
Market creation = advertising and selling increasingly complex, costly, and unnecessary consumer products.
*
Automobile = an expensive, dangerous, and environmentally destructive personal isolation chamber and unpaid part-time job, which disrupts, disperses, and destroys compact pedestrian communities.
*
Infrastructure = subsidized freeway sprawl forcing reliance on the automobile.
*
Television = an addictive corporate advertising and “news” propaganda device, which wastes time formerly used for family, friends, community, and reading.
*
Military-industrial complex = $Trillions in obscene profits for the financial elite, made from the mass murder of millions of non-elites.
*
Peace-keeping forces = occupying army.
*
Terrorist = a person who counter-attacks the country that is invading or occupying his native land.
*
Private security contractors = US mercenaries who replace US soldiers in occupied countries to create the illusions of US departure and local rule.
*
Consider the following true definitions for globalization's terms, which this book ignores or dismisses:
*
GLOBALIZATION TERMS GLOSSARY
*
The economy = the corporate global economy.
*
Industrialization = corporate usurpation of production and destruction of the independent craftsman.
*
Economic development = replacement of small businesses and self-sufficient local economies with the corporate global economy.
*
Job creation = 1. (Global South) sweatshops, plantations, child labor. 2. (Global North) paper-shufflers paid 20 times the hourly rate of Global South workers who do the real, productive work.
*
Economic freedom = working for the corporations and buying from the corporations.
*
Economic growth = ever-increasing profits for white collar parasites (e.g., Wall Street manipulators and big corporate and banking executives).
*
Global labor competition = economic growth by giving your job to a sweatshop worker in another continent.
*
Global labor market = no laws re environment, minimum wage, worker safety, or child labor.
*
Outplacement interview = You’re fired.
*
Globalization = imperialism.
*
Globalization = destruction of all cultures.
*
Mobility of capital = rootlessness, unaccountability.
*
Competitive production costs = revocation of centuries-old protective tariffs (trade barriers), which enables production to be moved to off-shore sweatshops.
*
Free trade = massive oil-burning transportation system that centralizes economic power in the corporations.
*
Privatization = corporate appropriation of public lands and resources which creates favored monopolies.
*
The poor = people who live sustainably in true communities and diverse cultures, crafting their own homes, clothing, and utensils, and growing their own organic food. These millions are termed “poor” because industrial capitalism places no value on communities, culture, and the goods and services people provide for themselves.
*
Stabilization = subjugation, as in "The US military presence has stabilized the region."
*
Shift to export economy = corporate agribusiness theft of peasants' land creating massive mono-crop plantations and forced migration into big city slums and sweatshops.
*
Business-friendly environment = corporate puppet regime installed by U.S. military, CIA, Mossad, MI6, etc., and controlled by detailed and conditional World Bank loans.
*
European Union = elimination of democracy and borders and the homogenization of Europe's diverse cultures.
*
Costs outsourcing = subsidies, bailouts, and tax breaks given to corporations in exchange for campaign contributions and cash payments.
*
Media = propaganda machine owned by corporations and funded by corporate advertising.
*
Industry consultant = corporate lobbyist.
*
Market creation = advertising and selling increasingly complex, costly, and unnecessary consumer products.
*
Automobile = an expensive, dangerous, and environmentally destructive personal isolation chamber and unpaid part-time job, which disrupts, disperses, and destroys compact pedestrian communities.
*
Infrastructure = subsidized freeway sprawl forcing reliance on the automobile.
*
Television = an addictive corporate advertising and “news” propaganda device, which wastes time formerly used for family, friends, community, and reading.
*
Military-industrial complex = $Trillions in obscene profits for the financial elite, made from the mass murder of millions of non-elites.
*
Peace-keeping forces = occupying army.
*
Terrorist = a person who counter-attacks the country that is invading or occupying his native land.
*
Private security contractors = US mercenaries who replace US soldiers in occupied countries to create the illusions of US departure and local rule.
March 4, 2020
People seem surprised that Fatima Bhutto wrote this book because she is associated with 'serious' journalism and fiction that tackle hard-hitting subjects like politics, identity and radicalism. But New Kings of the World, which focuses on the rise of Bollywood, dizi (Turkish TV shows) and K-pop (South Korean pop), is actually not as fluffy as it appears at first glance.
Don't get me wrong- it is an accessible and highly entertaining read. But it is also an investigative exploration of global culture that asks big questions: how is the axis of power shifting away from the West and the US in particular? and how is culture and soft power playing a role in this?
The book highlights that these cultural phenomena have a reach way beyond their borders (eg. the popularity of Bollywood in Peru thousands of miles away); dizi providing solace and entertainment in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon; or the popularity of K-pop internationally started by hits like Gangnam Style.
In the section on Bollywood I enjoyed how Bhutto linked the political and socio-economic developments in India to Bollywood eg the 50s and 60s being focused on nation building; the 'angry young man' (Amitabh Bachan) of the 70s who captured the disenchantment people felt with state corruption and ineptitude; neoliberal forces taking root in the 90s and early 2000s that made a western liberal lifestyle aspirational. Her outlook on present-day Bollywood is a bit grim, eg the links to the state's Hindu nationalist agenda, but I think she glosses over recent developments which I find heartening such as female directors and producers coming into the fray; films taking on unconventional topics and wider conversations around equal pay, nepotism and #metoo.
Don't get me wrong- it is an accessible and highly entertaining read. But it is also an investigative exploration of global culture that asks big questions: how is the axis of power shifting away from the West and the US in particular? and how is culture and soft power playing a role in this?
The book highlights that these cultural phenomena have a reach way beyond their borders (eg. the popularity of Bollywood in Peru thousands of miles away); dizi providing solace and entertainment in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon; or the popularity of K-pop internationally started by hits like Gangnam Style.
In the section on Bollywood I enjoyed how Bhutto linked the political and socio-economic developments in India to Bollywood eg the 50s and 60s being focused on nation building; the 'angry young man' (Amitabh Bachan) of the 70s who captured the disenchantment people felt with state corruption and ineptitude; neoliberal forces taking root in the 90s and early 2000s that made a western liberal lifestyle aspirational. Her outlook on present-day Bollywood is a bit grim, eg the links to the state's Hindu nationalist agenda, but I think she glosses over recent developments which I find heartening such as female directors and producers coming into the fray; films taking on unconventional topics and wider conversations around equal pay, nepotism and #metoo.
November 7, 2022
Fatima Bhutto's exploration into the ongoing destabilization of American superiority in pop culture is an interesting, feet-on-the-ground look at two of the most prominent forms that have swept non-English speaking countries, Bollywood and Dizi, and while K-Pop is in the title its inclusion feels more like an addendum than a solid part of the work as a whole, excluded only to an epilogue in comparison the 160 pages that cover the former two subjects that make up the majority of the text.
It's very interesting, Bhutto charts the history of 21st Century Bollywood cinema with an eye that highlights the way it is hindered and aided by the increasingly powerful far-right presence in India, and the compromised situation that an industry built on nepo-babies finds itself in when faced with something more abjectly dark. The conflicted love and awareness of form is familiar to all those that find themselves interested in Indian cinema. It's from this point that we get an interesting day with SRK and then head towards Turkey to learn about the Dizi industry.
I was aware of but intimately familiar with the Dizi phenomena before reading this book and the insight it has supplied me, (as well as points into Pakistani television) have fascinated me and bulked up my watchlist. As with Bollywood, Bhutto does well to contextualize the rise of Dizi with the wider political situation surrounding not just Turkey but other Turkic countries, offering great insight into the lack of importance in appeasing English-speaking audiences and the struggles dramas face while trying to be engaging and, often, conservative in values.
It's very interesting, Bhutto charts the history of 21st Century Bollywood cinema with an eye that highlights the way it is hindered and aided by the increasingly powerful far-right presence in India, and the compromised situation that an industry built on nepo-babies finds itself in when faced with something more abjectly dark. The conflicted love and awareness of form is familiar to all those that find themselves interested in Indian cinema. It's from this point that we get an interesting day with SRK and then head towards Turkey to learn about the Dizi industry.
I was aware of but intimately familiar with the Dizi phenomena before reading this book and the insight it has supplied me, (as well as points into Pakistani television) have fascinated me and bulked up my watchlist. As with Bollywood, Bhutto does well to contextualize the rise of Dizi with the wider political situation surrounding not just Turkey but other Turkic countries, offering great insight into the lack of importance in appeasing English-speaking audiences and the struggles dramas face while trying to be engaging and, often, conservative in values.
March 7, 2024
How does one thrive in a modern, competitive environment while still retaining traditional values? How does one participate in a dog-eat-dog world without sacrificing one's identity, family, or culture? And what space is there for narratives of struggle and displacement in an ever-expanding terrain devoted to easy celebrity, riches, and supremacy? These questions are no longer satisfactorily answered by American or Western pop culture.
New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi and K-Pop
Fatima Bhutto
pages: 183
genre: culture/film/music research
rating: 4.5 stars
I will now label this text as a must-read for any emerging International Music Business hopeful. The depth of perspective explored by the author allows for this recollection of global music origins to be quite the primary source. The Epilogue rocked my world as I am currently writing research analyzing the Korean Pop Industry and the aspects of it's image exploited in Western media in comparison to what we choose to criticize, or ignore, within our own art. I am sure I will re-visit this text throughout my career as the landscape of global music continuously expands and I cannot wait to refer my professors to this collection of perspective.
Happy to have read this glimpse into such a fantastic mind full of connection and innovation :)
New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi and K-Pop
Fatima Bhutto
pages: 183
genre: culture/film/music research
rating: 4.5 stars
I will now label this text as a must-read for any emerging International Music Business hopeful. The depth of perspective explored by the author allows for this recollection of global music origins to be quite the primary source. The Epilogue rocked my world as I am currently writing research analyzing the Korean Pop Industry and the aspects of it's image exploited in Western media in comparison to what we choose to criticize, or ignore, within our own art. I am sure I will re-visit this text throughout my career as the landscape of global music continuously expands and I cannot wait to refer my professors to this collection of perspective.
Happy to have read this glimpse into such a fantastic mind full of connection and innovation :)
September 17, 2019
Disclaimer: I received this as an eARC via NetGalley in partnership with the publisher, for a fair and unbiased review.
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Given that my obsession with Bollywood is relatively new (in the last 2 years) and dizi (the last year), and I sort of fell into them, I figured this would be worth the read. If you don’t already have some sort of context for the Bollywood overuse of SRK, then a lot will be lost on the reader. Her goal of talking about three topics was a bit lofty, and the latter two (K-Pop and Dizi) didn’t receive nearly as much due diligence as the section about Bollywood, Indo-Pakistani political relations, and Shah Rukh Khan.
“Dispatch” is definitely a good word for this, but I think it would’ve been better if each topic had its own “dispatch” book/feature; the brevity of dizis and K-pop leads to believe that she just didn’t have the resources and time to dedicate to really go in-depth like she could have (granted, K-Pop is also new, in comparison to the other two). I will say, I greatly appreciated and enjoyed her inclusion of political context for the countries and how it affected culture/social situations, and references to different movies and dizis (more to add to my list!). For someone who wants context before they dive into the world of Bollywood, this is would be a decent source with which to start.
———————————————————
Given that my obsession with Bollywood is relatively new (in the last 2 years) and dizi (the last year), and I sort of fell into them, I figured this would be worth the read. If you don’t already have some sort of context for the Bollywood overuse of SRK, then a lot will be lost on the reader. Her goal of talking about three topics was a bit lofty, and the latter two (K-Pop and Dizi) didn’t receive nearly as much due diligence as the section about Bollywood, Indo-Pakistani political relations, and Shah Rukh Khan.
“Dispatch” is definitely a good word for this, but I think it would’ve been better if each topic had its own “dispatch” book/feature; the brevity of dizis and K-pop leads to believe that she just didn’t have the resources and time to dedicate to really go in-depth like she could have (granted, K-Pop is also new, in comparison to the other two). I will say, I greatly appreciated and enjoyed her inclusion of political context for the countries and how it affected culture/social situations, and references to different movies and dizis (more to add to my list!). For someone who wants context before they dive into the world of Bollywood, this is would be a decent source with which to start.
October 8, 2019
I would gladly recommend this book to those who are into popular culture. It's mostly about how popular culture from the global south has gained foothold around the world. Discussion of each popular culture mentioned in the book would require many books. This book is a bit short to include all the details but it's still a good introduction and has some interesting findings when highlighting the spread of these popular cultures.
The first section of the book is about Bollywood. I'm pretty well-versed with the basics of Bollywood so that part is just fine. The trickier part is the recent development. It's probably hard for people who don't follow closely enough to understand the rightward tilt described in the book. (But as somebody who follows quite closely and agrees with the author, I feel weirdly comforted and assured seeing some worrying observations put into words.)
The gold is really in the second part. Fatima Bhutto explained Turkish TV drama, dizi, which is huge and being broadcast and remade far beyond Turkey. It was very interesting to learn about this thing you have not heard about. I'm now very interested in checking out the dizis mentioned in the book.
Things I don't necessarily like..... one or two small mistakes with facts in the first part on Bollywood. And the conclusion that the next big pop culture will be coming from China.... It's a sensible guess but I have my own bias. (And the fact that there's no major Chinese popular culture export up to now is telling enough.)
It's a quick read and you can even pick just the part you're interested in and read selectively. Would highly recommend it.
The first section of the book is about Bollywood. I'm pretty well-versed with the basics of Bollywood so that part is just fine. The trickier part is the recent development. It's probably hard for people who don't follow closely enough to understand the rightward tilt described in the book. (But as somebody who follows quite closely and agrees with the author, I feel weirdly comforted and assured seeing some worrying observations put into words.)
The gold is really in the second part. Fatima Bhutto explained Turkish TV drama, dizi, which is huge and being broadcast and remade far beyond Turkey. It was very interesting to learn about this thing you have not heard about. I'm now very interested in checking out the dizis mentioned in the book.
Things I don't necessarily like..... one or two small mistakes with facts in the first part on Bollywood. And the conclusion that the next big pop culture will be coming from China.... It's a sensible guess but I have my own bias. (And the fact that there's no major Chinese popular culture export up to now is telling enough.)
It's a quick read and you can even pick just the part you're interested in and read selectively. Would highly recommend it.
December 5, 2021
Ok, this was bad. More than half of the book was her drooling over some random Bollywood star, including anecdotes of how watching his movies has literally saved people's lives. Cultist much?
Her narration was so convoluted that I couldn’t follow with half of it. I am still struggling to understand why she saw the need to list the full filmography of three actors (including the movie name in every possible language, the characters they played, who acted in the films with them, etc), without making a point other than “oh, yeah, they’re huge movie stars!” Like, no tea, no shade, but if I wanted to read the IMDB profile of someone I’ve never heard before prior to this book, I would have just done that. Not only that, but I’m sure IMDB would go through it in an orderly way, not in a mind-numbing back-and-forth style full of irrelevant data and acronyms that literally don’t build up to anything but number of pages.
There was also a bit of info on dizis which is also not groundbreaking or clear, and with no purpose other than describing the plot of each of them in great detail. Honey, I have Wikipedia for that.
I’m sad to have acquired this book digitally, I’m sure I could have used it better considering the pandemic’s toilet paper shortage.
Her narration was so convoluted that I couldn’t follow with half of it. I am still struggling to understand why she saw the need to list the full filmography of three actors (including the movie name in every possible language, the characters they played, who acted in the films with them, etc), without making a point other than “oh, yeah, they’re huge movie stars!” Like, no tea, no shade, but if I wanted to read the IMDB profile of someone I’ve never heard before prior to this book, I would have just done that. Not only that, but I’m sure IMDB would go through it in an orderly way, not in a mind-numbing back-and-forth style full of irrelevant data and acronyms that literally don’t build up to anything but number of pages.
There was also a bit of info on dizis which is also not groundbreaking or clear, and with no purpose other than describing the plot of each of them in great detail. Honey, I have Wikipedia for that.
I’m sad to have acquired this book digitally, I’m sure I could have used it better considering the pandemic’s toilet paper shortage.
June 23, 2021
Before this book, I'd never heard of Dizi. I certainly didn't know that there exist TV shows out there that have weekly episodes that run for two hours. Still can't wrap my head around that. For that alone, I'm grateful for this book for expanding my mind to new things.
Having said that, this is barely a book. I'm into Bollywood, so it's not so surprising that I didn't learn a lot from the Bollywood chapter, but I pretty much don't know any K-pop bands outside of BTS, and I still didn't feel I learned anything new from the K-pop chapter. And now that I think of it, the K-pop chapter probably doesn't belong in the book, which I guess is why there was some Olympic-level contortion in the Afterforward to make it fit into the story.
All in all, if you don't know anything about Bollywood or Dizi or K-pop, then -- yes? But even that I'm not so sure because it's not quite 101.
Oh well...
Having said that, this is barely a book. I'm into Bollywood, so it's not so surprising that I didn't learn a lot from the Bollywood chapter, but I pretty much don't know any K-pop bands outside of BTS, and I still didn't feel I learned anything new from the K-pop chapter. And now that I think of it, the K-pop chapter probably doesn't belong in the book, which I guess is why there was some Olympic-level contortion in the Afterforward to make it fit into the story.
All in all, if you don't know anything about Bollywood or Dizi or K-pop, then -- yes? But even that I'm not so sure because it's not quite 101.
Oh well...
September 26, 2019
In addition to exploring and explaining the origins and evolution of three modes of “soft power” (i.e., cultural rather than political influence) from Asia, Bhutto also shows the ways in which economic, cultural, and political forces shape these modes and the values they express. Not much on K-pop, however, compared to the chapters on Bollywood films and Turkish dizi soap operas, but what Bhutto gleans from her research accords with her longer profiles of Bollywood and dizi: Long on placing family interest above self-interest; esteeming hard work and honesty; and being something the entire family can enjoy together. Not surprisingly, there’s a fair amount of tension between these traditional values as acted out and the lives lead by those doing the acting (and singing).
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January 18, 2021Notes on Bollywood chapters on Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/aONEU
I cannot recommend this book, though it has some interesting ideas. I don’t have enough context or knowledge to rate / assess validity of its claims, but it has the feel of a book that is overly simplifying many things and definitely has some sort of agenda. Did NOT read like it was written by an expert with years of knowledge and experience, but rather by a layperson with a predetermined hypothesis on a non-scientific evidence-digging mission.
I cannot recommend this book, though it has some interesting ideas. I don’t have enough context or knowledge to rate / assess validity of its claims, but it has the feel of a book that is overly simplifying many things and definitely has some sort of agenda. Did NOT read like it was written by an expert with years of knowledge and experience, but rather by a layperson with a predetermined hypothesis on a non-scientific evidence-digging mission.
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